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At five o’clock I started drinking. At nine Rory came to find me and we went to bed. We didn’t talk, but there was a tenderness between us that hadn’t been there before. We were still in bed on Sunday morning when Arnie Waugh called. Rory put his phone on speaker.
“I just got a call from police,” Arnie said. “They framed it as a courtesy call. They have a warrant to search for Simon’s phone. They’re sending divers to search the lake, apparently. They’re probably already there. I’m pretty sure they waited to call me until after their people had gone out to the property.”
“Which property?” Rory looked confused.
“Your property. The house at Stowe,” Arnie said.
Rory turned to look at me. He seemed to be struggling to understand.
“Thanks, Arnie,” I said. “I guess it doesn’t make much difference, right? From what Simon tells me, pretty much everything on his phone they could get from the cloud eventually?”
“That’s right. I guess they’ve decided they don’t want to wait for that data to come through.”
Rory was still staring at me.
“And there’s no point in us trying to do anything to stop them, I guess?” I said.
“Nothing you can do, at this point. Better to cooperate. It will back up your story that you dropped it accidentally.”
“Which I did.”
“Of course.”
Arnie rang off.
“Jamie...” Rory said. His face was stricken. He said my name again, like I’d done something horrifying. “Jamie.”
I tried to explain about the phone. It seemed to take him a long time to understand. Then he picked up his phone and called Arnie back. He paced the room, his right hand on his head, gripping his hair, his left pressing the phone to his ear.
“I don’t care what you have to do. You need to stop that search.”
There was silence while Arnie responded. I found Rory’s shirt and put it on. I got out of bed.
“Baby?” I said. Rory ignored me.
“I don’t fucking care! Call a judge. Send someone out there. Send some men. Do something to earn your fucking money. And call me back.”
Rory hung up. He went to our dressing room and pulled out jeans and a T-shirt.
“What’s going on?” I said. But he didn’t answer. He left the room, and I heard his feet on the stairs. I scrambled into underwear and jeans, picked up my sneakers, and ran after him. By the time I got downstairs he was opening the door into the garage. He’d put on his boots and grabbed his jacket.
“Rory,” I said. He didn’t even pause, just pressed the button to open the garage door and climbed into the driver’s seat. I ran. There was just enough time for me to get into the passenger seat. He pulled out and drove insanely fast in the direction of Stowe.
“Tell me, Rory. Please, please, tell me what’s going on.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I would if I could, but I can’t.”
I stopped talking. I gripped the car door and the side of my seat and held on tight as Rory took corners like a NASCAR driver. When we got to Stowe I half expected to find police tape or an officer at the gates, something or someone to prevent us entering, but it wasn’t like that. We were able to drive right up to the house. There were three other vehicles ahead of us—a single white van, a police car, and one other car. Three people stood on the jetty. One of them was Matthew Wright, the other two were police officers in uniform. Our little boat was out in the middle of the lake. There was a woman in it. She was wearing a wet suit and she was leaning over to look down into the water.
Rory got out of the car and ran toward the jetty. I followed, shivering. I didn’t have a jacket. I wasn’t even wearing a bra. I folded my arms across my chest. Rory waved wildly.
“Get back!” he shouted. “Get away from there.”
Matthew Wright came to meet him. The two younger officers followed in Wright’s wake, but he waved them backward. He walked right up to Rory until Rory had to stumble to a halt to avoid running into him.
“You can’t be here,” Rory said. He was breathing hard. “We haven’t given our consent. Our attorney will be here any minute.”
“We have a warrant, Mr. Jordan. I’d be happy to show it to you.”
