Archie saw splinters of images. Star coming down the stairs. A gargoyle on top of a lamppost. Leo washing blood off his hands. Then he had a flash of body memory—Leo’s arm around his neck, the pressure of Leo’s palm pressed against the back of his skull. Leo had choked him.

Archie worked backward. Trying to puzzle it out. He saw Leo’s face, talking to him; the urgency in his eyes. He was trying to tell him something important.

Susan.

Susan was on the island.

Archie turned and started clawing his way up the mud embankment.

Chapter 16

CHAPTER

16

Susan yawned and turned the page of the Town & Country magazine that she was reading for the fourth time. She didn’t feel so elegant anymore. Her makeup had dried to a cakey mask that felt like it cracked when she smiled. The fabric of the gold dress stuck to the stubble on her legs, and her armpits were sore where the bodice had chafed her raw. She snuck a glance at Jack Reynolds. He was sitting behind his desk with his tie unknotted and a cup of coffee next to him, reading that day’s New York Times and looking like the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine. A housekeeper had brought the paper a half hour ago, along with a copy of The Wall Street Journal and a cup of coffee. No Herald, Susan couldn’t help but notice. He probably read it online.

He hadn’t said a word to her for the last hour. He hadn’t even offered her a section of the paper.

The coffee smelled good.

Cooper was sitting in one of the chairs that faced Jack’s desk, not really doing anything. He hadn’t been doing anything for hours, which made Susan bored even to watch, but seemed to suit Cooper just fine. Susan, meanwhile, had read The Economist, two issues of Palm Beach Illustrated, and something called the Robb Report. The Town & Country wasn’t actually that bad. Who knew that Christie Brinkley’s Hamptons remodel had been such a trial? Susan felt bad for her.

The phone on Jack Reynolds’s desk rang. Susan noticed that he let it ring exactly twice, even though he was sitting right there. He picked it up, listened, and then said, “Let him in.”

Susan put the magazine down. She had been in that room waiting for Leo to take her home for over four hours. It was about fucking time. The truth was she didn’t feel bad for Christie Brinkley at all. She felt bad for Leo, whose boyfriend stock was currently tanking, and to whom she planned to give the talking-to of a lifetime. She searched the floor for her shoes and put them on, and picked up the paper shopping bag that held her street clothes and purse.

When the door to the office opened, she was ready to go.

But it wasn’t Leo who walked in.