Page 60 of The Night We Lost Him

“So… how did that end up with you reaching out to Paul Turner?” I ask.

He reaches into his desk and pulls out a copy of Forbes magazine—Cece Salinger on the cover, staring back at us, her arms folded across her chest.

He hands me the magazine, has one of the pages earmarked. “This was from five months ago,” he says. “Page eighty-three.”

I open the magazine to the earmarked page and am greeted with a large photograph of Cece walking through the small vineyard on her property in Los Alamos—the property Sam and I were turned away from two days ago.

I read the headers to each section. They focus on Cece’s outsize success, on how she is rebranding the Salinger Group portfolio on the other side of her divorce, particularly as it relates to her lifestyle division.

I study the photograph and the bolded quote beneath it, which I read out loud: “ ‘Salinger’s next chapter will be focused on building out her hospitality and resort portfolio, focusing on luxury-driven, private retreat experiences.’ ”

“Just below that,” Tommy says. “Right above the jump.”

“ ‘While Salinger was hesitant to discuss her personal life in great depth, she did confirm she designed her new home for herself and her current partner, whom she coyly describes as an old friend. “But that’s for another day,” Salinger says, declining to discuss her personal life in any detail.’ ”

“Sound familiar?” Tommy asks.

“Sounds like it could be Dad,” Sam says.

“What does this have to do with Paul Turner?” I ask.

“One guess who the photographer for this profile was…”

I look up and meet Tommy’s eyes.

He nods. And I add that piece of information to my growing list of things that aren’t adding up, not on their face, living in that strange space between uncomfortable and weird.

“That’s some coincidence,” Sam says.

“He does a lot of work for the magazine, apparently. But still, I thought he might have insight into what was going on with Dad and Cece. And no vested interest in keeping it to himself.”

“Did he confirm anything?” I ask.

“Not what I thought he would,” he says. “He seemed to confirm that, from the little he knew, anything that had happened between Cece and Dad was ancient history. Paul seemed pretty confident that if she is involved with someone at the company, he didn’t think it had anything to do with Dad.”

Sam looks at him, confused. Which is when I put it together.

“You mean Cece and Uncle Joe?” I ask.

“That’s where I went,” Tommy says. I feel my jaw tighten, just as Sam’s does.

“Paul said they were together?”

Tommy shakes his head. “It’s what he didn’t say when I put it out there.”

“And what’s that?” I ask.

“That I was wrong.”

Thirty-Nine Years Ago

“I very much like her,” Cory said. “Rachel.”

They were sitting in a sandwich shop near Liam’s office in Midtown, sharing a slice of coconut cream pie, Cory’s finger circling her coffee mug.

She was home, again. She had moved back to New York, back to Brooklyn. One year had turned into three and a half, just like he’d known it would. She wasn’t even back now because she wanted to be here, but because her mother was sick and her father was useless and someone had to take care of them.

She was, apparently, the someone.

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