Page 66 of You Can't Hurt Me

I don’t tell him exactly how I discovered it, or that I was in Eva’s bedroom, or any of my questions about Tony’s involvement. I stick instead to the incriminating dates, the fact that Nate lied. “So he must have been with Eva on the day she died, not at a conference all day, as he told everyone. And Eva was pregnant with his baby,” I finish, testing Tony for a reaction.

“He’s lying to protect himself,” he says, his tone firm. I notice if anything, he looks strangely more calm than usual. “So we know he was at Algos House much closer to the time of her death than he admitted either to you or the inquest. Just be careful, don’t tell anyone. Remember how Dad could be? How quickly he could turn? We’ve seen this before. We know where it leads.”

“You really think I should be scared of him?”

“Of course, he’s a classic manipulator. Charming one moment but always covering his tracks. You’ve said yourself, whatever he tells you never quite adds up. You were right all along, Anna.”

I try to move away from him but his arm grips mine.

“Can’t you see it? Eva would still be alive if it weren’t for him. He’s responsible. I hope it was worth it, spending that time all alone in that basement study with his piles of books and his creepy cat portraits.” That calm demeanor melts away and his mouth twists as if he has ingested poison. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve written the perfect alibi. He killed her, Anna, and you’ve helped him get away with it.”

I feel his words like a punch to the gut, not only because of the weight of his accusation, which is bad enough, but what he lets slip out. How would he know about the newly hung pictures in Nate’s study?

26

Nate keeps texting me. I don’t reply, press Delete. I can’t face either of them anymore, these two men in my life who I should be able to trust, to love, yet now each of them begins to scare me. Who is really lying? Which one of them was there when she died? My mind spins with the scenarios, the endless lies and subterfuge.

The receipt sits on my desk, daring me to act, but I do nothing. A day or so later Priya emails to let me know we have nothing to worry about as far as Kath’s threats are concerned. Nate is cc’d in and they exchange barbed comments about Kath, how unreasonable she is being. Factually, the memoir is watertight, she can’t sue on the basis that Nate’s recollections of Eva sound nothing like the sister she knew.

The subjectivity of memory works in our favor. Don’t we remember everyone differently? And, she says, you can’t libel a dead person. I stay out of it, leave well alone.

It is the following evening when I’m a little over halfway through editing the final manuscript. There’s a ripple of knuckle on the door. My heart plummets. I assume it’s Tony until I remember he has Amira’s key.

I peer through the spy hole and a convex reflection of Nate’s face peers back. My hand springs to my mouth. I dart back into the sitting room, quickly rip down the photos pinned to my board, of Algos House, of Nate and Eva, aware that my professional research could be mistaken for prurience, obsession even. I stash them in the back of my desk drawer, along with Eva’s receipt, and fly back to the hall door.

He raps again, with full-fisted urgency.

“Nate?”

I open the door and he pushes past me into the narrow hallway, a wild look in his eyes, as if he hasn’t really planned beyond this point.

“We need to talk,” he mumbles as I let him walk ahead of me toward the half-light of the sitting room. His eyes dart to the corners. I take Nate in for a moment before the accusations fly.

He briefly scans the books on my shelves, the stacks of memoirs and biographies on the floor. Medics and scientists from the frontline of grief. He stares sourly at two photographs above my desk, Tony and I as children, my mother and father. I watch him absorbing all this, the dimensions of my life that have always been so mysterious to him, trying to work out the shape of me, exactly who I am when I’m not with him. We are strangers to each other now. He could be capable of anything, a ruthless killer standing in my front room.

I inch toward the hallway, wondering if I could make a run for the front door if necessary. I can’t help noticing how out of place he seems, away from the opulence of Algos House, pacing up and down the short length of my sitting room. I realize, watching him, how much I rely on degrees of separation to give me an illusion of control, how anxious it makes me when the boundaries dissolve between his life and mine.

“Nate?”

“Please, I have to ask you first.” He stops pacing and turns to me. “Why the hell did you do it?”

“Do what?” I struggle to steady my voice, indignant that he’s got there first. I should be the one accusing him of dishonesty and deception, worse.

“You went into her room after I left you alone.” His tone brims with rage. “Youtooksomething of hers, didn’t you? Her journal is missing.”

I bite my lip, playing for time.

“You waited until I left the house and then you went through her things. How far does this go back? Your obsession with Eva. I thought about that night, how preoccupied you’d been with her room. Your intense interest, I couldn’t help noticing, when I joked about showing you around. After you left, I went in to check. I wanted to think I’d misread you.” He shakes his head, his eyes ablaze. “Jade told me about your last little visit, making some excuse about finding the cat.”

“I guess she told you about how she took one of Eva’s rings too?”

“You’re accusing Jade of stealing from my wife’s bedroom too? A new low, even by your standards.”

“Nate, she was wearing—”

“Eva’s ring? You think you’re some sort of detective and I didn’t know that?” His muscles stiffen with anger. “I let Jade have some of Eva’s jewelery. Eva gave her gifts all the time.Let someone enjoy itis exactly what she would have said. Jade isn’t a thief. You on the other hand—”

“Stop it.” I twist away from him. He could be testing me, but he sounds as if he definitely knows this isn’t true. His eyes burn into me and I feel as if I’ve reached the end of the line, all out of options.

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