Chapter Nineteen Tessa #2
Barb observes me, her persistence making me fidgety until she says, “You were trying to protect me.” She stands, stretches, both knees cracking.
“I know what this looks like. Even if she was drunk, I know my daughter. I know she didn’t relapse and drown.
” Barb rests her hand against her stomach.
“When Isaac was cheating, I knew in my gut that something was off. He just kept telling me I was being paranoid. I wanted to believe him, so I did. When I found another woman’s underwear underneath my bed—my friend’s—I vowed never to doubt myself again.
Right now my gut is saying that Regina didn’t simply get drunk and drown. ”
I don’t know if Regina relapsed that night or was mid-bender.
I don’t know what prompted her to drink.
Just because she was drunk doesn’t mean her death was a simple accident.
She was having an affair with Dan. She drowned outside his home.
She had my sofa, my plates, my knives. My son knew her.
There’s more going on here. I’m certain of it too.
“Trust your instincts,” I tell her.
I drive home in a daze, the uncanniness of Regina’s apartment, its familiarity, souring my stomach. My phone buzzes in the console. It’s Marisol.
“Hey, I’m almost home,” I say as I pick up.
“Take your time, Miss Tessa. The children are with Miss Claire.”
“What?” Instinctively, I slam on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt mid-block.
The street is quiet, residential. A man walking his dog barely registers me.
Surely he sees stranger things on his walks through Venice than a car violently braking on an empty street.
“Marisol, please tell me you didn’t leave them at the Huntsmans’. ”
“Yes, with Miss Claire. She needed to take Summer early, so she said she’d watch Jasper until you’re back so I could go early. I told her you’d be there soon. That’s okay, right?”
My mind starts racing, spiraling, trying to think of how I can reverse this chain of events so my son isn’t at Dan Huntsman’s.
“Of course it’s okay, Marisol. I’ll get Jasper there. Thank you,” I add as I throw the car in drive and slam on the gas.
I double-park my car in the alley behind Claire’s.
As I pound on the door, I imagine Regina here a week ago, stumbling down from the Brig, drunk, desperate to talk to Dan.
I can picture his furious face at the sight of her in the middle of the night, completely wasted and ready to wake his family.
Maybe he ushered her around to the canal, where they fought.
Maybe he pushed her, and she fell over the saltbushes, tumbled into the basin, too drunk to stand back up.
Or maybe he jumped in after her and held her head down.
Even if their camera caught him drowning her, Dan could have erased the video.
Anything could have transpired that night.
The one thing I know for certain is that I can’t share a nanny with Claire anymore.
I ring the bell, wait a few seconds, then ring it again.
“Come on. Come on,” I mutter, squirming like I have to pee. I do have to pee. I always have to pee these days, but I’m not about to use Claire’s bathroom.
My heart stops in my chest when the door opens. Literally, it skips a beat.
“Hey T.,” Dan says warmly as he steps to the side to let me in. He’s dressed in a custom suit, his collared shirt opened one button too low. I can feel the heat off his body so close to mine. I wonder if he can smell my fear, can hear my ragged breath.
“Dan,” I stutter. “What-what are you doing home?”
Before he can answer, his attention swivels to Claire, who trots downstairs in sweats, her eyelids shadowed, her lashes mascaraed, her hair clipped up to keep it away from the setting makeup.
“Jesus, Claire, you aren’t even dressed?
We have to be—Summer, what in the hell—” Dan storms across the room, where Jasper and Summer are dropping books from the shelf, shrieking as they add hardbacks to the mess of toys and magnetic tiles strewn across the living room.
My stomach tenses as the baby kicks, girding me to pounce if he so much as breathes in my son’s direction.
“Dan,” Claire cautions in a firm yet loving voice. He stops midway across the room and nods to her, breathing to calm himself down. “Sorry, he’s a bit on edge about this premiere tonight.” She kisses the air near my cheeks. “It’s his baby.”
As opposed to his actual baby, whom he was about to berate. I wonder if this film was Regina’s baby, too, if it has anything to do with why he killed her.
Claire grabs my arm, her face and mood suddenly bright. “Summer’s staying with my parents tonight. God, I can’t remember the last time Dan and I had a night alone.”
I panic at the thought of her alone with him, what he might do when there are no children, no neighbors around. I try to come up with something, anything that might get her to pass on a night alone with her husband. Before I can, Jasper barrels into my leg, sending a lancing pain through my core.
“Mama,” he delights. For a fleeting moment, it’s all I can hear. I lift him up. While I can’t keep Claire from Dan, I can get my son away from here.
“I’ll let you finish getting ready.” I heave Jasper onto my hip. I think Claire says something to me. I can’t hear her over the shouting in my head that we need to leave now.
His voice is loud and clear, though. It stops me cold.
“Tessa?” Slowly I turn, willing myself to remain calm. He’s holding Jasper’s diaper bag, dangling it like bait.
“Right. That would help.” I force a laugh, like I’m so forgetful, and command my legs to approach him, my free hand to reach for the bag.
I hear myself thank him, register my voice telling Claire to have fun tonight.
Then I walk out as deliberately as I can, even as my mind screams at me to run faster than the baby inside me and the baby on my hip will allow, certain this is the last time my son will ever step foot inside Dan Huntsman’s house.