The first alarming thing was that there were two cars parked in my driveway. One was Stephanie's. That was strange in itself because a week had passed since she'd moved out. And though we still, so to speak, shared custody of the boys, ferrying them back and forth from house to house, and though she still picked them up at school in the afternoons, I hadn't seen much of her.
Our relationship, if you could call it that, was doomed from the start. And there was no way it could have survived Prager's visit. The chance—the fact—that Emily was alive would have made it impossible. I was furious at Stephanie for not telling me that my wife had a sister. And Stephanie was enraged at me . . . I didn't want to tally up the things about which Stephanie had every right to be angry.
Well, I wasn't all that sorry. I didn't mind not having Stephanie around force-feeding me and Nicky her nourishing meals. It was fun to be just two guys again, father and son grabbing a pizza on the fly. It was good to be home, where we only had to deal with each other and we got along fine.
I got back in touch with Alison, so I had someone to pick up the slack when I had to work at the office and didn't want Nicky to stay with Miles.
So now the fact that Stephanie was in my house was a little unusual. It made me uneasy. Well, maybe she'd come to retrieve something she'd forgotten. But whom did the other car belong to? Had Stephanie and whoever it was come here together? Another insurance investigator? I hadn't heard anything from Prager since that initial visit, and I didn't like that, either. No news was not necessarily good news.
The other car was an old brown Buick with Michigan plates. I didn't know anyone in Michigan, except Emily's mother, and I couldn't say I knew her. We'd never met.
Maybe it was Emily.
I'd had a bad day at work. I'd found it hard to concentrate. That was understandable. I had a lot going on.
Carrington, the VP of international real estate, the guy who'd brought me into the firm and whom I felt I could depend on, perhaps because we're both British, had given me several hints of impending trouble. The broadest hint was over lunch at the Oyster Bar. We had three scotches each and oyster stew. He said he hoped I wasn't off my game, or that I would soon get back on it. I'd been working hard and, I thought, doing well. But on the day I came home to find the two cars in my driveway, I'd seen a project that should have gone to me assigned to a kid from Utah who'd just come to work for the firm.
As far as I knew, Nicky was spending the night at Stephanie's, and I'd bought a bottle of good scotch with which I intended to curl up in front of the flat screen and stream Inspector Morse.
I unlocked the front door.
"Hello?" I said. Some guardian angel or helpful instinct prevented me—saved me—from calling out a name.
I walked into the living room. Stephanie and Emily sat side by side on the couch. I told myself: Focus, Sean, focus.
Emily said, "We thought this would be fun. Don't you think it's fun?"
I said, "What's going on? Why are you here?"
"Ask Stephanie," Emily said. "She's the one who's been living here."
I looked at Stephanie. I thought, Tell her you've moved out. Tell her we're not together anymore. As if that would save the situation. As if that would make any difference at all. No doubt Emily already knew.
"Where are the boys?" I said.
"Playing in Nicky's room," Stephanie said. "Let them be."
Who was Stephanie to tell me to let my son be? I looked at Emily for support. It seemed unlike her to sit back and let another woman tell me what to do about Nicky. That was worrisome. And not just another woman. Stephanie was the fish we'd found to help us with Emily's crazy plan.
