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Rhett arrived a few minutes later, stomping his boots of snow. The four of them gathered at the dining room table as the light outside dimmed to gray-blue. Rina wrapped spaghetti around her fork and ate heartily, even asking for second helpings, as Isabella and Rhett updated her and Steve about everything that had happened since they’d left the island. Apparently, everyone was up in arms about Gail’s disappearance, sending photographs to friends across the continent and telling them to keep their eyes peeled for her.
“Have you ever worked a case for people you know?” Isabella asked Rina tentatively.
Rina swallowed, remembering how Penny had looked at her by the pool. She’d been a stranger.
“Sort of,” she said. “My sister disappeared when I was a teenager.”
Just like that, she dropped her single-biggest trauma at the table for all to hear. It surprised her how little it hurt to say aloud.
Isabella was taken aback. She touched her chest.
“Did you ever find her?” Rhett asked.
Rina nodded, and her cheek twitched.
“And she was okay?” Isabella breathed.
“She was.” Rina’s voice cracked. “But before I found her, I hadn’t realized how much trauma and guilt I was carrying around because of it. I want to save Abby and Claire from that if I can. It’s the worst form of torture.”
Isabella and Rhett nodded solemnly. Under the table, Steve touched Rina’s leg, and Rina wrapped her hand around his tightly, clinging to him as though she was about to float away.
After dinner, Rina retreated back upstairs to check on the status of Russel’s case. It had only been an hour and a half since she’d kicked everything into motion, so she wasn’t expecting anything. Not yet.
But what she’d downloaded thus far made her understand something: Russel wasn’t an ordinary man. Russel was brash. He was selfish. And he was doing everything out in the open, almost as though he wanted to get caught.
Of Russel, her associate had written:
Russel accepted a property development job in New York City a little more than a year ago. The new job offered him four times the yearly salary of his gig on Martha’s Vineyard. The only stipulation was that he had to make frequent trips into the city to meet with clients.
Already that first month, based on information from his hotel stays, Russel pushed his stays longer than his job required. He frequently called the hotel front desk to extend his room as though he didn’t want to go home.
One month after Russel accepted the position, he opened a new bank account in the city under only his name— without giving his wife access. It’s probable that his wife had no idea about the account. It is unclear what pushed Russel to open the account in the first place. Perhaps he fell in love with city life? Perhaps he already wanted to set the stage to leave?
From that day forward, he deposited one half of his earnings in the city account and one half into his family account.
Six months after Russel took the position in the city, he began looking for a new apartment there. He looked at ten apartments before deciding on a two-bedroom in the Upper West Side. Based on a brief correspondence with the real estate agent, it seems Russel wasn’t alone during these apartment searches. CCTV footage shows that he was with a younger woman at the time. More CCTV footage taken from the final address of his new apartment shows them coming and going numerous times, hand in hand.
There’s no name for the woman on the lease. However, a quick reverse-image search showed that the young woman’s name is Caitlin Gregory. Her Instagram link is below. Crazily, Caitlin’s Instagram isn’t private, and it’s filled with images of Russel. It’s almost like they wanted to get caught.
Rina clicked on the Instagram link, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. A moment later, she was struck with images of a beautiful, early-thirties Caitlin, dressed in a long, sleek camel coat, arm-in-arm with her dapper, older boyfriend. Russel looked confident and happy. His hair was as thick as a healthy horse’s mane and just as shiny, and he wore a sleek black peacoat that reeked of money— the kind of thing you couldn’t get away with wearing on Martha’s Vineyard. The kind of thing people would gossip about. “Doesn’t Russel think he’s someone special? What’s gotten into him?”
Rina tore through Caitlin’s social media account for a while, going back nearly a year, when Russel first popped into her life. It wasn’t clear how they’d met each other, but there were ways, Rina knew. Dating apps. Bars. Russel had insane amounts of freedom in the city. He’d been allowed to visualize a new life for himself—a new version of himself, with heaps of cash and a brand-new girlfriend.
Penny and Gail had visualized new lives for themselves, too. And they’d gone for them, just as Russel had.
When Rina scrolled back to the top of Caitlin’s Instagram, she realized she’d completely skipped over the most recent photograph. It featured Caitlin, alone, leaning against a brick wall with both of her hands over her stomach. It was rotund. Pregnant. Rina’s heartbeat quickened. She clicked and read the caption, which said simply: “We’re over the moon. Coming 2024.”
Rina knew the “we” meant Russel and Caitlin.
Rina collapsed against the back of the chair, reeling. Claire’s face floated in her mind. Those glistening, tear-filled eyes, the bags beneath them that proved she hadn’t slept well in weeks. All the while, Russel was gallivanting through his new city life with Caitlin.
Rina had no idea how she would tell Claire the truth.
But more than that, she wasn’t sure how this newfound information would help her scout down Gail. It seemed clear Gail had learned about Russel’s second life. It echoed in what she’d told Abby. “Dad isn’t who you think he is.” But to what corners of the world had Gail run in the wake of that discovery?
Rina tiptoed downstairs to find Steve and Isabella in front of the television. They were watching a nature documentary and eating ice cream.
“Steve? Can I talk to you about something?” Rina’s voice was like a string.
