Page 48 of Against the Current

Ryan had the sudden and horrific sensation that Trisha was doing something behind his back—something apt to destroy their marriage.

Did it have something to do with his grandfather’s car?

“I never told anyone about the car,” he said.

“Neither did I,” Trisha shot.

“I should have, maybe,” Ryan added. “My grandmother died with very little money. It turned out that she had to sell off almost all the big valuables. The cars. The boats.”

“She died in the lap of luxury,” Trisha said. “She spent everything because she didn’t know how to manage her own money. If she’d had your grandfather’s Cadillac, she would have sold it to buy more jewelry or caviar or whatever.”

Ryan felt it like a slap, although it was true. For all of Dana’s pride, she hadn’t known how to manage Grandpa Jeremy’s funds, and she’d spent and spent—on maids and redecorating and international travel and fine foods.

Maybe she’d said,You can’t take it with you!

She was right, Ryan supposed.

Trisha was on her feet and heading upstairs. “I’m going to sleep in the guest bedroom,” she called behind her. “Good night.”

There was no arguing with her.

But later that week, feeling like a husband searching for proof his wife had a lover, Ryan did something horrible. He snooped through Trisha’s things.

What he discovered floored him.

It was within a notebook where Trisha kept lists of doctor’s appointments for their kids and records of medications and other trivialities and important documents required to build and maintain a life. It was there, among these things, that Ryan found a list of every single one of the clients that he and his mother had lost to Sarah Strong.

Ryan’s hands shook violently as he read the names aloud.

It was clear to him now. Somehow, some way, Trisha had betrayed him. She’d betrayed the Sutton family.

Was she trying to get back at him, at Grandma Dana, at Jackie—so many years after they’d belittled her and destroyed her sense of self?

Was she trying to get back at him for forcing her to leave Chicago?

Ryan took a picture of the list, put it back where he’d found it, and retreated to his bedroom to find his running clothes. He hadn’t gone in months, and the idea of pounding his way across the trails of Nantucket sounded healing. But when he got outside, the winds changed and thrashed against him, and he wound up sitting on the beach, curled up with his head buried in his arms. What was he going to do?

Chapter Eighteen

March 2025 - Nantucket Island

Around eleven thirty on the evening of their spontaneous trip to Martha’s Vineyard, Jackie sat down and gave herself a talk.

Sell the Sutton Estate. Get rid of the dark past that haunts you and Ryan and Trisha. Make enough money to retire and help Ryan build the next era of his life.

It was all about survival now.

If Jackie had learned anything during their little trip to Martha’s Vineyard, it was this: whatever reason Sarah Strong had for taking their clients out from under them would remain unknown, probably forever.

Sure, Jackie and Ryan could keep selling and selling and selling houses. But if Sandy the financial planner, was right, they wouldn’t get near their projected goal for another few years. And if Sarah Strong continued to rip clients out from under them? They were doomed.

Jackie listed the Sutton Estate’s mansion and grounds for a staggering twenty million dollars. It was hard to believe that that much money was just sitting there. It was hard to believe that something as simple as selling it off would set Jackie and Josh up for life.

Of course, Jackie planned to talk to her brothers, Victor and Aaron. But because both of them were entrenched in their own private family dramas and very rarely, if ever, mentioned the Sutton Estate, Jackie guessed they would be overjoyed to learn they’d inherit multiple millions of dollars after the sale of that old place.

Jackie, being the only daughter of Dana and Jeremy, had always assumed it was her lot in life to be the only person who really cared about the Sutton Estate. Maybe that time of her life was over. Perhaps that was freeing, in a way.

Jackie published the advertisement for the Sutton Estate and leaned back in her computer chair, flipping through glossy photographs of the dining room, kitchen, beach, upstairs bedrooms, and the wraparound porch. Tears sprang to her eyes.

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