“Hi, Alexis? This is Madeline. I just saw your email. I’d be happy to meet up with you. I’m actually around this weekend. Call or text me.”
I immediately text her back and ask if she can meet me on Sunday. I wish I could do it sooner, but my Saturday is booked with shoots.
Madeline Ashford, the Madeline who destroyed my senior year and now runs the D.C.-area Overton alumni group. The woman who may be behind everything that is happening to me.
A rush of adrenaline courses through me. Maybe I can finally get some answers and put a stop to all this.
32
The smell of roast chicken hits me when I enter the kitchen. On the counter sits the telltale take-out bag from Nando’s. When I see the yucca fries inside the bag, I smile. I always have to lobby hard for those as a side, since neither Mark nor Cole likes them.
“Hello?” I call out. “I’m home.”
“Mommy!” Cole runs in from the direction of the powder room, holding out his hands. “I washed my hands. Smell them.”
I bend down and take a deep breath of the floral soap.
Mark follows suit, smiling. “He’s hopped up on sugar. Apparently, Leah let them have two boxes of candy at the movies.”
“The movies, so that’s where you were all day,” I say, forcing his squirming body into a hug. “I was wondering.”
“Just one box each,” Cole says. “But we switched halfway through.”
We eat a quick dinner at the island in the kitchen, all in a row, under the bright lights suspended from the ceiling. I keep eyeing the clock, cognizant that the lawyer will be arriving at six. Cole carries eighty percent of the conversation, reenacting each scene from the movie for us. Mark laughs and makes funny faces. I can see our reflection in the large plate-glass window across from us. To my eyes, or to anyone who might happen to be walking through the pedestrian alley that cuts behind our house, it would appear to be a scene of domestic bliss.
It’s hard to enjoy the merry mood, however, knowing what’s to come after—a meeting with a criminal defense lawyer. The desktop in our nook is glaringly clear, our computer gone. Cole has not noticed yet, thank god.
As we are cleaning up, Krystle calls. I leave Mark and Cole to finish with the kitchen.
“What’s this reverse mortgage thing?” Krystle’s words hit me rapid-fire. No hello, or how are you. “I didn’t understand your message.”
As I walk into the dining room, I begin to explain what has happened, but Krystle interrupts me right away.
“There’s no money? I need that money, Allie. We’re counting on it.”
I ignore the we. I assume she means Ron, but I don’t want to get into a fight about her boyfriend right now. “Do you remember any weird mail that might have come to the house in Westport?”
“Oh, so this is my fault? For not checking the mail enough? Good to know, Madame.”
My body tightens. Her fuse has been lit, and it’s just a matter of time until she explodes. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just asking if you remember anything out of the ordinary.” The truth is, a part of me wonders if Krystle found a way to get the reverse mortgage, but I don’t want to believe it, and I certainly don’t want to accuse her without proof.
“Seriously? That house gets a ton of junk mail. I’m supposed to sort through every piece of trash that comes there?”
“So that’s a no.” I circle the dining room table, picking up the detritus that Cole leaves in his wake. I can’t imagine what the police thought when they walked through here this afternoon.
“Don’t be mean. I know you think this is my fault. Just say it.”
She’s goading me into a fight, a habit she honed with our mother. I used to shrink into the shadows watching the two of them go at it like two fires feeding off each other. Their faces would glisten red, not just with anger but with excitement.
Normally, I am better at steering Krystle away from her rages. But I don’t have the energy tonight, not right before I’m about to meet with a criminal defense lawyer.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” I say. “Look, Krys, we don’t even know what happened. Is there any possibility that you might have signed something accidentally?”
“What kind of idiot do you think I am?” she screams.
I blink hard at her ferocity and plow forward. Mark and Cole pass through the dining room and head upstairs, the dinner dishes done, the kitchen lights shut off. They wave at me as they leave the room.
Mark is going to put Cole in front of the TV with a movie and then come back down to meet with the lawyer. I’m not happy about how much we’ve been using screens to distract Cole from what’s been going on recently—our strict rules have been bent so far they’ve completely broken in the past week. But I don’t feel like we have a choice. I’d rather him get lost in screens than learn his mother is being framed for murder.
“What about Ron?” I ask Krystle. “I know he’s had money troubles.”
“That’s not true.” I can picture her mouth pressed into a straight line as she says this, jaw locked.
“This is the same guy who pawned his blood glucose monitor.”
“That was two years ago. He bought it back. God, I wish I’d never told you that. You can be such a judgmental cunt sometimes.”
And just like that, I am done. I hang up and put the phone on vibrate.
With his shirt sleeves rolled up, Artie Zucker leans his elbows on our seldom-used dining room table and lets out a deep sigh.
“I don’t like this, I’m gonna be honest.”
Mark and I exchange a glance. Zucker, pushing sixty, is sweat-stained, has about two days’ worth of growth on his face, and smells like day-old pizza. But Mark says he is one
