“Kendall’s father has been looking for her. He filed a missing persons report years ago.”
“I know he did.”
“So did you take Zoe up on her offer?”
Kavita grimaces. “God, no. But after that, working at Roland’s became kind of untenable. I can’t even put my finger on it. It was like Roland knew I’d said no to Zoe. I mean, the senator came to town and a week later he announced that he supported the development. I’m sure Zoe found some hostess to wrangle him. Roland got to sell the land, and condos went up. But after that, I seemed to get the worst shifts on the schedule, or none at all. And truth be told, I was slipping by then anyway.”
Slipping. Clare knows exactly what Kavita means. She too can remember the slip, those moments where you catch yourself just before taking whatever drug is on order in that moment; and those very words come to you: I’m slipping. But for Clare, it was easy enough to convince herself that she could stop. That she would stop, just not right at that particular moment. She can picture Kavita bent over to snort a line in The Cabin Bar bathroom last night.
“You could get help, you know,” Clare says.
“Help for what?”
“The drugs.”
“Did you ever get help?” Kavita asks.
“I’m sorry?”
Kavita taps at the bend of her arm. “Scars,” she says. “You’ve got plenty of them. I spotted them last night.”
Even though she wears a sweater, Clare instinctively crosses her arms. The scars are indeed there: Tiny pinpricks of white tissue in the crooks of her elbows. Track marks that have faded but will never disappear. Clare’s been good, clean. But it will always live within her, she knows, these scars a reminder, her signal to keep her distance from any path that might lead her astray.
“What about Charlotte?” Clare asks. “She’s got a daughter. She won’t regain any custody if she keeps using.”
“She’s never getting her daughter back,” Kavita says. “The kid is ten. She lives on the far coast with her father and his new family. Charlotte’s got this dream scenario where she gets custody again, but give me a break. She’s a stranger to that little girl.”
“That’s tough,” Clare says. “I get why she’s angry.”
“Charlotte isn’t a bad person. She’s just damaged.”
“You two are close.” Clare shifts on the lounger. “Like, close.”
Kavita laughs. “Oh my God. Look at you, dancing around it like some kind of prude.”
“I don’t want to pry.”
“There’s no secret,” Kavita says. “I’ve never been into guys. Some people have phases, but I never did. By the time I was nine, I knew I liked girls. Maybe it’s just a phase for Charlotte. Lord knows she’s had her share of phases.”
“Did she have any other relationships after her husband left?”
“She told me once about a guy she dated. I can’t remember his name. Maybe she never told me his name. She said they kept the relationship a secret. And I guess he eventually dropped her.”
A wind knocks over an empty planter at the edge of the deck. Clare twists and scans the house. She can see Austin in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, scrolling on his phone. Kavita takes another sip of her drink. When Clare’s phone dings, she digs it from her jeans to find an unread email from a numbered address, a large file attached. Clare goes to swipe it away as junk until she notices the file name. JW @ Rolands. And then a date. The date, Clare recognizes at once, of Jack Westman’s death. A video file. Clare clicks to open it.
Her phone says,
Cannot read this file type.
“Fuck.”
“What’s up?” Kavita asks.
“Nothing. Hey, are you hungry?”
“A little.”
“Why don’t I see what I can rummage up inside?”
Clare stands. She inhales the salt air again, eyes back to her phone.
It can’t be, she thinks. This file. It can’t be what she thinks it is.
Despite the ocean out the window, the airiness, this house is stark and cold. Clare closes the sliding door behind her and focuses on her phone again, working to open the video. No luck.
“Come here!” Austin calls from the kitchen.
Clare obeys, entering and taking a seat on one of the counter stools across from him. Austin fiddles with a corkscrew.
“Is there a video of the shooting?” Clare asks him.
“What?” Austin says, yanking the cork free from the bottle. “Jack Westman’s shooting?”
“Yes,” Clare says, her cheeks hot.
“God. No. I don’t think so. A reporter can only dream.”
“Are you sure?”
Austin’s eyes narrow. “Why are you asking?”
“Douglas mentioned it,” she says, a lie. “But we know he’s a conspiracy theorist, so…”
When Austin offers her a glass of wine, Clare waves it away. She must weigh her options. She could share the video with Austin now; surely he’d have the tools on hand to open the file. But Clare doesn’t know what the video will depict. She can’t be guaranteed it has anything to do with Jack Westman. She must keep it to herself.
“You have quite the view of the Westman house,” she says.
He grins. “Isn’t that something? A real selling point for this lowly reporter.”
“Not sure an oceanfront mansion qualifies you as ‘lowly.’ ”
There is scorn in Clare’s voice, and Austin detects it. She swipes her phone to retrieve her photos, then holds it aloft so Austin can see the photograph she’d taken at Roland’s. He squints at it, still smiling, unbothered.
“I can explain that,” he says.
“You never told me you worked at Roland’s.”
“You never asked.”
“I think I did. Either
