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18
EM, LOOK, PLEASE DON’T BE UPSET,”TOM SAYS, CLEARLYsensing her dismay. “I had to make a split-second judgment call, and I thought it might look suspicious to lawyer up after Webster told me she was just hoping for a brief chat. So I went with the flow. If things had gotten the least bit hairy, I would have found a way to hit pause.”
“But the thing I learned about cops,” Emma says, flopping on her back again, “is that things can get hairy without you even realizing it.”
“There really didn’t seem to be any obvious danger signs. She wanted to know how we’d met, and I told her the story, which gave me a chance to slip in the part about us being in the same room in Miami without knowing it. I kept it really casual. She also asked if you and I had discussed the murder, and I said that we had, of course, and that the experience had been devastating for you.”
As she imagines Tom sitting across from the detective at the café, Emma’s stomach knots even tighter. Her husbandis a master at reading people and navigating dicey situations, but he can also be overly optimistic on occasion. The more she’s reflected on her own encounter with Webster, the more she’s envisioned the tricks the other woman could be up to.
Emma sighs. “But we talked about you following Peter Dunne’s advice and contacting a lawyer, and I was sure you were going to do it.”
“Ididactually contact a lawyer yesterday, and I called her to fill her in about the meeting as I was driving to pick up Brittany. She slapped my wrist but thinks I managed fine. And I ended up followingsomeof your guy’s advice to the T.”
“Which part?” she asks, still disheartened.
“The research project. I spent a chunk of this morning doing a deep dive on myself and so I was all set when Webster asked if I remembered where I was the night Derrick died.”
Unintentionally, she lets out yet another gasp. “She came right out and asked you that?”
“Yeah, she said it was routine, which we both knew was a lie. But I was able to tell her, since I’d already spent a couple of hours wading through calendar entries and endless emails and texts. I even found the name of that massage therapist I’d been looking for.”
“And?” she whispers into the darkness.
“And?You want a massage, too?”
“Tom, this isn’t funny. Where did it turn out you were that night?”
“Stowe, Vermont. The agency did a three-day ski weekend up there for a client, about twenty people in all.”
At that moment it feels like her body practically liquefieswith relief. Tom has a rock-solid alibi—out of state, plenty of witnesses to back it up.
“I told Webster I happened to remember because it had come up once when you and I were discussing Derrick’s death,” he continues. “Hey, you aren’t pissed at me, are you?”
“Not pissed, no.” Though not happy, for sure. “I don’t love that you did the interview without a lawyer, but it sounds as if you handled it well.”
“As well as can be expected, I think. I’d love to celebrate with some great sex,” he says, stroking her arm, “but I’m pretty spent. Can I take a rain check?”
“Of course.”
As Emma drifts off to sleep, with Tom spooning her, she can still taste her disappointment that her husband acted against advice. Yet when she stirs awake around six, she’s shocked to feel a lightness she hasn’t experienced in days. It’s as if there’s been a constant, maddening ringing sound in her ears and it finally disappeared.
Lying in the stillness of the early morning, with Tom sleeping quietly beside her, it takes her a minute to get where that lightness has sprung from. As troubled as she’s been by Webster’s insinuation into her life and Taylor’s revelation about the dinner, her biggest concern, one barely recognizable to her, has been that Tom might be vulnerable in some way. That maybe when he searched his records he’d find that he was actually home alone that night in March, with no alibi, or even worse, that in someotherhorrible coincidence, he’d been in Manhattan that evening.
But there’s no second, terrifying coincidence. Her husband was hundreds of miles away with a big group, and it will be a cinch to prove if necessary.
While she’s showering, Tom comes into the bathroom and joins her in the stall. After soaping up, he washes her hair for her, and she takes pleasure in the feel of his strong fingers kneading her scalp. As they towel off together, he reminds her of his client dinner that evening but says he should be home by ten at the latest.
Through breakfast, she’s carrying the feeling of contentment, but there is still one matter for her to deal with. As soon as Eric arrives at the studio, Emma beckons him into the meeting room and closes the door.
“So sorry about last night,” he tells her. “I was slightly under the weather, and planned to take a short nap, but the next thing I knew it was seven thirty-five.”
“It’s so not a problem. But are you feeling better now?”
“Much. I think it might have been the leftover smoked salmon I had for lunch.”
She shakes her head. “Yuck. I’ll give you my copy of the book later so you can read the chapter I found so interesting. There’s actually something else I wanted to discuss.”
She tells him about the light being left on and asks if he has any reason to think that Dario might have snuck back into the studio last night.
