Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two days after Ralph Schneider’s confession, Addison, Jack, and Beth drove to the airport to fly back east. Beth planned to take their first flight to Los Angeles, then fly directly to Boston, where she would rent a car and drive to Nantucket.
She’d stay with the kids at the house on Madequecham Beach until Addison and Jack returned to the island.
After that? She’d probably remain with them until they could arrange something more comfortable for her.
According to Francesca, with whom they’d spoken on the phone, there were numerous single older women on Nantucket Island—women who would be eager to welcome Beth into their fold.
“It’s very chic to be divorced around here,” Francesca had explained to them, which made Beth laugh.
She’d never imagined being divorced, Addison knew.
It was then that Addison reminded her mother that Addison herself was divorced, and Beth laughed with surprise.
“I’d forgotten about Chris,” she said. “I wonder how he is?”
“He got divorced twice more,” Addison said, because she’d stalked him online a time or two.
“He’s all over the place,” Beth said.
Now that they were headed east, Hugh remained at the house here in Hawaii, biding his time till Addison and Jack got around to selling the place.
Addison had made sure that Hugh had enough money in the bank for food, so that he would be safe.
He had a few friends nearby, and, according to a rumor mill that Addison unfortunately had access to, Hugh had begun to call his mistress again.
Maybe her father would have a second life here in Hawaii, without Beth, Addison, and the grandkids.
Maybe that would be enough for him, after losing so much.
It was a tragic ending, Addison felt. But there was nothing else to do.
When the flight landed in Los Angeles, Addison hugged her mother and wished her well, watching until Beth disappeared through the gate and boarded the plane.
Only then did she hurry with Jack to their own flight to New York.
A shiver raced down her spine. They wouldn’t reach the city till late tonight, after which they’d get as much sleep as they could before they met with Detective Bronson tomorrow. Everything hinged on that meeting.
Addison had never been to New York City before.
On the taxi ride in, she gazed out the window, feeling as though she sped toward a thousand movies she’d watched that took place there.
She felt like Sally in When Harry Met Sally.
She felt like Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.
Exhausted, she put her head on her husband’s shoulder and told herself to calm down.
When they pulled in front of the hotel they’d booked for a few nights, Jack helped her out, then carried both of their bags inside.
Before long, they were wrapped around one another in bed, bleary-eyed and reading over the menu for room service.
They got steak, fish, and a tiramisu. Addison marveled that it felt like the honeymoon they’d never been able to afford.
The following morning, they met Detective Josh Bronson in an office building not far from the police station. The theory was that they never knew who was watching them, nor where Angelo was. That had always been the problem before.
Detective Bronson was in his mid-fifties with a thick head of black hair and a sharp jawline. When Addison shook his hand, she was filled with a sense of hope for the future, one she hadn’t had since Seth had left last year. You were meant to trust the professionals with stuff like this.
“This is funny timing,” Detective Bronson said, sitting across from them at a desk made of dark wood.
“We’ve just gotten wind of this Angelo Accetta character.
One of our undercover agents dealt with him a week or so ago and clued us in.
We have a blurry photograph of him on a board somewhere.
We’ve connected his ancient ties back to Tuscany and that famous director.
But we haven’t been able to get close enough to him to really know how to pin him. He’s a careful guy. A businessman.”
“He’s been at it a long time,” Jack agreed.
Detective Bronson asked Jack to highlight everything Jack knew about his uncle, going back as far as he felt comfortable.
Jack told the detective about his teenage years, working for Angelo Accetta and selling drugs for him.
His voice broke often, as though it was painful to say.
He explained the events of July 4, 1998, followed by the threats that Angelo had made against himself, Hugh Stapleton, his father, and the rest of his family in Nantucket the previous year.
“He’s been busy,” Detective Bronson said. “But it means he’s scared. He wants to close himself off to all the people he’s hurt, but in the process, he’s opening himself up to attack.”
“That’s what we hoped for,” Addison said.
But the detective explained that things would be slow-going.
“With someone like this, with a criminal like Angelo Accetto, you have to build a case slowly or not at all,” he said.
“If we get him on something small, then it’s likely he’ll be able to get out of our grasp.
We have to show that he’s to blame for something enormous—namely, the current drug ring he’s involved in here in Manhattan.
After we arrest him for all of that, we can still attach his name to the fire back in ’98, as well as the other blackmailing scandals you described. ”
Addison’s heart dropped. She was accustomed to watching crime shows.
She was accustomed to watching those criminals arrested within the sixty-minute episode.
It felt like whiplash, being told that their information was probably vital in the case he was building against Angelo, probably being the keyword, but that everything still remained to be seen.
“It’s a delicate operation,” the detective said, wearing a weary smile as he led them out of his office and into the empty hall.
Addison and Jack stepped into the bright winter light outside of the office building, panging with shock.
Wordless, they wandered through the city streets, wondering if they’d done the right thing in coming here and telling everything to a detective who didn’t seem to care so much about the emotions of their case.
“It feels like we gave him, like, one tiny piece of the greater puzzle,” Addison said. It was the first time either of them had spoken in more than half an hour. Jack took her hand and kissed it.
“I think we should get something to eat,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can eat anything.” Addison felt morose and shadowed. She wanted to rent a car and drive to Nantucket immediately. She wanted to draw her babies close.
But Jack eventually talked her into getting tacos and margaritas for lunch.
It was warm and inviting in the little restaurant, which offered room enough for only a few stools.
The frozen margarita machine whirled around and around.
Once, as they read their menus, Addison accidentally slipped and called Jack “Seth” again, but Jack just laughed and said, “You know, I sort of feel like both.”
“I think I love both,” Addison affirmed. As time passed since their time with the detective, she felt lighter and happier. She was beginning to accept that there was so little you could control in this life. All you could control was the love you showed others.
They ordered chicken and beef tacos and a big bowl of guacamole, then raised their margs and clicked their glasses.
Addison told herself not to cry. She kissed Jack over the table, so grateful that they’d been able to know one another better than before.
She felt as though they could finally accept one another for who they were.
Maybe it meant they would never get divorced.
It meant they would never leave each other again.
It was when Addison got up to grab the hot sauce from the table by the window that she saw the man, staring at them.
The man was in his sixties, maybe, with black hair streaked with gray.
She knew it in an instant that it was him, that it was Angelo.
That he’d discovered where they were and what they were up to.
She yelped and dropped the hot sauce, and the glass shattered all over the floor.
Jack hurried to her side to watch as the Italian man raced around the corner and out of sight.
“It was him,” Addison warbled. “He was watching us.”
It took Addison ages to calm down. But as Jack held her, as she shook in his arms, she pushed herself to accept the truth. Angelo wanted to threaten them. He wanted to lurk in their nightmares. But it was because he, himself, was afraid, too. He knew the story was almost over.