“Foul play on my part?” Kayla tried to get her mind around what this wicked man was telling her. Val had given her pills to the police? She’d twisted the facts so that Kayla looked like a suspect?
“Let’s not forget that you put off calling 911,” the detective said. “Why not allow a few extra minutes to be sure that Ms. Riley was swept out to sea?”
Kayla couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Kayla?” Paul Henry said.
Kayla closed her eyes. You need to do a better job picking your friends. First Antoinette, and now Val.
“Val lied to you,” Kayla said. “She knows I only found out about my son and Antoinette today.”
“She said you made a comment just before Ms. Riley entered the water. Accusing Ms. Riley of an affair. And Lindsey Allerton’s statement corroborated this. She said you told her that you’d accused her mother of an affair.”
Kayla wasn’t sure how to proceed. Half of her wanted to deny everything. But this was so unfair, so twisted, that she wanted to set the record straight. “I accused Antoinette of having an affair with my husband, not my son.”
“You accused her of sleeping with Raoul?” Paul asked.
“Accuse is a strong word,” Kayla said.
“So now we have a husband and a son sleeping with the same woman,” the detective said. “This is better than I thought.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective,” Kayla said venomously. “But there’s nothing going on between Raoul and Antoinette.”
“Then why did you accuse her?” Paul asked.
“I was drinking,” Kayla said. She could have gone on to explain that she sensed something wrong when she’d looked at Antoinette. But she’d said Raoul’s name-well, because that was what came to mind. Not Theo. Never Theo. She drilled her finger into the table. “I had nothing to do with Antoinette disappearing. Val is trying to deflect blame off herself because she’s afraid you’ll believe whatever her husband told you. She’s lying.”
“Now everyone’s lying,” the detective said. “You already lied to us about the pregnancy test and the phone calls. There’s no reason for me to believe you over Ms. Gluckstern. She was very up front with us. Cooperative.”
“Cooperative about framing me,” Kayla said. “I can’t believe this. Am I under arrest?”
“Did you put a sedative in Ms. Riley’s champagne?” the detective said.
“No,” she said. “I had them out because I needed one. I took one. I must have left them lying around.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“I don’t care if you believe me,” Kayla said. “It’s the truth. I had nothing to do with Antoinette disappearing.” An anger grew in her that was so vile and so dangerous that she felt capable of killing Antoinette, Valerie, and the detective. “Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Paul Henry said. “We’re not sure what to think. The detective believes Ms. Riley is in that water, although I’m not convinced. But we have to consider every possibility.”
The detective rapped the bottle of Ativan on the table. “And one possibility is that you took advantage of this yearly nude champagne-drinking, lobster-eating adventure of yours to make your friend disappear. After all, she was sleeping with your son! You knew Ms. Riley would be drinking, you knew she would be swimming in risky waters in the dark. You knew everyone would believe that she simply got swept away. But some of us are on to you, Mrs. Montero. Your friend Ms. Gluckstern is on to you, and I am on to you.” He smiled. “If we do find Ms. Riley’s body in that water, we’ll come after you first. And since she was pregnant, well, then there’s that life to consider as well.”
That life. The baby’s life.
Paul Henry guided Kayla down the dim hallway by the arm, and Kayla thought for a minute that he was going to throw her into the holding cell, but instead, he led her to the waiting room, which glowed like a laboratory under the fluorescent lights. Kayla was dizzy with the accusations; her vision was splotchy. She had to go to the bathroom.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she said.
They stood in the waiting room. The officer behind glass pecked away at his typewriter, and Paul lowered his voice. “We’ll call you if we find her,” he said.
“Can’t you do anything else?” Kayla asked. “Check her bank account or something? Because for all we know, Antoinette could have disappeared of her own volition. She had reasons, Paul. Her daughter arriving today, the pregnancy. Can’t you make an effort to look for her?”
“She hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours,” Paul said. “We’re not conducting a missing persons yet; we’re conducting a recovery mission. We have to check with die coast guard, and the fire department, see what they think.”
“What does it matter? You said yourself that you don’t think she’s in the water.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Paul Henry said, and Kayla saw he was telling the truth. Furthermore, she agreed with him. She didn’t know what to think, either.
“What about Theo?” Kayla said. “He’s supposed to start school on Tuesday.”
“He should go to school,” Paul said. “Unless we find reason to tell you otherwise.” Paul ran a hand across the top of his crew cut. “I’m sorry about Detective Simpson. He’s new here.”
“He’s appalling. I hate him. He’s accusing me of terrible things.”
“But you have to admit, Kayla, it doesn’t look good.”
“This is ridiculous, Paul. Val lied to you. She set me up. Please tell me you see through this. First, John comes in here accusing Val, then Val comes in accusing me.”
“Val was very convincing.” Paul said. “She had physical evidence. Being an attorney didn’t hurt, either.”
“Attorneys lie all the time,” Kayla said.
“And the girl,” Paul said. “What the girl said didn’t help your case.”
“Lindsey set foot on Nantucket for the first time this morning,” Kayla said. “She doesn’t know her ass from Altar Rock.”
Paul patted Kayla on the back. “Just go home,” he said. “Get your kids their dinner.”
Outside, the Labor Day crowds filled the streets. A line was forming at the Dreamland Theater. Kayla stumbled up Chestnut to Visitor Services, where she used the public rest room. She splashed water on her face and dried off with a paper towel. She stared in the smudged mirror, blind, deaf, dumb with the news: Antoinette and Val had both betrayed her. And Kayla had loved them without reserve or exception, like sisters.
So now what? Go home, like Paul Henry said? Get the kids their dinner?
No. Find Val.
There was no way Val had returned to Kayla’s house-Jacob or no Jacob-and so Kayla drove out Pleasant Street toward Val’s house. She slowed down as she approached because the last person she wanted to see was John Gluckstern, especially if he had Lindsey Allerton with him. But thankfully the only car in the driveway was Val’s BMW-with the trunk flipped open. Kayla pulled into the driveway.
Val rushed out of the house carrying clothes on hangers-her expensive blouses, her linen pants. When she saw the Trooper, she hugged the clothes to her body. Kayla watched her lips clamp shut, her jaw lock. Val laid the clothes over the suitcases in the trunk. Without a word, Kayla walked past her into the house.
Val’s house was designer perfect; it was the kind of house featured in magazines, a house no one actually lived in. In the brick entryway was a pine table with a lightship basket meant for mail and keys- empty. A gilt-framed mirror hung over the table. In the mirror, Kayla watched Val enter the house behind her.
Val stepped around Kayla and headed down the hallway into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet door and brought down some cookbooks.