“That fucking house,” Griff said. “I hate it. I can’t stand the thought of going back in there.”
Aubrey closed her door again and looked at him. “You know, it’s probably not a bad idea for you to stay somewhere else tonight. Not be alone. I can go upstairs and pack a bag for you if you like,” she said.
“The problem is, I have nowhere to go. Can you believe that? I can’t even afford a hotel room. Griffin Rothenberg, golden boy, homeless. That’s a shocker, huh?” he said, with a bitter laugh.
It hurt her heart to see him like this. “You can come home with me, honey,” she said.
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
He looked up, and their eyes met. Griff’s were bloodshot, but blue as ever in the glow of the street light.
“Aubrey, I appreciate the offer. But I couldn’t stand to see your husband.”
The hatred in his voice felt familiar to Aubrey. It took her a second to realize that Griff felt the same way about Ethan as she did herself, and another to understand that must mean Griff knew. Griff knew about Kate and Ethan’s affair. Jenny had admitted she knew, and now Griff. How many others? Was Aubrey the only fool who hadn’t seen what was right before her eyes? She’d hate herself, except she hated Kate and Ethan more.
“You knew,” she said aloud.
He nodded. “You did, too?”
“I figured it out just recently, but I never said anything to anyone. Ethan doesn’t know I know. Did Kate—”
“Please. I can’t talk about her,” he said.
“Of course. I understand, it’s too upsetting, and you need your strength. We’ll save it until after you’ve had a decent night’s sleep. I thought of someplace I can take you that’s quiet and peaceful. My cabin at the lake. The heat’s off but there’s plenty of dry firewood, and a woodstove.”
“Thank you, that sounds good,” he said.
Griff reached out and squeezed her hand, and Aubrey felt a rush of love. You couldn’t really think of this as a bad night, despite Kate dying and all. In the long run, people who did evil got what they deserved, and everything worked out for the best.
23
When Aubrey called to give Jenny the news about Kate late Sunday night, Jenny grilled her for information. Who found the body? What did the police think? When was the funeral? But all Aubrey could talk about was Griff, Griff, Griff, how worried she was about Griff. Who gave a shit about Griff? What about Kate, their friend, who was dead? Jenny hung up and started to cry. She’d loved Kate once. The wild child with the golden hair, full of chaos and laughter. Kate made life exciting, she made things sparkle. It shouldn’t have come to this.
It was late and the boys were in bed. Jenny went looking for Tim, because she needed someone to comfort her. She knew better, but she did it anyway, hoping. He was sitting in the den, half watching the ball game, a surveyor’s report from a jobsite on his knee. She told him Kate’s body had been pulled from the river.
“The river, huh? Poetic justice,” he said, stony-faced. Then he got up and walked away. She heard him in the kitchen, opening the fridge, and popping a beer, and she felt alone with her sorrow.
Jenny went to her room and slammed the door. She got in bed, pulled the blankets up, and started sobbing. After a while, Tim came in. Jenny rolled over and looked at him with wet eyes, but he turned his back and went into the bathroom to get undressed, something he never did. He was making a point: She would suffer this loss by herself. Tim had never liked Kate. No—that wasn’t strong enough. Tim hated Kate. He’d never forgiven her for whatever role he imagined she’d played in Lucas’s death. He was glad Kate was dead, and he wouldn’t pretend otherwise, not even for Jenny’s sake. Which was crazy when you thought about it, because he had no facts to back him up. Tim didn’t remember a single thing that happened that night at the bridge twenty-two years ago. The doctors had been right. His head injury had wiped his memory of that event, and to this day, it hadn’t returned.
Tim came back into the bedroom, and got into bed with his phone, scrolling through e-mails, ignoring her. The bulk of his body beside her felt as unyielding as a brick wall. Jenny sat up, reached for the box of Kleenex on her bedside table, and blew her nose. She longed to yell at him, to accuse him of heartlessness, of insensitivity, of being a bad husband. But she couldn’t, because she was the one in the wrong. There was a lie at the center of their marriage, a worm in the apple. And it was her fault. Years ago, when she lied to cover up Kate’s crime, Jenny took sides against Tim and his family. She was only eighteen at the time, and the pressure had been intense. To this day, it gave her the shakes to think about that meeting in her mother’s kitchen with Keniston Eastman and his lawyer. A young girl, na?ve, up against the sharks of Wall Street—what was she supposed to do? She might have forgiven herself by now, except it wasn’t just the police she lied to. She lied to her own husband. She was still lying to this day.
But if Jenny was truly honest with herself, she would admit that she hadn’t been na?ve, not back then, not ever. She got rewarded for her lie year after year. It’s not like Keniston gave her money—nothing so crass as that. He gave her a job out of college. He gave her sterling references and important contacts. And years later, when she was looking to expand Tim’s small family construction company into something bigger and more lucrative, Keniston gave her access to the people at Carlisle who had the power to award contracts. Jenny handled those bids; Tim didn’t know the details, he didn’t even know the basics. Carlisle’s business took Healy Construction from a mom-and-pop concern into a successful company with nearly a hundred employees. Tim never knew that Keniston Eastman played a key role in that. Tim hated the Eastmans, period. If he’d known of Keniston’s role in the contracts, he would never have accepted the work. So Jenny kept Tim in the dark. But she did it for a good reason. She was trying to build the business—for both of them, for their family, for the boys’ futures.