“Shhh, calm down, honey. No one’s going to find anything out. We’re going to put a stop to this.” He runs his hands through the sides of his hair, where there are enough grays among the dark brown to merit the label salt and pepper. “We’ll talk to the lawyer. He’ll know what to do. If anybody can shed some light on this, he can. He’s a local guy, went to Maryland for law school, was a prosecutor for a while, and is extremely well connected.”
“That sounds good.” I feel a little better.
“I trust this guy, Allie. That’s our plan. Hire the best, and let him deal with it. And as for Valerie Simmons—she’d be lucky to have you shoot her.”
I can barely manage a smile.
“In a year, you’re going to be the go-to photographer for all the D.C. hotshots, and she’ll be the one begging you to get back to her.” He gives me a kiss and pulls on his pajama top before grabbing the remote and turning on the game.
I lean up next to him and will myself to absorb some of my husband’s faith in the world. But for the first time in our relationship, I think Mark’s optimism is misplaced.
I want to believe that this will all blow over. That the lawyer that Mark knows will swoop in and fix it all. That nothing worse is coming down the pike.
But I cannot shake the certainty that the worst is yet to come.
I don’t know why, but someone is trying to destroy my life.
And I don’t know how to tell my husband that I think the person who might be behind it all is the first man I ever fell in love with, the first I ever made love to.
I am toasting a bagel for Cole the next morning when Mark wanders in from outside, smiling triumphantly.
“This look familiar?” he asks, holding up a small white post office mailing box.
“No. Should it?” The toaster oven pings. “Cream cheese or butter, Cole?”
“Cream cheese.”
“It’s a box from Overton,” Mark says, as proud of himself as a terrier who’s dragged in a rat. “I found it in the recycling.”
I freeze.
Mark puts the box on the counter in front of me. The return address is Overton Academy in Connecticut. Alexis “Lexi” Ross is written in block print on the front. I stare at the word Lexi until the letters swim before my eyes. This is no accident. This is someone who knew me. I push it back at him, bile rising in me. “I didn’t order that.”
Mark blows air loudly through his lips. “Maybe you ordered it a while ago and forgot about it.”
“No, Mark,” I turn to him. “I did not order a T-shirt from Overton and forget about it.”
“Jeez, you don’t have to yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling. But I think I would know if I ordered a T-shirt from Overton.”
Cole lets out a wail. “No more cream cheese?” He sticks an empty plastic tub in my face. I recoil at the residual smell.
“Hey, bud,” Mark says. “I’ll eat the bagel. How about Cheerios?”
I pick up the box, walk to the back door, and toss it outside.
“Whoa, that was a little unnecessary,” Mark says. “It goes in recycling.”
“How can you not get this? Someone sent that to me, Mark, to fuck with me.”
“Mommy!” Cole squeals. “You said the f-word.”
“Calm down, Allie.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“I thought you’d be happy.” Mark throws up his hands as if in surrender. “Heading to the shower.”
I bite into the bagel he left behind, feeling awful for having snapped. He was just trying to help. And he was right, I need to check with Susan. She probably opened the package and put the shirt in the wash, the box in recycling. Maybe the school is mailing them out to everyone in my year. Maybe they are part of some fundraising campaign.
There has to be an explanation.
But I know it won’t be a happy one.
Not with everything that’s been going on.
No happy explanation includes the use of the nickname Lexi.
Jeff Crosetti lives two blocks away from us. The walkway to his front door lies beneath languorous plants leaning in from either side. Bushwhacking as I go, I stop halfway up the path when I spot an older gentleman kneeling in the yard, half-hidden by a huge bush as orange as a flame.
“Hello,” I call out.
“Oh, I didn’t see you.” He stands up, cradling a clump of dirt-caked roots that give off an earthy scent. “Any use for Rudbeckia goldsturm in your yard, a.k.a. black-eyed Susans?”
“No, thank you.” I shake my head.
“Can’t interest you in Maryland’s state flower? Unfortunately, they like my yard a little too much.” When it becomes clear I’m not in the market for perennials, he drops the clump.
“I’m Allie Ross,” I say. “My friend Leah called last night and left a message. About taking down some posts?”
The old man purses his lips together in thought, wiping his dirty hands on his jeans. His skin is pink, as though he’s been scrubbed hard, and it sets off his bushy white eyebrows and crown of soft silver curls. “I’d shake, but you probably don’t love the feeling of compost under your nails as much as I do.”
“No problem. My hands are full anyway.” I hoist my travel coffee mug as evidence.
He brushes past me, removes a pair of clippers from his back pocket, and begins deadheading a
