Page 52 of I Need You to Read This
“Apparently the detective in charge of Francis’s case was pretty incompetent. He might not have even tried that hard to find it,” Alex says. “Even Howard thinks that it is still here, so I think it must be true.”
“He didn’t say where?”
“No. I wish.” Alex wonders if Howard had been drinking when he drove up that night. She can imagine him parking out on the street and stumbling up the cobblestone drive, a flask tucked up his sleeve.
“How much time do you think we have?” Lucy asks nervously.
“If he left right after work? I don’t know, with traffic maybe three hours now?” Alex guesses. “But he could have ducked out earlier.”
Lucy looks anxiously at her phone. Alex can see the bubbles of texton the screen. She types something quickly on it and then presses the side, making the screen go dark. Alex has another pang of sympathy for her assistant. Here she is in the middle of nowhere with her boss instead of out somewhere with her friends. It’s hardly the thing a twentysomething wants to be doing on a summer evening.
“Thank you for driving, Lucy. I really appreciate you helping me with everything. I don’t think I could have gotten here without you.”
“It’s nothing, I wanted to. For Francis,” she says quickly, slipping the phone into her pocket. “Should we divide up again to cover more ground?”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Want to look and see if you find anything else in here and in the living room? I’m going to go look for her office.”
“Perfect.” Lucy seems more excited now about their mission. “We should keep the lights off or the neighbors might see us and call the cops.”
It’s true, Alex realizes. With the fading daylight they will have to be cautious and rely on their phones for light. As she steps back into the hall, she has another thought. “Oh, and Lucy, if you find the knife, definitely don’t touch it. You don’t want to get fingerprints on it.” Alex has only a vague idea of what happens when you turn something in to the police, but she has Raymond’s stern voice in her mind as she walks to the back of the house:Don’t mess with the evidence, Alexis.
Alex holds up her phone. The thin beam shines out onto a worn woven runner leading into the back of the house. She wonders where Francis was standing when she realized she was in danger. Was it here in the hall? Did she run? Or was someone waiting to surprise her? Perhaps she never saw it coming at all. An involuntary shudder jerks her shoulders. She swallows and forces herself farther into the house. It will be hard to find anything in an old house like this. Now that the light is almost gone it could be nearly impossible. Maybe this was a bad idea.
The hall opens into a modest-sized office room. It contains a wall of bookshelves and a desk that faces out toward a bank of windows overlooking the dark lawn. Under the deep blue of the sky, the ocean churns darkly. She sits down at Francis’s desk. It’s less grand than theone in her New York office, but what a view. It’s a small wooden desk with a row of drawers to one side. The wood is nicked and stained with rings from coffee mugs left to sit as she wrote.
Alex opens the drawers one by one. She finds the usual desk things inside, a jumble of pens and paper clips, some old bills. She finds a stack of letters with a rubber band around them. She flips through them, looking for her own, but none are familiar. The computer surprises her by humming to life when she bumps the mouse. There are no blinds or curtains covering the windows and Alex has a terrible feeling that someone is watching as she sits in front of it, the screen sending a haze of bright white light into the room. Surely the police have already looked through her computer.
The log-in to Francis’s email. Alex types in the log-in to her own email, an homage to her former self: LostGirl93. The screen refreshes. And she sees that it has been reset to her own and she watches with disappointment as her own inbox fills the screen. She logs back out and explores the desktop. It is a mess. But Francis has also saved things on this computer.
She drags the mouse over to the deleted files. The email at the very top is dated the seventh of October from Howard Demetri. That was easy.
“Oh my God. We’ve got him,” Alex mutters, clicking open the email. She leans in to read.
My Dearest Francis,
I know you didn’t want to talk to me today, but I need you to read this. Forgive me, but I know you have to, it is your sworn pledge, isn’t it? So, I can cross my fingers now and hope that you will continue to honor it. All I want is for you to hear me out for the length of this letter. I have always been better at writing than talking. You know that more than anyone. What I started to tell you at the bar before you ran away from me is this: I am going to leave Regina. This is not some grand gesture I’m making foryou alone. It is the last sane choice in an untenable situation. I have made mistakes. I know that what happened, what I have caused, willed to happen, was unfair to her, to you, to myself. But you know that my marriage was nearly arranged. It was one of complete convenience. I have never let myself love anyone until you came into my office. The moment you sat down in front of me for the interview all those years ago, it was the strangest feeling. Familiar, as though I was looking into a mirror. But I wasn’t seeing myself, I was seeing the potential of what life could be. It flashed before my eyes, and even then, I knew that I’d made a mistake. What you said about it being unfair to her is right. I live with the regret of what I’ve done to Regina, but I can’t live my life for her any longer.
It has been the honor of my life to spend twenty years with the woman I love just down the hall. I told myself it could be enough. But it isn’t. I ache for the moments we could have together. I used to think that this job alone could sustain me, could give me meaning that would make up for all the lies I told myself. But you’ve taught me better. I know that this can be us; I am done living a lie for a career. What does it mean in the end? What does any of it matter beyond being with your beloved one? I no longer care about anything else. I’ve already told her, Francis. It is done. I will meet you at the beach house. Please stay and wait for me there.
I love you.
Howard
Alex reads and rereads the words, staring and trying to make sense of them until the screen blurs in front of her. Howard was not trying to threaten Francis; he was professing his love to her. Why would he kill the woman he loves?
Alex’s image of Francis also crumbles. Despite what Jonathan told her, she has only ever believed that her idol could be perfect. Alex thinksof the indentation on Howard’s ring finger and of the anger radiating off Regina while they waited in his office.
All this time Alex has only imagined Francis in a supporting role in all the drama, an impartial bystander dragged into things against her will. But Francis wasn’t some unsuspecting innocent who stumbled upon an affair—she was the one having the affair herself. Francis wasn’t perfect. Not even close. The thought makes Alex sit back, a startled sort of relief in her limbs. She should have known that life is more complex, reality more bendable, than you can ever come to expect. If Francis wasn’t some saintly figure, maybe Alex doesn’t have to be either, she thinks, realizing that she doesn’t know Francis the way she thought she did. She doesn’t know her at all.
FORTY-SIX
Alex’s phone buzzes in her hand.Jonathan Amin.She rushes to answer it. “Jonathan, I’ve found something. Howard Demetri—”
Jonathan cuts her off. “Alex, listen to me for a minute. I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Alex asks, excitement still bubbling up in her chest as she scans the letter once more.
There’s a long, heavy breath into the receiver. “They’re here, in the office. They’ve come for him.”
