Riptide (2 page)

As rehab directors went, Christina thought, this guy was Elvis.

But he didn’t look happy. He just stood there, gripping the doorknob with one hand.

Even Peter just stared.

Nobody interrupted Peter’s group while it was in session. Nobody. The room always had gallons of coffee brewing, plus enough boxes of Kleenex to bail the
Titanic.
But how these things got here and when, Christina had no idea.

“Peter. Now, please.” The director cocked his head in the direction of the hallway.

“I’m sorry.” Peter’s frown deepened, and he set his styrofoam cup down so hard it landed with a splash. “We’re in session.” His warm soft therapy tone was gone. His voice held a This-Is-My-Turf-Get-Out kind of edge, and for the first time Christina could see how Drinking Peter had a mouth that landed him in jail in his bad old days.

“Sorry.” The director gave a quick nod of apology but pressed on. “I have something urgent to discuss with you. Now.”

Peter looked really pissed off, like he was considering telling his big boss to get lost, but he must have thought better of it because he literally chewed his lip instead. “Take five, guys,” he said to the room in general, then, to Christina, “hold that thought, Christina, okay? We’ll pick it up in a minute.”

Christina nodded, pretty certain they would not. Her moment had passed, or was passing before her eyes. She shrugged, became aware of the director’s eyes on her, and glanced up.

Their gaze locked for a couple of seconds, no more. Long enough for her to read something there. Curiosity, and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Something that didn’t match up with the I’m-Okay-You’re-Okay therapy face that was a job requirement around here.

The moment passed. Peter was already on his feet, out the door.

The room let out its collective breath when they had gone. People stretched, made small talk, got up for another cup of coffee. Like a union shift on break.

Except it didn’t last as long.

Peter was back in less than five minutes. “Christina? Will you come with me, please? Next door.”

Everyone looked at Christina and got quiet again, even the loud-mouthed bartender from Manhattan who dreamed of doing stand-up.

Christina was being called to the principal’s office, and it didn’t feel any better than she remembered from school.

Sylphan gave a thumbs-up.

Peter stood back to let Christina pass.

“This way, Christina.” He motioned that she should
go to where the director waited at the entrance to another, smaller conference room down the hall.

It had the feel of a Cold War prisoner exchange. Christina wondered what they’d do if she bolted for the exit sign at the end of the long hallway. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Elvis, the Rehab King, sprinting very far. But Peter the Ex-Con was coiled and ready to pounce. Christina did as she was told.

“I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” Peter said. He did not smile.

She wondered if they were kicking her out, if there was a problem with her health insurance. In which case Jason could wire the money, cover it till they worked it out. He’d be pissed, Christina thought. But too bad. He had paid cash at the Storm dealership in Southampton when he had his mind set on a brand-new BMW roadster last fall, so he could wire money here to cover her treatment.

Christina wanted to stay for the full sixty days. This realization startled her. She hadn’t admitted it even to herself till now. She couldn’t go back to that life. She wanted a chance at a new start.

Elvis the Rehab King moved away, giving Christina plenty of space to pass through the doorway into a small conference room set up with a table and Aeron chairs.

Someone had thought to set the table with several tiny paper cups full of water and a box of Kleenex tissues.

“Have a seat.” He did not meet her gaze.

Christina was getting a bad vibe.

She sat.

He pulled out one of the chairs near her but not directly next to her. “Christina Cardiff.”

She nodded. This fact was well within his reach. They had all been photographed and fingerprinted at check-in. Not to mention he had obviously just sent Peter in to collect her.

“Your primary residence is in Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue, is that correct?”

She nodded.

“And you have a second home on Long Island?”

“Yes.”

“And that would be?” He let his voice trail off so she could supply the information.

“East Hampton. Only during the summer.” They had a place in Aspen, but that was in her in-laws’ name.

“Right.” He gave another quick nod but did not check her answers against the paperwork in his folder, nor did he jot anything down using his Mont Blanc pen.

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Christina folded her arms across the thin silk mesh of her T-shirt. “Is there a problem with my health insurance?”

“No,” he answered quickly. “No, your insurance has processed the claim, and there is no problem with it. Everything is fine there.”

He was stalling. He cleared his throat and reached for one of the tiny paper cups. He emptied it in a single gulp.

The Rehab King was nervous. The clarity of this realization caught Christina off guard. The fact that she noticed anything about him at all was out of character for her. Christina was not one to read other people’s moods. Correction, she thought: Drunk Christina didn’t notice other people’s moods. Sober, Nervous,
Jittery, Jumping-Out-of-Her-Skin Christina noticed lots of things about other people.

Such as the way Rehab King was unfurling the top of his Dixie cup and shredding it into tiny pieces.

And then she understood.

This man, who had amassed a fortune telling other people how to get through the worst moments of their lives, wished he were someplace else at that moment.

Because he knew something she didn’t know.

Something bad. Something seriously awful, life-changing bad.

Christina felt the prick of a thousand tiny toothpicks on the move, fanning out across her shoulders, down her back and along her arms.

A tiny marching Army of Doom.

Outside, the fescue lawn crisped under a blazing sun.

Inside, the room turned airless and cold, like the inside of a refrigerator.

Christina shivered.

The Rehab King saw it and leapt to his feet. “Let me lower the fan. Sometimes it’s difficult to regulate the temperature in these smaller rooms.”

She gripped the edge of the polished mahogany table so hard her hands hurt. “What’s wrong?”

Careful not to look her way, he hunched low over the air-conditioning controls. “Some of these smaller rooms get way too cold in summer, and they overheat in winter.”

“What is it?” Christina’s voice rose.

Peter entered the room. He glanced from Christina to his boss, then back again, carefully closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry,” he said, the expression on his face even more mournful than usual.

Rehab King shook his head, embarrassed. “She doesn’t…I mean, I didn’t…” his voice trailed off.

Men are cowards, Christina thought. She was on her feet without knowing how she got there. “What is it?” She directed her question at Peter.

He blinked. “Christina, I’m sorry. I have bad news. Please sit down.”

“No.” Edging back, Christina raised one hand in protest, as if she could stop whatever this was from happening if she could just keep the words from leaving Peter’s mouth.

“Christina, I need you to stay calm now and be strong.”

Something like the claw of a Tonka truck but bigger, went to work on her insides, scraping out everything between her shoulders and knees.

Peter’s words floated past her with no weight, as Christina’s gut rearranged itself around the hole left behind by the claw.

“No, no.” She stood, not moving as a series of images, each more terrible than the last, flashed through her mind like static. “No.” She was shrieking now.

The Rehab King flinched. He pressed himself as far back as he could against the console near the windows.

Peter, to his credit, held his ground. The look in his eyes, normally gooey with compassion, had solidified. “Sit down,” he ordered.

Christina sat.

Lowering himself quickly into the chair next to hers, he cut right to the chase. “I’m sorry, we have received very bad news about your husband, Jason.”

It isn’t Tyler. My son. Tyler’s okay. It isn’t Tyler, or he would have said Tyler’s name. He was talking about
Jason, not Tyler. They didn’t call me in here with news about Tyler.

“Tyler?” The act of speaking her son’s name out loud took away whatever was holding her head up, and Christina fell forward on the chair.

The room went dim, buzzing with a crazy hum.

Peter’s voice had an urgent tone that was too loud.

He was scared, too.

“Your son is fine.” Peter grabbed Christina’s hand. “Tyler is okay. He’s fine, safe and sound.”

“You’re sure?” Her voice was reedy and tinny and far away, like an old phonograph recording. She was going into shock at this moment but, like everything else surrounding this event in her life, it was a label that would not come to her until much later.

“Tyler is fine,” Peter repeated. “Safe with your in-laws in France.”

Relief splashed through her veins like a neap tide in spring, flooding her heart and filling her ears with sound. She barely heard what he said next.

“This is about your husband, Christina. Jason went for a swim in the pool of your East Hampton home sometime during the night. He experienced some difficulty swimming, and he drowned.”

Jason never went in the pool at night. Christina frowned.

“Apparently your husband had been entertaining some guests in the home earlier in the night.” Peter shifted in his seat, looked away.

That bitch.
Christina nearly blurted the words out loud. Jason had a girlfriend. Lisa, from the Upper West Side. Christina had caught a glimpse of her once. She stared at the thin film of dust motes on the
polished surface of the table. This room didn’t get much use.

Peter met her gaze once more. “After the guests left, your husband went for a swim. The cleaning crew came in this morning…” His voice faded.

No doubt trying to spare Christina the images that were tumbling through her mind.

The counselor tightened his grip on Christina’s hand. “The housekeepers noticed something was amiss shortly after they began work, and they immediately alerted the authorities.”

The head housekeeper, Señora Rosa, was in her sixties. Tight-lipped, with a ruby-encrusted crucifix on a thick chain of gold that she wore around her neck. Her niece, Marisol, was sullen and beautiful and wore her hair in a black braid. She sent money back to Costa Rica to provide for a son with special needs. The pair worked in silence, mainly, and could be moved to tears on an average day.

The pool on Jonah’s Path had just been redone, lined with tiles that had been hand-fired in Milan and shipped airfreight. They had installed an underwater stereo system and state-of-the-art lighting system that was radio-controlled.

The lighting system used some kind of high-tech diodes that operated on a sensor. As soon as anyone jumped in the pool at night, lights would pop on in red, green, blue, or yellow.

Christina blinked.

Peter massaged her hand.

A warning flare fired down in the deepest dark core of Christina’s being, emitting a flash of white heat.

Dan on a ladder, paintbrush in hand, stopping long
enough to do something obscene with his tongue that only Christina could see. Jason, oblivious at her side, discussing options for a stucco finish with the contractor.

“Your husband doesn’t have a clue,” Dan whispered later, his breath tickling the place he had just licked inside Christina’s ear. “He doesn’t appreciate what he has.”

The warning flare burned itself out, leaving only a trace of doubt behind in Christina’s panicked mind, lingering no longer than a wisp of sulfur.

Sulfur.

Satan’s calling card.

Christina sniffed. Her shoulders hunched, and her neck muscles constricted in a small movement that was, in certain people, an involuntary reaction to guilt.

Peter patted her knee.

Across the table, the Rehab King finally pulled out an Aeron chair and sat.

Nobody said anything.

Christina’s mind, greedy now for reassurance, raced to Dan. She pictured his face with its stubble of five o’clock shadow, his musky scent, and the bruising weight of his lips on hers. But the staff here would not have interrupted the residents’ morning group therapy session to bring her news of Daniel Cunningham. Nobody knew of her connection to him. She was not Dan’s next of kin. He was a paint-and-plaster guy who worked for a contractor who had been hired to renovate the pool area of the Cardiffs’ summer home.

Nobody knew Daniel Cunningham was Christina’s lover.

If something bad had happened to Dan somehow, she would hear of it only as an afterthought. It would
be a footnote to the shitty news Peter was telling her, brought up only after Peter was certain she had absorbed the news about Jason.

Christina couldn’t wait that long. “Was anyone else…” Christina allowed her voice to trail off, hoping it sounded like a random expression of concern.

“No. Your husband was alone in the house.” Peter kept his gaze steady, but his crow’s-feet deepened.

She nodded, hugging her arms across her chest to try to stop shaking.

The Rehab King broke his silence at last. “We’re all very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Cardiff.”

Loss.
Her
loss. Except her husband hadn’t belonged to her. The marriage had been a fake front for a long time, but the Rehab King’s words placed a terrible burden of ownership on her.

Christina blinked.

Jason, her husband of nearly sixteen years, who had cheated on her beginning with their first married Valentine’s Day, when she was pregnant with Tyler, was dead.

Which made her a widow.

A widow who stood to inherit approximately one million dollars for each and every year she had been married.