Her thoughts were jumbled, chaotic. She couldn’t suppress a wild panic. Lost in desperate thought, she nearly passed her street. With a jerk of the steering wheel she turned off Beacon Street and pulled into her driveway.
Glancing at her watch — it was nearly eight — she got out and slammed the door and for a moment stood there next to the car and looked at the side door to the house. The lights were on, upstairs and down. The men were home. She badly wanted to talk with Duncan.
But she was stuck. She obviously couldn’t talk to him without revealing what she’d done and what kind of trap had closed on her.
The door swung open as she approached, startling her. It was Duncan.
“Everything okay?”
A slight pause. She stepped in. “Sure.”
“I saw you standing out there— What is it? What’s wrong?” He tipped his head to one side, peered at her. Was it that visible? Was it really in her face?
And then she couldn’t hold it in: her throat tightened, and the tears started rolling down her face.
He put a hand on each of her shoulders and brought her into him. “What happened?”
She shook her head, put up a palm. She struggled to gain control of her emotions, hating herself for losing it when she needed to keep things together, but the stress, the jangled nerves, the sheer terror, of the last hour had all at once overwhelmed her.
“We need to talk,” she said.
27
They sat at the kitchen table, the door closed.
Duncan had betrayed no emotion at first, not anger or upset. He nodded a lot. But he avoided her eyes. “I’m glad you told me,” he said a few times, as if her belated candor was the main thing.
“Look, I know what I did,” she said. “And all the clichés are true — it didn’t mean anything, all that. And they’re pointless, because it isn’t even up to me to say what it meant. I’m a horrible person, Dunc. I did something horrible; you have every right to hate me.”
He was looking off into the middle distance, almost contemplative.
“Say something. Yell at me. I deserve it. I’ve got it coming.”
“That’s not who we are.”
“Not who we are?” she echoed.
“You want a big blowout? Like... a cleansing storm? That’s not how it works, not with us. Or I should say, not with me.”
But she could see him fighting to control himself. She thought of the yoga nostrum about one-nostril breathing. It was as if he was trying to detach himself from his body, to float free. With exaggerated casualness, it seemed to her, he went to the sink and filled his glass with water, turned back around, took a sip. His hand was shaking slightly. The imperfect exertion of control. “I’m glad you told me.”
She wiped away tears with her hand. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“It’s a lot to process, okay?” He breathed slowly, blinked a few times.
“I understand.”
He lifted his chin but still looked away from her. “Which means... I can’t be with you right now.”
“Will you look at me, Duncan? Please?”
But he couldn’t. “I can’t be under the same roof as you.”
Realizing, she whispered, “Please don’t leave, Duncan. I mean, I need you. You know that. We need you.”
“These things take time.” His words had a styptic, almost clinical edge.
A little louder, she said, “Please don’t do it. Don’t move out.”
“Oh, I’m not moving out.” Finally his injured eyes settled on hers, like the red dot of a weapon’s laser sight. “You are.”
28
Martha Connolly had a four-bedroom condo in the Ritz-Carlton with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glittering aerial view of Boston. It wasn’t purchased on a judge’s government salary; her great-great-great-grandfather was Samuel Colt, the gun maker. Once in a while she jokingly talked about her “blood money.” She was anti-gun, but not enough to turn away Mr. Colt’s bequest.
She had a dog, a small, wire-haired Jack Russell terrier with pert ears and heart-melting brown eyes. Her name was Lucy. Tonight Lucy was seated at Martie’s feet, chewing on a dog toy that looked like Donald Trump.
She poured each of them a strong drink, a few fingers of bourbon over ice. Juliana was still on her first Buffalo Trace when Martha finished her second. She told Martie everything, held nothing back. About finding the man’s dead body. The horrible conversation with Duncan.
“He let you leave the house while you’re under this kind of threat?”
“He doesn’t know — I didn’t get a chance to tell him.” She’d told Duncan about Chicago, but before she could go any further, tell him about everything that had happened since, he’d cut her off. “Okay, I can’t hear anything else.”
“I’m so sorry,” she’d said.
“I can’t be around you right now,” he’d replied.
Martie came over and enveloped Juliana in a tight hug. Her tears were hot on her face.
“Honey,” Martie said. She was wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. She’d been in bed when Juliana called. Sure, Juliana could have gone to a hotel, but she was in desperate need of support. “You must be terrified.”
Juliana thought. “You know, there’s so many different kinds of terror, I’m coming to realize. There was what I felt when I saw the body — I felt like screaming and running. And there’s what I feel now, which is more like a dull ache. Worse than that. God, I’m such an idiot!”
“You’ve made some mistakes,” Martie said briskly. “Was it at least a relief to have it all out with Duncan?”
Juliana shook her head. “It was awful.”
“And his law student chippy — that didn’t come up at all?”
“That was three years ago, and again, he didn’t sleep with her.”
“So he says.”
“So he says. But I believe him.” Well, she didn’t know for sure, of course. But she had to believe him.
“What about your kids? Have you talked with them?”
“Haven’t had a chance. I dread it. I mean, Ashley could maybe deal with it, but this is the last thing Jake needs, his parents splitting up.”
“Hmm.” She clasped and unclasped her hands. Juliana could hear the steady ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer. The walls were painted pale yellow and hung with fine antique oil portraits of relatives.
“What does Philip say?”
“I haven’t told him yet.”
“You haven’t? Tell him at once. If you’re right, and it wasn’t a suicide — if what you saw was a murder — you may have something to worry about.”
Juliana nodded, put down her drink, and reached for her phone. She sent off a brief text to Hersh, telling him about Matías and that she needed to speak with him tomorrow.
She saw a photograph in a silver frame on a side table and picked it up. A woman in her fifties or sixties wearing a black-and-white-striped shirt, like the gondoliers in Venice wear. She had an impish smile. A boathouse in the background. It looked like Cambridge and the Charles River, probably the Harvard boathouse. “I’m sorry I never knew Iris,” she said.
Martie’s face clouded. Iris, who’d died of cancer ten years ago, had been the love of Martie’s life. She had been a Shakespeare scholar at Harvard and an avid rower.
“Me too,” she said. “You would have enjoyed her. She’d have admired your mind.”
Juliana looked at the picture a moment longer and then put it down. “Not only have I wrecked my marriage, but I’ve put my family in danger. Now I don’t know what to do.”