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  So her mother really was dead, she thought, kneeling down and running her fingers against the chiseled stone. Dead at age sixty-three. Jane’s fingers probed the deep lines of the letters. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headstone, cool despite the morning heat, longing for her mother to reach up from beneath the grave and draw her down beside her, comfort and reassure her, never let her go.

  DIED JUNE 12, 1989, Jane thought, opening her eyes, and staring at the letters, making sure she was reading them correctly. But she had found herself walking the streets of Boston on June the eighteenth, a week later than the one-year anniversary. What did that mean?

  Michael had said she was very insistent about visiting the cemetery on the exact anniversary of her mother’s death, that she wouldn’t even wait for the weekend so that he might join her. That meant either that she had disappeared a full week earlier than Michael had claimed or that he had simply been using her mother’s tragic death as a convenient springboard for the rest of his lies.

  Jane looked toward the grave on her right, holding her breath, releasing it only after she absorbed the stranger’s name: KAREN LANDELLA. BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVING GRANDMOTHER AND GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. BORN FEBRUARY 17, 1900. DIED APRIL 27, 1989. LOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HER. Uttering a silent prayer, Jane slowly turned her head to her left, her eyes digesting the words inscribed: WILLIAM BESTER, LOVING HUSBAND, BELOVED FATHER, GRANDFATHER AND BROTHER. BORN JULY 22, 1921, DIED JUNE 5, 1989. SORELY MISSED.

  “Where’s Emily?” she asked, barely able to speak.

  Michael helped Jane to her feet. He was silent for several seconds, then turned, walking quickly among the rows of silent tombs. Jane had to force herself to follow him, afraid to look in either direction, terrified that she might see her daughter’s name carved into one of these cold pieces of stone. Was it possible that all her suspicions were mere delusions, that Emily was really here?

  “Michael?” she asked, stopping, supporting her weight against a tall gray monument, her knees knocking together more from fear than fatigue. Her eyes finished the question: Where is she? How much farther to go?

  “Emily’s not here,” he said after a lengthy pause, and Jane had to grab the top of the tombstone with both hands to keep from collapsing.

  “Not here?”

  “We had her cremated.”

  “Cremated?”

  “You couldn’t bear the thought of putting her in the ground,” he said, and his voice broke, making it impossible for him to continue for several seconds. “You were very adamant about it. So, we had her cremated, then scattered her ashes in the harbor at Woods Hole.”

  “Woods Hole?”

  “By my parents’ cottage.” He looked into the sun, then down at his feet. “Emily always loved it there.”

  Jane allowed herself to be drawn into Michael’s arms, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart, wondering whether he could sense the urgency beating in hers. Was he telling her the truth? Was it possible for anyone to lie this easily, this callously? Could he arrange his emotions as easily as he could rearrange facts? What kind of monster was she embracing?

  She remembered the nightmare she had had on her first night back home: She and Michael poised at the edge of a large open field filled with poisonous snakes. She had turned to him for help only to find he had been replaced by a giant cobra. She shivered, felt Michael tighten his embrace.

  Someone is walking over my grave, she thought.

  “I think you should lie down for a while,” he said, assisting her up the stairs.

  “Is it time for my medication yet?” Jane asked, following him into their bedroom and sitting at the edge of the bed.

  Michael checked his watch. “Half an hour. Why?”

  “I thought maybe I could have it now. I’m feeling very low and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  He bent over and kissed her forehead. “I don’t think half an hour would do any harm.” He pulled his shirt, sweat-stained from the heat, over his head, and dropped it in the clothes hamper on the way to his study. Jane watched his slender torso disappear down the hall, trying to corral her thoughts into a definite plan. Whatever she intended to do, she had better do it fast. She wouldn’t have a lot of time.

  Think, she admonished her addled brain. What are you going to do?

  The first thing she had to do, she realized, hearing Michael going through his doctor’s bag, was get in touch with Anne Halloren-Gimblet. Jane looked at the antique white-and-gold phone on the night table beside their bed. Sometime in the past few weeks, Michael had grown secure enough to return it to its rightful place. Whatever she did, she had to make sure that he stayed secure, that she did nothing to arouse his suspicions. Going to the cemetery had been risky enough. But she had played her part beautifully on the drive home, pretending not to have noticed the discrepancy in dates, bemoaning the fate of their beautiful child, crying on cue, blaming herself over and over, apologizing for the mess she had made of their lives, permitting him to shine in his starring role of understanding saint.

  She watched Michael emerge from his study and walk toward her, his chest bare, shoulders slightly stooped. Could this handsome man, this revered mender of little children, really be so diabolical as to try to rob her of both her daughter and her sanity? Was it possible? Why? What did she know? Goddamnit, what had she found out, only to block out?

  “Here,” he said, coming back into the room and standing over her. She took the pills from the palm of his hand and popped them into her mouth while he went to get her a glass of water.

  As soon as he left her side, she spit the pills into her hand and dropped them into the breast pocket of the white T-shirt she was wearing. Michael was back at her side almost immediately, standing so that his hips were level with her head. Taking the glass from his hand, she mimed swallowing the pills, then returned the glass to him, expecting his retreat. But instead, he stayed where he was, swaying slightly in front of her. Suddenly his hand was in her hair and he was pulling her head gently toward him, so that the side of her mouth brushed against the front of his pants. He groaned.

  “Oh, Michael,” she whispered, “I don’t think I can. I’m so tired.”

  “It’s okay,” he was saying. “It’ll be okay.” His hands moved to the bottom of her T-shirt.

  “No,” she protested weakly as he pulled it over her head.

  “It’s okay, Jane,” he repeated. “Everything will be all right.” He tossed her shirt to the floor, lowering himself to his knees and kissing her bare breasts. A small cry escaped Jane’s lips as she saw one of the pills tumble out of the pocket of her T-shirt and roll to a stop a short distance away from Michael’s feet. “It’s okay, darling,” he whispered, mistaking her cry for passion, and easing her back so that she was lying down and he was lying beside her.

  This can’t be happening, Jane thought as he removed the rest of her clothing, then his, guiding her hand where he wanted it to go. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch. “That’s right,” he was saying, “touch me there. That’s right. You’re doing just fine.” Jane felt him prod her legs apart, felt him enter her, move gently back and forth inside her. This isn’t happening, she thought, denying the weight of his body on hers. This isn’t happening.

  He kissed the sides of her face, her eyes, her mouth, her neck, the tops of her breasts, all the while pushing back and forth into her. His strokes gradually grew more insistent, less gentle, almost harsh. He began pounding into her, his body slapping angrily against hers. And then she felt his hand at her head again, except that this time any pretense of gentleness was gone. His fist yanked at her hair so hard that her head was lifted off the pillow, forcing her eyes open. He was staring at her with a look of pure rage. “Damn you,” he cursed, as his body shuddered to a climax. “Damn you for what you’ve done.”

  Jane’s first thought was that he had seen the pills tumble out of her pocket, knew she had deliberately deceived him, but he pulled out of her and disappeared into the bat
hroom without once looking at the floor. She immediately catapulted off the bed and flung the pills beneath it, then fell back against her pillow, gasping for air. Her head spun; the room danced. It was several seconds before everything settled and she heard the shower running in the bathroom.

  “Now!” she said out loud, needing to hear her voice, to reassure herself that what was happening was real, not some awful nightmare, not another insane flash from the past. She grabbed the phone and quickly dialed 411, waiting for the operator’s voice.

  “What city please?”

  “Newton,” Jane whispered, hearing Michael in the shower. She’d try Newton first. It stood to reason that if Anne Halloren-Gimblet’s daughter attended Arlington Private School, she probably lived in the area.

  “Name, please.”

  “Halloren-Gimblet. With a hyphen.” Jane pronounced the name carefully, then spelled it, all the while keeping her eyes glued to the bathroom door, her ears tuned to the sound of the shower.

  “Do you have an address?”

  “No. But there can’t be very many.”

  “I have no listing for anyone of that name.”

  “You have to.”

  “I can try the new listings, if you’d like.”

  “All right. Wait—wait—”

  “Yes?”

  “Try Gimblet,” Jane suggested.

  “Do you have a first initial?”

  “No.” Damn this woman, Jane thought, then heard Michael’s voice, “Damn you,” he had said. “Damn you for what you’ve done.” What did he mean? If her daughter was still alive, then what exactly had she done?

  “I have that number for you,” the operator said before being replaced by the automatic voice of a computer.

  “The number is five five five—six one one seven,” the computer told her in cheery, even tones, then repeated the information as Jane committed the numbers to memory.

  She concentrated all her energy on dialing the correct number, ignoring the stickiness between her legs, the throbbing at the side of her temple where Michael had grabbed a fistful of her hair. Why had he chosen now, of all times, to make love to her? He hadn’t touched her in weeks. Why now? Had his grief overwhelmed his better judgment? Had he simply needed to be with her? Was he as confused as she was?

  Was he saying good-bye?

  The phone was ringing. She held it tight against her ear, convinced that Michael would be able to hear it above the running of the water. “Please answer,” she whispered into the receiver. “Please answer quickly.”

  The phone kept ringing. Three rings, four, then five.

  “Anne Halloren-Gimblet, please be home.”

  But if she was home, she wasn’t answering her phone. Seven rings, eight, then nine. On the tenth ring, Jane dropped the receiver into its carriage, conceding defeat. She’d have to try again later.

  Suddenly, she lunged forward, almost knocking the phone from the table in the process, and grabbing the receiver to her ear, redialing 411.

  “What city, please.”

  “Newton. The name is Gimblet. G-i-m-b-l-e-t. Can you tell me if the correct address is Fifteen Forest Street?”

  “I show no one by that name on Forest Street,” the operator told her, as Jane had known she would. Fifteen Forest Street was the address of Michael and Jane Whittaker. “I have a Gimblet at One twelve Roundwood.”

  “That’s it. Thank you.” Jane almost kissed the receiver before dropping it back into its carriage. Her hand was still on the phone when she became aware the water from the shower had stopped running. How long ago? Had Michael come out of the shower in time to hear her on the phone, overhear what she had said?

  Her hand jumped from the phone as if she had just touched something hot. She quickly crawled beneath the covers and gathered the comforter around her, closing her eyes as the bathroom door opened and Michael emerged.

  She felt him approach the side of the bed, his body still damp as he leaned forward and pushed some stray hairs away from her forehead. “Sleep well, darling,” he said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  JANE lay awake all night, counting the hours till morning. When Michael got out of bed at six-thirty, she feigned sleep, debating whether to try Anne Halloren-Gimblet’s number again while he was in the shower, then rejecting the idea as being unnecessarily risky. She had the woman’s address. After Michael left, she would somehow escape Paula’s watchful eye and make her way over to Roundwood. She’d worry about exactly how when the time came.

  “Jane,” Michael was saying, and she realized with a mixture of dismay and alarm that she must have dozed off. “I’m going to the hospital now. Paula’s downstairs. She’ll bring you your breakfast and your medication in a few minutes.”

  She nodded, pretending to be too sleepy to open her eyes, peering at him through mere slits.

  “I’m in surgery all day,” he was telling her, “but I’ve made an appointment for us to see a Dr. Louis Gurney at the Edward Gurney Institute at five-thirty this afternoon. Jane, can you hear me?”

  She mumbled something she hoped was sufficiently incoherent, but her heart was racing. The Edward Gurney Institute was a private psychiatric hospital a good two-hour drive away.

  “I’ve asked Paula to help you pack some things, in case Dr. Gurney wants you to stay a few days. Jane, do you hear me?”

  “I’m supposed to pack,” she muttered, not lifting her head from the pillow.

  “No, Paula will do the packing. You might just want to suggest what you’d like to take.” He bent over and kissed the side of her cheek. “I’ve scheduled my surgery back-to-back so that I can be home early to take you there myself.”

  “Have a good day,” Jane told him with exaggerated awkwardness, following him with her eyes as he walked to the bedroom door. Hell, she thought, two can play this game. “I love you,” she called weakly after him, watching him come to an abrupt halt.

  What are you feeling right now? she demanded silently. How does it make you feel when the woman you’ve turned into a zombie with your drugs and your lies, the woman you’re planning to lock away in some private psychiatric hospital miles away from anywhere and anyone, tells you that she loves you? Does it make you feel sad or does it make you feel smug? Does it make you feel anything at all?

  Michael turned around, returning to the bed and resting on one knee, burying his head against the tangles of her hair. “I love you, too,” he said, and Jane felt his tears drop against her cheek. “I’ve always loved you.”

  In the next instant, he was gone, and Paula was at her side.

  “Ready for your breakfast?”

  Jane propped herself up in bed, staring at the dour young woman and wondering what exactly her role was in all this. Was she an unwitting dupe or a willing accomplice? Jane opted for the unwitting dupe, sensing that the girl simply believed whatever Michael told her, did whatever he asked. In that way, Paula was really no different from anyone else. Whenever Michael spoke, everyone listened. Everyone believed. He was the man, after all; she, the little woman. He was the respected surgeon; she was his hot-tempered wife, forever chasing causes, unhinged by a tragic accident that had taken place over a year ago, not yet recovered. Poor Jane. Poor Michael. It would be better for everyone concerned if she were placed in the Gurney Institute, where she’d no doubt get the care she deserved.

  Would she? Would she get what she deserved? Or would Michael?

  “I’m not very hungry,” Jane told Paula. “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “Michael said no coffee today.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said orange juice is better for you.”

  “All right. Orange juice,” Jane agreed, her mind already on other things. “I was wondering if you could bring in a straight-backed chair from the other room. My back’s been killing me.”

  “I guess that can be arranged.”

  Paula swiveled on her heel and left the room, her beige skirt spinning after her, her long braid bouncing as she walked. Jane swung
her feet out of bed, noted she was wearing one of Michael’s old shirts, vaguely recalling Michael having slipped it over her shoulders sometime last night. It frightened her that even though she hadn’t taken any medication in twenty-four hours, it was obviously still very much present in her system, that she had to wage a constant battle against the lethargy that threatened to overtake her, that she could still drop off to sleep without any warning. Please let me stay awake. Please let me get out of here and over to Anne Halloren-Gimblet’s in one coherent piece.

  Paula returned carrying the high-backed antique chair from the guest bedroom. “Any special place you want it?”

  “Right there is fine,” Jane told her. Paula deposited the chair in front of the mirror-covered closets, then hurried downstairs to pour Jane’s orange juice. When she returned, Jane was sitting in the tall, straight-backed chair.

  “Well, you’re very ambitious today.”

  “Michael thought I should get out of bed.”

  “Yes, he told me I should get you out today, that you needed a little exercise.”

  “To tire me out.”

  “What?”

  “As long as I don’t get too tired out,” Jane said, correcting herself.

  “Here.” Paula handed Jane the orange juice and three little white pills.

  “Three?”

  “That’s what Michael said.”

  Jane put the three pills on the tip of her tongue, then waited for Paula to turn away. She didn’t.

  “Michael said to make sure you took them.”

  Jane felt the pills beginning to dissolve in the natural moisture of her tongue. Had she aroused Michael’s suspicions or was he simply taking no chances? Surreptitiously, she slipped the pills to the side of her mouth, then brought the juice to her lips.

  “Uh uh,” Paula said, stopping Jane’s mouth with her hand, forcing her jaws apart, and peering inside. “Swallow the pills, Jane. No fooling around.”

  Jane had no choice. She swallowed the pills. Afterward, Paula checked her mouth.