What had she done?
Chapter 14
Superspy
Dear Esme,
I will make sure your mother is home on Wednesday evening.
—Jack
Jack, how are you going to do that? She’s hard to pin down.
xoE
You want to watch one more?” Blair asked as she and Jack finished the third-to-last episode ofThe Bearon the Monday of Thanksgiving week.
“No more for me tonight,” Jack said, resisting the urge to elaborate. Lies failed when they got too detailed.
“Are you writing in the evenings?”
“It’s going pretty well.” That was not a lie if not strictly an answer to her question.
“Well, good for you.”
“If we stop now, we can watch the second-to-last episode tomorrow and the finale on Wednesday. Then it’s Island of Misfit Toys Thanksgiving, and—”
He shut his mouth. He was getting dangerously close to “too detailed” turf.
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Triumph! Jack was practically a superspy with his machinations. He hummed the James Bond theme as he crossed the yard back to the pool house.
Esme had said that Blair was hard to pin down, but Jack hadn’t found that to be true. She was always home in the evenings—and Esme had also said her mom was hiding from her friends.
Jack was increasingly convinced that Blair had some kind of compulsive disorder, whether it had been formally diagnosed or not. Was she being held prisoner in her house by her own brain?
Well, it didn’t matter for ambushing purposes. He sat down to answer Esme’s latest email, which had come in while he’d been with Blair.
Dear Esme,
Don’t worry, it’s handled.
—Jack
He didn’t want to explain that he was rationing the last two episodes of a TV show to ensure that Blair would be home when she needed to be. He didn’t like thinking of himself as the kind of man who manipulated people with TV.
OK. Worst-case scenario, if she’s not home, I can lie in wait and surprise her when she gets home. Can yougive me your phone number so I can text and we can communicate in real time if need be? xoE
Jack hesitated. Were they not already communicating in real time? Did he want the child of two famous Hollywood producers to have his phone number? And why had she switched to signing off withx’s ando’s?
He needed to get over himself. He gave her his number.
Thirty seconds later he had a text from her.
Esme:How am I going to get in without alerting her, though? There’s a gate around the property.
Esme:It’s Esme, by the way.
