Page 10 of The Better Sister

I pulled off the Blondie T-shirt that had doubled as last night’s pajamas. “I’ll send your regrets to Catherine?”

It hadn’t been enough for Catherine to give that gracious introduction at last night’s gala. She was also hosting a little party at her house in Sag Harbor to get some of the old gang fromCity Womanback together for a celebration.

Now Adam was smiling. He had the best smile—sweet but a tiny bit naughty. “I wouldn’t exactly call it regrets.” Catherine was a little too much for Adam to handle. She was too much for most people.

I was tugging a sports bra over my head when he pulled me toward the bed and kissed me above my belly button. “I’ve got an hour.”

I glanced at the clock. “I don’t. Pilates. If I miss it, Jenny charges me.”

“That woman’s a Nazi.”

“And my abs love her for it,” I said, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before yanking on my workout tights. “I’ll see you tonight. And tell those Gentry people to pay for a proper car for you.”

That was the last time I saw my husband alive. At least, that’s what I told the police, but I could tell they didn’t believe me.

6

I had no idea how long I had been at the police station. It could have been twenty minutes or three hours. It was as if time had stopped the moment I found Adam, his legs splayed unnaturally, his heather-gray T-shirt and white jersey pajama bottoms soaked with blood.

I answered every question they asked, even as my mind was fighting to accept the reality that Adam was gone, and I had no idea what life would look like without him. Then I answered them again and again, doing my best not to appear impatient or defensive.

And I could tell they didn’t believe me.

I hadn’t caught the name of every person I’d spoken to, but I had the detectives straight. Bowen and Guidry. B and G, like boy and girl. Bowen was male; Guidry was female. It’s how I remembered.

Bowen, the guy, said, “We need to call his mother.” He was tall and slender, with dark, wavy hair and angular features. His skin was pasty.

I could only imagine the look I gave him. A photographer from Cornell’s alumni magazine once told me that my natural expression made me seem “intimidating and inaccessible.” I wore my friendliest smile as I responded that I had no problem with either of those impressions.

But now I wasn’t posing for a picture. I was in a windowless room with cinder-block walls and blue linoleum floors and a door that probably used to be white—a door that I heard lock behind us after I followed the two detectives into the room. I noticed a camera hanging from the corner of the ceiling and wondered if it was on.

I wasn’t stupid, after all. The last thing I’d ever been was stupid. Despite the kind gestures—the bottled water, the coffee, the offer to help with any calls that needed to be made—I knew the police had a job to do. And testing me was part of it.

As I walked them through every horrible step—driving home from Catherine’s party, slipping keys in the door to enter a dark, silent house, finding the bedroom empty, and then circling back to the living room, seeing Adam there, on the floor, with so much blood—another part of my brain was somewhere else entirely. My words were all about that night, but the movie playing on a screen in my head wasThe Story of Adam and Chloe. Seeing him at the mall when I was a little kid. Meeting him again when he picked up Nicky. The first time he had called me, instead of Mom, when there was a problem. The move to New York. Playing on the floor of his apartment with little Ethan. The first forbidden kiss. Our feet in the sand as we exchanged rings at sunset on Main Beach. I could see all of it, vividly in bright, intense Technicolor.

The divided halves of my brain finally reconciled when an image of my hand checking Adam’s neck for a pulse managed to break through. I remembered thinking at the time that it was the same spot on his neck that I would press my cheek against when he was on top, making love to me. I could still feel his blood, dried and crusty on my black jersey jumpsuit. I could still taste the vomit that had finally come as a police officer walked me across the lawn to his car after the ambulance departed.

“Would someone have expected you and your husband to be at your house tonight?” Detective Guidry asked. She had long ash-blond hair, tied into a messy knot that seemed too playful for her profession. “We get a lot of break-ins at the part-time properties. People assume they’re empty.”

I shrugged. How was I supposed to know what a burglar would expect? “We come out every two or three weekends off-season. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. No real schedule.”

I felt them judging me. They had to, right? They’d seen the house. Not huge, compared to other homes on the block, but surely more luxurious than what police were used to. And here I was, admitting how rarely we used the place beyond the summer months.

“Flip side of the coin,” Bowen said. “Did anyone know for certain that you and your husbandwouldbe there?”

“I told you before: I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill Adam.”

Bowen told me he understood, but then asked the question again anyway.

“I guess. I mean, I told my assistant when I left a little early today that I was trying to beat traffic. A friend wanted to have brunch in the city on Sunday, but I told her we’d be out here. And the people at the party I was at tonight—I told them that Adam was on his way out, so they might have assumed the house was empty. But obviously they were all at the party with me, and none of them would do something like—” I couldn’t bring myself to use the words to accurately describe what was happening.

“You told your friends he was ‘on his way,’ but wasn’t he actually already at your house fairly early on during the party?” Guidry’s expression was blank, but the tone of her voice made it clear she thought she’d caught me in some kind of lie.

“Easier on my friends’ feelings than explaining he wasn’t exactly a fan of their company.” I managed a dry smile, but neither detective seemed to appreciate the humor.

“It’s just a little unusual for one half of a couple to attend a party while the other one’s home,” Guidry said. “The two of you weren’t arguing or something like that?”

“You can check our texts if you’d like.” I reached into my purse for my cell, pulled up our most recent exchange of messages, and placed the phone in front of her. She glanced down at it.

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