But what if . . . what if I had done it to myself? What if I’d deleted my physics presentation by accident? What if I’d never written it in the first place? I was sleep-deprived, on high alert, I was throwing up whenever I even thought about last year, and maybe I was doing all this to myself, I was manufacturing situations to match the panic in my head. What if I was hallucinating? Blacking out? What if my sister was just a girl at a perfectly fine new school who hated it, who wanted her brother to take her home?
I was paranoid, I had been ever since I met Charlotte Holmes, but—why on earth would Lucien Moriarty take the time to woo and marry my mother? As though I needed so badly to treat my mother’s remarriage as a personal affront to me that I’d decided her new husband was the boogeyman.
It wasn’t far-fetched. I’d treated my father’s remarriage that way.
Oh God.
What if my mum had just found a really nice guy who wanted to make her happy?
I spent the whole dinner staring at him. I couldn’t even be subtle about it. When we’d first sat down, I’d been texting Holmes under the table, when Lucien—Ted—had put a hand on my shoulder. “This is a bit embarrassing,” he was saying, “and I don’t want to boss you around, but do you mind if you put your phone in the middle of the table?”
Confirmation. Confirmation that I wasn’t losing my mind. He knew I was reaching out for help, he wanted to get my lifeline out of my hands—
Desperately, I looked up at my father. He was switching his phone to silent. Abigail was too.
“It’s a game we’ve been playing on nice occasions,” my mother said, “out with our friends. It helps us stay present. Everyone puts their phone in a stack in the center of the table, and the first person who caves to check theirs has to buy dinner.”
She and Lucien shared a conspiratorial look. “Not that I’ll make any of you pick up this tab,” he said. “But I’ve been so eager to get to know you all.”
I watched as he placed my phone at the top of the stack.
“There,” my mother said. “Isn’t that better?”
I sat next to him at dinner, this man who had orchestrated murders, told lies for politicians, blackmailed, cheated, infected me with a deadly virus and then dangled the antidote out of my reach. I refilled his wineglass. I listened to him tell my parents, at length, about how he’d gone to a wilderness school just like Shelby’s. “I’d always loved horses,” he said. “I was so happy when I found out we had that in common.”
My mother squeezed his hand. “Shel loved her new school when we first arrived, you know. We’d signed the paperwork and everything. Such a beautiful campus! Impressive buildings. They even had a full medical facility—I imagine in case there’s any riding accidents.”
“And then the poor girl calls when we’ve hours away and begs us to come back and get her.”
“Homesickness,” my father said, shaking his head. “It’s very real.”
“She’ll adjust soon enough,” my mother said.
I was clenching my jaw so hard I was sure it had gone white.
As the waiters brought out shrimp and steak, my mother told stories about how the two of them had met—they’d bumped into each other in front of a grocery store; he’d helped her pick up her fruit and veg; just like a film!—and about their whirlwind courtship. “Ted is always traveling for work,” she said, “and I found every time he went away I missed him more.”
He caught up my mother’s hand and kissed her palm. My own hands seized under the table.
“My first wife died,” he said quietly, more to my mother than anyone else. “It was slow, and it was painful, and I—I spent a lot of time by her bedside, thinking. I didn’t want to waste any more time. And when I met Gracie—I decided that life was too short, that I needed to take a risk.”
My mother held their clasped hands to her lips. “From everything you’ve said, Betty was one hell of a woman.”
Across the table, Abigail’s eyes had filled with tears. My father was diligently cutting up his steak, nodding to himself, as though Ted was some kind of minor prophet.
That was what got me—what I couldn’t figure out. How much did my dad know? How much had he figured out? Did he look so studiously polite because he was celebrating his ex-wife’s marriage to someone new, or because he knew he was sitting across from Lucien Moriarty, and was biding his time before he acted?
I tried desperately to catch his eyes across the table. But my father kept staring at his plate, sawing away at his food.
And my mother—my mother was so happy, her hair done up in curls, her nails painted, a modest ring on her finger. Wouldn’t Lucien Moriarty have gone the whole nine yards? Stuck a giant rock there just for show? But no, there was just the dainty band on her finger, and Ted’s gaze kept returning there, then flickering back up to her face, and I’d be damned if there wasn’t actually affection in his eyes.
I was officially losing my goddamn mind.
“Does anyone need anything?” my mother asked, smiling. Everyone shook their heads.
“I think we’ve had everything on the menu,” Abigail laughed. “It was so wonderful! Thank you.”
“Do you think it’s time for the cake, then?” Lucien asked, as the waiter appeared in the door to our private room. He made a hand signal, and the man nodded.
“Ted.” It was the first time my father had spoken in a good half hour. He had on his bluffest tone, the one he reserved for toddlers and criminals and his in-laws. It was clear that, even if he didn’t know who Ted really was, he didn’t like him much. Thank God for that, I thought. Not everyone’s falling for him. “How about you and I sidle over to that excellent-looking bar, and I buy you a drink?”
“Oh!” Ted said. “I’d love to, but I don’t want to leave Gracie—”
“No,” my mother said, and beamed at her ex-husband. “Go. I want you and James to get to know each other.”
And there. There it was.
Lucien paused.
It was natural to need a moment before a one-on-one with your wife’s ex-husband. But this wasn’t that. Holmes had taught me a lot of things, and I’d mastered very few of them, but I was getting better at reading people.
He didn’t look hesitant. He didn’t look scared. He looked, for less than a half second, furiously angry.
Watching Lucien’s reaction, I had the uncanny feeling that I was watching Holmes at work. The clockwork gears spinning along so quickly the whole thing looked natural. But he must not have seen a way out of it without displeasing his new wife—and without her largess, he was powerless here.
Well, as powerless as Lucien Moriarty could be.
“Of course,” Lucien said, pushing back his chair. “Of course, James.”
“I’m just going to call and see how my boys are doing,” Abigail said. She took her phone from the pile in the center of the table. From the look she shot me as she walked away, I could tell that she thought my mum and I needed a moment alone.
With her fork, my mother chased her lobster tail around her plate. “You’ve been very quiet,” she said.
“I know,” I told her. “It’s all been a bit of a shock.”
She looked at me. “I’m happy, you know. And I’m allowed to be happy.”
I knew what she wanted from me. The words I should have said. I should have hugged her, should have asked her to tell more stories about her and Ted—What was the courthouse like? Was it really romantic? How did he propose?
I couldn’t make myself do it.
“Good,” I said, instead, like an asshole, and we sat there like two strangers, sipping our water.
Who knew how long my father and Lucien would be? I’d find a way to sneak away. I’d take my phone with me; Abigail had taken hers, and so what if my mother was mad at me for it, it was nothing compared to the alternative. Maybe I was stark raving mad, but I had to know for sure.
The waitstaff began tidying around us, making room for the cake. I helped them make a stack of dirty plates to take away, more to avoid my mother’s sad eyes than anything else. Lucien had dropped his napkin on the floor when he’d gotten up, and I pulled back his chair to replace it.
There. On his seat. My phone.
How had it gotten there, on his seat? I hadn’t seen him take it. I hadn’t seen him look at it.
How much did he know?
I had it in my hand and up my sleeve before my mother could see it. “You know, I should use the restroom too. It’s a long trip back home.”
My mum wasn’t looking at me. “Do you want any dessert?” she asked, quietly.