And while I was picturing myself, naked and crying with my arms bound while my husband processed what had happened between us, Susanna was talking about civil settlements and assets and timing and filing dates.
I didn’t like Susanna’s use of the same word to describe that night with Jason and the three years of Charles Franklin’s torture. They were different. But what happened with Jason definitely wasn’t the same as what I’d just experienced with Colin. That’s why I had needed him today—to remember what it was like to share that act with someone who loved me. Maybe it was using him, and maybe someday I would apologize, but for now, it was something special, only for me. I would add it to my box of secrets.
I thought about what my mother said, right after Rachel Sutton came forward. Misunderstandings don’t happen when a situation is black and white. They only happen when there are shades of gray, when there could be two different versions of the same damn thing.
I was seeing two versions of what happened that night with Jason—the one I believed for the past three years, and the one I was seeing now.
“I’m sorry, Susanna, I can’t do this right now. It’s too much.” It was taking everything for me not to scream.
“Can I come over? Please?”
“No. But thank you,” I offered quickly. “I know you’re looking out for me. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I needed to think. And I needed to read. I reached for my laptop and logged into Jason’s e-mail account. Susanna said Olivia had sent the case evidence. I wanted to see it for myself.
My laptop was still open, in front of me on the bed, when Jason got home.
He was emptying the contents of his pockets onto the tray on his nightstand. “Hey, I just talked to Olivia. Good news! That plaintiff’s attorney is open to settling. The idea of paying anyone a dime makes me sick to my stomach, but this might finally be going away. I can always do consulting work for another shop, but we may need to sell the house. I don’t have an exact number yet. I swear, I’ll make it up—”
He didn’t seem to notice that I was glaring at him as he ran on about various settlement numbers, each of them more than my parents ever made in their best decade, combined. He seemed to have forgotten that I told him that I’d stand by him through this because I believed he was innocent and knew he needed me. He thought I would celebrate the “good news” of paying off his former mistress—or maybe victim, or both—as if he’d never cheated on me, as if there was no possibility that I was leaving.
“Get out.”
“Angela—”
“Get out. Get OUT!” I was slamming the laptop up and down on the comforter, seconds away from hurling it at him. I jumped from the bed and charged at him, pushing him out of the door to the staircase. “I swear to god, get out of this house. Now. Or so help me, I will call the DA myself and tell them whatever they want to hear.”
He turned when he reached the bottom of the staircase, one hand on the front-door knob. He looked confused and hurt. He was waiting for me to change my mind.
“Go. I just need some time. This is all too much.”
His gaze dropped to the floor. “I don’t understand. What happened—”
“Seriously, I can’t look at you right now. You need to leave.”
When he was gone, I locked the door, knowing that his keys were still on the nightstand. I had the house to myself again, and it felt good.
When Spencer called that evening, he told me about his new friend, Isaac, who used to be named Isabelle. Spencer said some of the noncity kids were freaked out until it turned out Isaac was basically better at everything than they were. I was about to say good-bye when he surprised me by asking to say hi to Dad.
“Aw, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I forgot an avocado from the market and asked him to run over to Citarella.” I immediately regretted the specificity of the lie, but Spencer didn’t seem to suspect anything.
“All right. Um, I guess, could you tell him that I did want to say hi?”
“Absolutely. He’s going to be so upset to miss you.”
“Whatever.” He was putting on a tough front, but I could tell that his self-titled “ice age” against his father was starting to thaw.
I had no idea how I was going to tell him the truth, if I ever figured out what that was.
I had just hung up when my cell phone rang again. The screen read “Colin Home.” I was about to decline the call until I realized how much I wanted to hear his voice.
“Hey.”
“We need to talk—” The voice wasn’t Colin’s. Of course, Jason had gone to his best friend’s apartment.
“I said I needed some time. An hour isn’t time.”
“Angela—”
“Don’t call me. I will call you when I’m ready. If you call me before then, I’ll know you don’t respect what I want.”
I thought about the way Colin looked at me only hours earlier, when I told him as he left that I didn’t want him ever to mention what happened between us unless I brought it up first. It was a look of acceptance. He understood that I knew things about myself that he did not. I had just made a similar request of Jason.
I turned my phone off, then reached over to his nightstand and turned his off for good measure.
42
Corrine pounded on the Powells’ front door again. What kind of people don’t have a bell or a knocker for a house this size? She made herself comfortable on the stoop steps and pulled the rubber band from the New York Times sitting on the welcome mat. It was nearly three o’clock. Someone would show up eventually.
She had skimmed the front-page headlines when she heard locks tumbling behind her. Rising from the steps, she turned to find Angela Powell in checkered pajama pants and a Stanford sweatshirt.
“Sorry, I assumed you’d be up.”
“Migraine.”
“Oh, the worst. Apple cider vinegar with honey. It does the trick for me. I did try to call first.”
Angela didn’t bother to mask her disinterest. “So when I didn’t answer, you just came over instead of contacting our lawyer?”
“I told you before, Olivia Randall’s not your lawyer. She’s Jason’s.”
“Well, in case you haven’t heard, the criminal case is on pause.”
Angela started to close the door, but Corrine extended her arm. “That’s the litigation, Mrs. Powell. Police can still investigate cases. Especially new cases.”
Angela inched the door open farther, but still didn’t allow Corrine to enter.
“Is your husband home?”
“No. He’s working to keep his clients despite being falsely accused of a heinous crime.”
“And was he working last night?”
“He was here.”
“You were with him?”
“How else would I know unless I was with him?” Angela sounded proud, as if she had outwitted an adversary. “Our friend brought over a huge bag of food for the day. Thanks to you people, we can’t even show our faces around New York City these days.”
“What friend?”
“Colin Harris. He brought takeout from Gotham. Call the restaurant. There was enough for lunch and dinner. What’s this about?”
“Kerry Lynch is missing.”
For the first time since she opened the door, Angela paused, allowing the words to register as she formulated her comeback. “Maybe she realized that she was about to be exposed as a liar framing an innocent man to cover up for a company that does business with warlords.”
“That’s a harsh allegation about a missing woman.”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for her.”
“Was Mr. Harris also here with you last night?”
“No, just us. We couldn’t fall asleep and watched La La Land in bed.”
“On TV?”
“We streamed it.”
“Where’s your son?”
“Camp. Upstate. He called last night,” she added. “My cell phone around seven thirty. You can verify that, too.”
Corrine nodded. She’d get the phone records and make sure the information lined up. “And he spoke to both of you?”
“Yes, of course. Now, if we’re done, I’d start looking more carefully at Ms. Lynch if I were you.”
“You mean, for Ms. Lynch.”