Woman in Black (40 page)

“I don't, but maybe it's time I took it up. On the other hand, you know the saying—you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I guess I'm pretty predictable that way. Some might say boring.”

“You? Hardly,” she scoffed.

“You should get out more. You're beginning to think like me.” His mouth curved in a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

“You're right, I should. Unfortunately, my free time is pretty limited these days.”

She spoke lightly so he wouldn't think she was complaining. The truth was that she wasn't entirely unhappy with her job. She found a kind of perverse pleasure in the aching of her muscles at the end of a hard day's work. She took pride, too, in how handy she'd become. The other day she'd fixed a toilet handle that was sticking, without any help from Karim. Knowing which canapés to serve at a party or the perfect gown to wear to a black-tie event wouldn't do her much good in the event of an actual Armageddon, but being resourceful just might.

“That will change,” he said. “Mark my words, you'll be moving on to better things before too long.” From the careful way he enunciated each word, Lila realized he was tipsy.

“Really? Do you know something I don't?” she said with a laugh.

Kent didn't answer. He didn't even appear to be listening. He stood gazing contemplatively out the window, taking slow sips of his drink. Briefly, she wondered where Abigail had gotten to. The last Lila had seen her, she'd been over by the tables where the items for the silent auction were on display (one of which was a dinner party for eight, to be catered by Abigail Armstrong Catering), a small crowd of adoring admirers gathered around her, hanging on her every word.

Abruptly, Kent turned to face her. “I'm going for a walk. Would you care to join me?”

It seemed more of an appeal than a request, so Lila said, “I'll get my coat.”

Minutes later, they were slipping out through a side entrance. Outside, it was deserted. They walked along the path to the marina, Lila, in her high heels, holding on to Kent's arm to maintain her footing on the icy paving stones. When they reached the gated entrance to the dock, Kent punched in the code on the keypad, and soon they were wandering along the floating pontoons, where boats of all shapes and sizes were moored, the planks beneath them swaying and creaking with their weight. Kent pointed out his sailboat, not the largest or the fanciest but certainly the most elegant, with its sleek lines, its teak siding and deck. A biting wind blew off the river, and instinctively she huddled closer to him, thinking nothing of it when he slipped an arm around her shoulders to warm her.

“Well, I think it's safe to say your events a success,” she remarked, glancing over her shoulder at the clubhouse, from which the sounds of music and merriment drifted. “As a veteran of many fund-raisers, I can honestly say I've never seen one more well attended. It looks as if half the town showed up.”

“Well, that's something, at least,” Kent replied, but his tone was lackluster.

“You don't sound too happy about it,” she observed.

“I'm pleased, of course. But happy? No, I'm not very happy at the moment.”

He looked so troubled that Lila was prompted to ask, “Do you feel like talking about it?”

Kent gave a deep sigh. “Not particularly. But, as it seems I'm not very good at keeping secrets, I have to tell someone, so it might as well be you.” He paused before going on. “I don't suppose it'll come as any surprise to you that Abby and I, despite our public image, aren't exactly the portrait of domestic bliss.” He spoke with an air of deep regret, which surprised her—from the way he acted around his wife, Lila wouldn't have guessed that he felt anything more than a distant affection for her. “I suppose she and I could have gone on this way for years. Probably we would have, knowing how much we both hate change. Only, you see, I've met someone.”

Lila thought once more of Vaughn's earlier warning. So Abigail's husband
was
in love with another woman. Only that woman wasn't her. She felt relief wash over her, followed closely by concern for Kent. If he was having an affair, it clearly wasn't all satin sheets and champagne.

“Is she someone you've known long?” she asked.

He nodded. “She's the mother of one of my patients—an eight-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis. Joey's in and out of the hospital all the time, as you might imagine, so she and I … well, we've gotten to know each other through the years. It was only recently, though, with this last crisis of Joey's, that …” He gave a small shrug. “We've been seeing each other a little over four months now.”

“Is it serious?”

“Very.”

“And I gather she feels the same way about you?”

“Oh, yes.” His face lit up. “She's amazing, Lila. Beautiful. Smart. And so brave. She never lets on to Joey how scared she is of losing him. And she's handling it all alone. Her husband walked out on her not long after Joey was diagnosed. She's been divorced for the past seven years. If I weren't married myself …” He let the sentence trail off, the light fading from his eyes.

An image rose in Lila's mind of Abigail's tired, pinched face on the evenings she dragged home late from work. Lila felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy for her. “What are you going to do?” she asked with some trepidation.

“I suppose I'll have to tell Abby at some point, before she finds out on her own,” he said. “Frankly, I'm more concerned about Phoebe. She's having a tough enough time as it is. She didn't get into Princeton, did I tell you? It was a big disappointment, to say the least. Something like this … it could cause her to become unglued.” He heaved another sigh, gazing out over the water, which glittered with tiny knife points of reflected light. “God, what a mess.”

“Phoebe has Neal, at least.” Lila's tone was less than reassuring, for she felt a flutter of uneasiness at the thought of her son and Phoebe becoming even more entwined. Neal's recent behavior had made her wonder if they were only feeding off each other's misery. “Anyway, you shouldn't let that stop you. If you're this miserable, you're not going to be able to make anyone else happy, least of all Abby.”

“You're right. It's just that I—oh, Christ.” He gave a strangled sob, his arm dropping from her shoulder as he reached up to cover his face.

Lila, acting on instinct, put her arms around him to console him. She was holding Kent, stroking his back and murmuring words of comfort, when a familiar voice leaped out of the darkness.

“You! I should have known.”

Lila jerked around to find Abigail poised at the other end of the dock, silhouetted against the moorings, the boats rocking gently as if with some unseen turbulence while she stood still as a stanchion. When she finally moved forward into the glow from the sodium arc lights that illuminated the marina's perimeter, Lila saw that she wasn't wearing her coat, just a thin pashmina shawl, which she clutched tightly about her shoulders as she shivered convulsively.

“Oh, I had my suspicions,” she went on, her eyes narrowing as they fixed on Lila. “But I couldn't believe even
you
would go that far. You wouldn't steal my husband after you'd already stolen my
life
. Well, clearly I was wrong. You
are
the snake in the grass I always knew you to be.”

“It's not what you think,” Lila said, feeling the blood rush up into her face. “We were … I was only trying to …” She stopped herself before she could reveal Kent's secret.

But Kent murmured, “It's all right, Lila. She would have found out anyway.” As he stepped forward, Lila was struck by the expression of eerie calm on his face, as if after all the agony of struggling to come to this decision, it was a relief to have had it made for him. She watched him walk over to where Abigail stood and take hold of her arm, not without tenderness. Abigail tried to tug it away, but he only tightened his grip, saying, “We need to talk, Abby. Alone.”

14

Lila let herself in through the back door. The house was silent. Kent must have dropped Abigail off, then left—his Mercedes wasn't in the garage—and there was no sign of either Neal or Phoebe. Lila wasn't even sure what
she
was doing here. Instinct alone had caused her to seek Abigail out in the wake of the dreadful scene at the marina. Past hurts and present injuries had all faded into oblivion at the sight of her childhood friend's pale, stricken face. Whatever her sins, whatever Lila had done to her, Abigail was a woman whose husband had just confessed to an affair.

How could Lila
not
reach out to her?

She dropped her jacket and keys onto the bench in the mudroom before making her way into the kitchen. It was dark, the only illumination the glow from the outdoor lights, which were rigged to a motion detector that had been tripped when she'd walked up the path; that and the little red light blinking on the answering machine by the phone. The only sounds were the muted hum of the Sub-Zero and the ticking of the antique wall clock over the breakfast nook.

She moved into the hallway beyond, calling, “Abigail?”

No answer. The only response was a halfhearted bark from upstairs. She looked up to find Brewster on the landing above, ears pricked as he investigated the source of this intrusion on his nap. When he saw that it was only she, his tail began to wag, and he yawned and tottered back to his doggie bed.

Lila did a quick search of the downstairs before concluding that Abigail must be up in her room. Even so, she hesitated before starting up the staircase. Suppose Abigail was asleep? She didn't want to disturb her.

Lila was quick to dismiss the idea. Given Abigail's likely state of mind, what were the chances of that? Also, when had she ever seen Abigail so much as put her feet up? Even late at night, Lila was used to seeing the light burning in Abigail's second-floor study, often until well past midnight. And in the mornings, she was always the first one up, usually while it was still dark out. She was like some nocturnal creature in constant, restless motion.

As Lila mounted the stairs, she caught the faint scent of the furniture polish she used to polish the banister—once a week, like clockwork. For some reason, it only heightened her anxiety. Then she remembered: On the morning of the day that Gordon had taken his own life, she'd polished the woodwork throughout the apartment (partly because it had been something to keep her mind off her husband's looming incarceration and partly because she hadn't been able to bear the thought of the new owners' snidely remarking that, for all the money she'd squandered, she hadn't kept the place up), and the same lemony scent had been in the air then. The memory caused something to lurch inside her chest.

In the darkened hallway on the floor above, she could see a pale shaft of light angling from the open door to the master bedroom. “Abigail?” she called again, with trepidation this time.

No answer.

An image reared in her mind, like a spooky shadow on the wall of a haunted house, of her husband sprawled lifeless on the floor in his study, his head resting in a pool of congealing blood.

But Abigail would never—
would she?

The mere thought was enough to make Lila's heart momentarily stutter to a standstill.

The first thing she noticed as she stepped into the master bedroom were the clothes scattered over the floor—the midnight-blue Elie Tahari sheath Abigail had worn tonight, a pair of smoke-colored pantyhose squiggled like graffiti over the cream carpet, a trail of lacy undergarments. And there, lying facedown on the king-sized bed that Lila so meticulously made each morning—with hand-embroidered Burano sheets, pale gold Pratesi coverlet and matching shams, the cashmere throw folded at the foot, and pillows in various shapes and sizes—lay the wreck formerly known as Abigail Armstrong, wrapped in an old tartan robe, with her head buried in a pillow.

“I suppose you've come to gloat.” Her muffled voice rose from the depths of the pillow. One bare foot dangled off the edge of the mattress. The shoes she'd worn to the party, a pair of black Prada high heels, lay toppled on the floor beside the bed like evidence in a crime scene.

Lila sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress. “Actually, I came to see if you were all right.”

Abigail rolled onto her back to glare up at Lila with swollen, bloodshot eyes. “Do I
look
all right?”

“I've seen you look better,” Lila had to admit.

Abigail sat up, propping herself against the padded headboard and pulling a small satin pillow onto her lap, like a small child reaching for a stuffed animal. Her hair was sticking out all over her head in messy clumps, as if she had repeatedly raked her fingers through it. Her face was puffy and blotched from crying. “Tell me, and I want an honest answer: Did you know all along?” she demanded, her red-rimmed eyes fixing on Lila like a pair of heat-seeking missiles.

Lila replied honestly, “No. I only found out tonight. That's what we were doing out on the dock. He needed someone to talk to … and I just happened to be available. It's not like we were in cahoots.”

Abigail glared at her. “No?”

“I swear to you, Abby.”

Abigail glared at her a moment longer, then sighed. “Either way, I suppose you're on
his
side.”

“I'm not on anyone's side. As far as I can see, there
are
no sides. Just two unhappy people.”

“One of whom is going to be a miserable son of a bitch once my lawyer gets through with him,” Abigail growled, her face contorting in fury.

“Do you really want to go that route?” Lila spoke in a calm, reasoning tone, as if to a child having a tantrum. “If you don't care about Kent, think what that would do to Phoebe.”

Abigail's face crumpled in misery, and a tear rolled down one cheek. “I just wish I knew what went wrong. I mean, I've known for a while that things haven't been right between us, but I never thought …” She gave a small, tremulous smile. “It wasn't always like this, you know. Believe it or not, there was a time we were crazy about each other. I always thought we could get back to the way it was when we were first married, if only I could—” She broke off, as if suddenly becoming aware of who it was to whom she was baring her soul, and her expression hardened. “I don't know why I'm telling you this. You probably think it's all
my
fault. That I'm the bitch who got what she deserved.”