We scanned the emails in the weeks leading up to Jim’s death.
There was nothing unusual. A board member was problematic. Patrick has to go. A real estate broker wanted to show Edgar an off-market listing for an estate in Bedford worth $48 million. Sick pad, man. Someone involved in a fast-food restaurant wanted another loan. I hear your concerns, but it’s time to expand on the line of frozen fried chicken dinners with romance-related flavor names. In the days following Jim’s death, there were emails about funeral arrangements and flower deliveries, the West Side Boys Choir, lists of who was attending and who would speak. It was oddly cold to read through. Just like that, Jim’s death was another action item in his father’s in-box. My name was buried among three hundred others.
“I don’t get it,” whispered Martha, frowning at an email she’d just opened.
“What?”
“?‘S.O. wants to change his dormitory, FYI.’?” She glanced at me. “This is from Janet. ‘He needs you to call the Princeton dean and make it happen, as this isn’t freshman policy.’ Bizarre.”
“What’s bizarre?” I asked.
“Another email from Princeton. Who in the Mason family goes to Princeton?”
It was a good question. Jim was the oldest. His other siblings were in grade school.
“Who is S.O.?” I wondered.
We did a search of the initials. One more email appeared. As I opened it, the wall of broken glass in front of us spontaneously fell away, millions of shards sliding across the roof and down the side of the house. A powerful gust of wind billowed through the room, sending the gauzy curtains flying out and stacks of papers swirling off Mr. Mason’s desk.
“We don’t have much time,” I said hastily. “The system is about to lock us out.”
Martha nodded, biting her lip, and peered closer at the email.
S.O. wants lunch tomorrow to discuss a business opportunity. Booked 1 p.m. Jean-Georges.
“Try searching the keyword Princeton,” Martha said.
I did, and one more email appeared.
Chris Endleberg of Princeton wants to thank you personally for your donation. Invited you to dinner 2/24. I declined, as you’ll be in Buenos Aires.
“S.O. could be a cousin,” I suggested. “Maybe Edgar pays for his education?”
“Or S.O. is his Emotional Support Animal, wearing a yellow vest, which he takes with him on planes, trains, and automobiles.”
This appeared to be her attempt at humor, though you could never tell with Martha.
“Or S.O. is his imaginary childhood friend,” I said.
“Or S.O. is his sixth personality, as he has secretly suffered from schizophrenia for years.”
We smiled at each other, though unsurprisingly, the moment ended as soon as we realized what was happening: we weren’t on edge in each other’s company.
That was when another three walls of glass dropped away and a strong gale barreled through again, papers exploding around the room.
At that moment, Whitley stuck her head around the doorframe.
“The wake is three minutes away—” She frowned. “What the— What’s happening in here?”
Martha leapt to her feet. “It’s the Neverworld. We have to go. Now.”
They hurriedly explained their plan. We needed to head back to Wincroft to find Cannon. The Masons were impossible to break. It was better for the five of us to get back together than to keep interrogating them. Our questions were eliciting no new information about Jim.
“Use the cliff for the wake,” Martha ordered cryptically before ducking out.
I remained where I was, searching Edgar’s laptop as the wind howled around me, and papers cycloned, every glass wall falling away. Not a minute later, the desktop speakers sounded an alarm, and I was locked out, the screen going black. I leapt to my feet, and as I hurried past the open spaces overlooking the backyard, I spotted Martha, Kipling, and Whitley running out of the house and past the pool toward the cliff.
Use the cliff for the wake.
I watched, stunned, as they stood side by side at the very edge.
They joined hands. Then they jumped.
When I returned downstairs, the Masons looked terrified.
They’d seen what I’d just seen. They believed now that we were all crazy.
I questioned them for another hour. Mr. Mason’s cell rang incessantly. So did the landline. A printer wailed in a room upstairs. It was doubtlessly Torchlight Security trying to alert Mr. Mason of the security breach. Holding the gun on him, I said I wanted to know what he and Jim had argued about in his final days alive.
“What are you talking about?” he wailed. “My son and I didn’t argue. We never argued.”
“Who is S.O.?”
“S.O.?” He looked confused.
“The freshman at Princeton.”
He sneered. “It’s a colleague’s son. What does he have to do with— You truly are a troubled young woman, my dear. If you have any sense, you’ll untie us all, go back to your dingbat life, and hope—no, pray—my fleet of attorneys doesn’t decide to spread you on a cracker and serve you as an hors d’oeuvre.”
I tried setting a few more verbal traps for Mr. Mason to fall into, telling him Jim had confessed to me all about his financial fraud. I tried to see whether he looked uneasy or afraid. Unsurprisingly, my blind fishing elicited little more than confounded stares and indignant comments from the family that they’d always thought I was a good girl, which made my involvement in this nightmare all the more disappointing.
“There’s no need to pretend,” I said. “You never liked me. And my name, in case you were wondering, is not Jessica, or Antonella, or Barbara, or Blair. It’s Beatrice Hartley.”
I shot the gun into the ceiling. Instantly, minute cracks fanned out through the plaster, spreading into every corner, then moving down the walls.
“We’ll give you any amount of money,” whimpered Mrs. Mason, worriedly eyeing the ceiling.
That was when I felt the wake coming on. I set down the gun and left without a word, leaving the Masons staring after me, uncertain, afraid. As I raced past the pool, I saw two police cars inching up the vertiginous drive. One emerged, shouting at me in Greek.
I ran to the edge of the cliff.
As I stood there, the rocks and dirt began to loosen and tumble under me, as if I were the weight of a building, as if I weighed ten million tons. Boulders were pulling out of the ground. I leapt into the air, shouting, just as the ground dropped out. I was plummeting fast, upside down, breath sucking from my lungs. Blue sky spun overhead. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to quiet my mind as I thought of Wincroft the day I’d first arrived there, though almost immediately something else slipped into my head.
A connection. It was barely remembered, an itch at the back of my brain.
I’d seen it before. Twice.
I tried to ignore it. Spiky grass, bushes, and cypress trees were spinning past me. Screaming, I opened my eyes to catch sight of the entire cliff through the dust, then the house dismantling behind me, a roaring mass of shattered glass and steel and rock coming for me as we all fell toward the sea.
It was too late.
“Hon? You okay?”
Someone was shaking my shoulder.
My eyes opened. I jerked my head up, shouting.
A large woman with red hair and heavy eye makeup stared down at me, visibly freaked out. She was wearing a pink visor emblazoned with a cartoon chicken, a heart on its chest.
“Sorry, hon, you can’t sleep here. Do you need me to call someone?”
I looked around. I was in a wooden booth in a cramped fast-food restaurant. People around me were eating fried chicken and fries and drinking milk shakes. The walls were covered with heart wallpaper, photos of couples kissing or holding hands. I blinked at the paper mat in the tray in front of me.
Alonso’s Honey Love Fried Chicken. One Taste and You’re Lovestruck.
“Where—where am I?” I blurted.
“Newport. I can call your mom for you, hon. Or a shelter?”