Page 41 of The Castaways
Figuring out exactly what had happened out on the water wasnoton this list. Naming Greg MacAvoy as Tess’s murderer wasnoton this list.
Addison had a hard time getting past Tess’s iPhone. He looked through the calls: all those calls from him, in addition to calls from Andrea, Delilah, Phoebe, Lisa Shumacher. And the text messages troubled him. The night before the sail, a Sunday night, a night when Addison knew Tess had been with the kids because Greg was singing at the Begonia, Phoebe had sent Tess a text message that said,I’ll be over in five minutes.
Addison did not remember Phoebe going over to Tess’s house or leaving home at all for any other reason. But Addison was having a hard time remembering that Sunday night in any detail. What had happened? Where had he been? Then he recalled the deal, the big deal, $9.2 million on Polpis Harbor, and he realized that he and Phoebe had eaten takeout Greek salads and then Addison had gone back into town to his office to write up the purchase-and-sale agreement. Furthermore, he remembered seeing both Greg’s car and Delilah’s car outside the Begonia, and he considered stopping in for a presigning, anticipatory celebratory drink, but he’d decided against it because he didn’t want to jinx himself. So Phoebe must have gone to Tess’s house while Addison was at the office.
He couldn’t keep himself from asking Phoebe about it. But he had to be casual. He did not want to raise any red flags. (Though really, he thought, it was impossible to raise any red flags with Phoebe. It was impossible to make her curious or suspicious. She simply did not care.)
He said, “Did you see Tess the night before she died?”
Phoebe was lying by the pool with a wet washcloth over her eyes. She kept half a dozen washcloths in a bucket of ice water by the side of her chaise.
She said, “I did.”
“Did you go to her house?”
“I did.”
He did not think she was being coy. She simply could not, in her drug-muddled state, bring herself to wonder why he was asking.
“What for?”
She sighed. “I needed to drop something off.”
“Oh, really?” Addison said. “What?”
“An anniversary present.” She removed the washcloth and squinted at him. “Do you think we should get a dog?”
“A dog?”
Washcloth discarded. There was a pile of warm, soggy wash-cloths by the side of the pool, which unsettled Addison in the way that used tissues or soiled sanitary napkins would. Phoebe wrung out a new icy cold washcloth and secured it over her eyes, just so.
“I wouldn’t be able to take care of it,” she said. “Maybe I’ll buy a dog for Domino. Do you think Ellen Paige would throw a fit?”
Addison was dying to revisit the anniversary present. Anniversary present? That didn’t sound right. Between the eight of them there was a rule about no gifts; they all strictly adhered to it.
“What was the present?” Addison asked.
Phoebe said, “She probably would. A dog is so much work. Maybe next year.”
Also in Tess’s text messages was the message she had sent him at 8:45 A.M.I’m afraid.
Addison only checked Tess’s outbox as a lark. Because what moldered in one’s outbox? Texts that were unfinished or unable to be sent. But Addison checked anyway, to be thorough—and there was a text that Tess had tried to send Addison three times. Eleven-oh-five, eleven forty-three, twelve-ten. During the sail. Before they capsized.
The text said,I’m afraid you won’t get it.
She was afraid he wouldn’t get what? She was afraid he wouldn’t get something, as in an object she had left behind for him? Or she was afraid he wouldn’t understand. Get what? Why she was going on this sail in the first place? (He in fact didn’t get it, though he pretended he did.) Or why she couldn’t tell Greg that she was in love with Addison? Or something else entirely? Wondering about this would drive him mad. He put the phone in his pocket with the two pieces of his felt heart.
The job of executor was overwhelming. Addison had to dismantle two lives, four lives, really, a family’s life, a home. He had the keys to the house; he could go over there anytime. But he made excuses. He wasn’t ready.
The Chief stopped into Addison’s office. This wasn’t exactly a big deal, because Wheeler Realty and the police station were only a block and a half away from each other.
The Chief said, “How’s it coming with the house?”
Addison fell back in his swivel chair. “It isn’t coming. I’ve been so busy.”
The Chief said, “That may be. But you have to think of the kids. They need closure.”
The Saturday after the Fourth of July, Phoebe announced she was going on a day sail with Swede and Jennifer on Hank’s boat. She had seen them at Caroline Masters’s party and they had invited her, as predicted. She accepted, she wanted to go, she knew Addison felt differently, she knew Addison didn’t want to sail again as long as he lived. So she was going alone.
