Page 6 of Nine Lives

“It was so, so good. Your tits...”

“I know. They looked great. And can you believe I got three lines?”

“Technically two.”

“I guess so. You’re right.”

“But it was all great. It’s a solid credit, Mads, you should be pleased.”

“Yay. Thank you, Jay.”

He didn’t tell her about the callback, but before they hung up, he did say, “And, Jesus, good makeup there at NCIS, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were worried, remember? You had that outbreak. You could barely tell. I mean, I could tell, but that was because I was looking for it. The makeup really covered it all up.”

“It did,” she said. “They did a good job.”

Jay could hear the insecurity creeping into her voice, and he quickly ended the call, got under the covers. He fell asleep wondering what it would be like if he had the courage to go visit Abby Britell, or some other wannabe just like her, and actually do the things to her that he dreamed of doing. Really show her who was boss. He reached down and allowed himself to wrap his hand around his dick, hard as a piece of rebar now, but didn’t allow himself to do anything more than touch it. He thought some more about Abby Britell but then he was thinking about Amy Buchman (“Amy passed, Jay, but she was really impressed”), and how he’d like to tie her up and take an actual piece of rebar and make her choke on it. It was this thought that finally calmed him down enough to allow him to sleep.

7

Thursday, September 15, 5:15 p.m.

On his ride home from work—forty minutes of solitude that went way too fast—Matthew Beaumont recited the facts of his life. It was a daily routine, a way of remembering what was good, and reminding himself about the things that needed work.

Today he told himself that Emma, his oldest daughter, was a lovely seventh grader who was beginning to show noticeable signs of insecurity and anxiety, just like her mother. But she was so compulsively good, such a people pleaser, that she was easy to forget about in the chaos of their daily lives. Pay attention to her, he told himself, make sure she knows that things turn out okay in the end. Alex, about to turn eight, had finally, and formally, been diagnosed as not only having ADHD, but also oppositional defiant disorder, which explained some of the behavior issues. Not all, as Nancy insisted. But, still, getting the diagnosis was the right first step, and would help the school system in crafting his educational plan. Joshua, his youngest, was fine except for the persistent sinus infections. He needed to have another conversation about alternative medicines with Nancy, who just kept wanting to throw antibiotics into him. Tonight was probably not the night, but this weekend, maybe, depending on her mood.

He turned on to Trail Ridge Way, the long, sparsely populated road that culminated in a cul-de-sac anchored by three brand-new mansions, each in distinctly different styles. His was the Italianate one, at least it was Italianate on the outside, although distinctly Palladian, if that was the correct word, on the inside. Thinking of the house, his mind turned to Nancy. Was she better, or worse, lately? He wasn’t even sure anymore, although in the past few weeks her obsessive thoughts had been mostly about Alex, and the latest tests to determine his disorder, and less about Matthew’s “affair” with his new executive assistant. She was wrong about the affair, of course; Matthew, except for an occasional fantasy he allowed himself, usually about Ellen Matthiessen, the head of legal, had been faithful for all fifteen years of his marriage. It was true that he’d gone out for drinks with his team back in July, and had ended up walking Jada Washington back to her apartment in the South End before returning to the Back Bay to get his car, but Jada, who mostly talked that night about her obsession with The Mortal Instruments books, had reminded him more of his own daughter than any potential object of desire. His mistake had been that he told Nancy about the evening, thinking she’d be amused that his “executive assistant” had so much in common with their twelve-year-old daughter. She hadn’t been amused. She’d kept him up all that night accusing him of infidelity. He managed to convince her that nothing had happened, and spent the remainder of the summer trying to convince her that he hadn’t wanted anything to happen. But she’d been quiet about the subject for over a week now, and possibly, just possibly, it was over.

He pulled his Lexus into the four-car garage, then sat for a moment, listening to a few more minutes of his Foo Fighters mix before heading through the vestibule into the kitchen, where Nancy, leaning against the island, was holding up a piece of paper for him to see as he entered.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“You tell me,” she said.

He approached her tentatively, just as Alex came racing into the room, wearing the ninja outfit, complete with plastic samurai sword, that he’d already picked out for Halloween. Matthew fended off Alex’s repeated attacks, as he took the sheet of paper from Nancy. It was a list of half a dozen or so names, including his. None of the other names on the list was familiar.

“What is this?” he asked his wife, then, turning to his son, yelled “Alex! Enough!”

“I don’t know what it is. It came for you in the mail today, and I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to see it, and I wish I hadn’t, but now that I have, I’d like to know what it’s all about. Some sort of code.”

“I have no idea. Alex, that’s enough. Go find Joshie, and see if he wants to play. Nance, why are you making that face? What do you mean, some sort of code?”

“Well, I don’t understand what it is, that’s all.”

“I don’t understand it either. It’s probably nothing, just some mistake. What was on the envelope?”

Nancy turned and retrieved the envelope from the pile of mail on the granite countertop. Emma came into the kitchen and hugged Matthew as Alex careened off to look for his younger brother, hiding probably, since Joshua was the only six-year-old in the country who didn’t like play fighting.

“There’s nothing on it. That’s why I was suspicious.”

Emma took the sheet of paper from her father and began to read it.

“Honestly, Nance, I have no idea.”

“There’s an Abby Horne in my school but I don’t think there’s an Alison Horne,” Emma said.

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