Mark and I spent the better part of the last hour explaining in excruciating detail what happened at the party on Saturday night with Rob and me, and everything since, including the fake Tinder and Facebook pages.
“So tell me again,” Artie says, “about talking to Avery in the kitchen. Can you characterize your conversation?”
“I would say it was flirtatious. We were having fun—”
“So now you admit that you were flirting with Rob Avery?” Mark snaps.
I turn to him, blindsided by his accusatory tone. “It was a party. Besides, he was doing most of the flirting.”
“No, that’s fine,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “But your first story was that this random drunk guy followed you into the bathroom. And you had no idea why.”
“My story?”
“Yes, your story.” He is in full lawyer mode now, voice clipped and emotionless. “It’s changed a bit, you have to admit.”
“You found me out, Mark. I slightly flirted with a stranger at a suburban party.” I reach for the bottle of wine to refill my glass. “Any takers?” I ask. But both men say no. I don’t know how Mark can make it through this ordeal sober, but I need the gentle buzz of wine to help stop me from falling apart.
“I just find it curious that you left out that little detail until now,” Mark says, his eyes trained on me.
“All right, kids. That’s enough of that.” Zucker picks up his pen and scribbles something on the yellow legal pad, something I can’t read from my vantage point across the table. “We’ve established that Allie flirted a little. Can we move on? Let’s talk Ambien. You have no idea where that liquid Ambien came from?”
I shake my head. “Neither Mark nor I ordered it.”
“Could someone else have left it here? Or had it delivered here?” Zucker asks. “Without telling you?”
Mark grunts. “And how exactly would that work?”
Zucker leans back in his chair, twirling a well-chewed pen between his fingers. “You tell me. A relative?”
“Caitlin has a key,” I say.
“You think my sister left a bottle of liquid Ambien in our house?”
“Any neighbors have a spare key?” Zucker asks.
“Half the neighborhood has a spare key to our house,” I say.
“Well, let’s make a list,” Zucker says. “Mark, call your sister, find out if she left it here or had it delivered here.”
“I can tell you now she didn’t.”
“Great,” Zucker says. “Then we can cross her off. Do it in the other room, will ya?”
Mark gets up to make the phone call in the kitchen. While he’s gone, Zucker turns to me. “Allie, were you having an affair with Rob Avery?”
The question stuns me. “No, of course not.”
Zucker’s eyes dart toward the kitchen. “I can’t defend you if I don’t know the truth.”
“It is the truth. I met Rob Avery for the first time Saturday night. I swear to God.”
He bites the end of his pen. “Fine. Question asked and answered.”
“But there is someone from my past. An ex-boyfriend.”
Zucker pushes the legal pad at me. “Write down his name. I’ll look into it.”
I write Paul Adamson on the pad and push it back across the table just as Mark comes back in and sits down. “My sister did not bring any liquid Ambien into our house. Or have it delivered here.”
Zucker draws a line through her name on his legal pad. “That just leaves everyone with a spare key. Start naming them.”
“Susan, our babysitter.”
“Susan what?”
“Susan Doyle. Our neighbor Heather Grady. Our other neighbor Leah Rosenblum.” I look at Mark. “Anyone else?”
He shakes his head. “I think that’s it. But we didn’t change the locks when we moved in this fall. Anyone who had keys to the house before would still be able to get in.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“That’s good?” Mark asks.
Zucker smiles. “Sure. Lots of possibilities of how this box ended up in your house.”
“Why are we so focused on the liquid Ambien?” Mark asks.
“We’re focused on liquid Ambien because the Montgomery County police are focused on the liquid Ambien. And until further notice, that’s all we’ve got to go on. I’ve put in a call to this, uh”—he squints at his pad—“Detective Lopez. Just to let her know you’ve hired a lawyer. In my experience, the police are less than extremely forthcoming at this point in an investigation, but who knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll call me back to let me know just what the hell is going on. Mark, you could be in trouble, too.”
“Me?” Mark scoffs.
“You were out that morning,” I say. I’m emboldened by the wine. “Getting the car from Daisy’s house? Remember?”
“They can’t think I had anything to do with Rob Avery’s death.”
I shrug. I don’t think he did. But I’m enjoying watching him squirm. Getting a taste of what I’ve been dealing with.
“Well, we need to be ready, because I’m going to be honest, this search warrant”—Zucker pauses to hold up the paper that the detective gave me earlier—“does not bode well. Not at all.”
Although it is almost ten o’clock when the lawyer leaves, we find Cole wide awake on our bed, still watching TV.
I walk through to the bathroom, momentarily obstructing the screen as I go.
“Move!” Cole yells. “I can’t see!”
I shut the bathroom door to muffle the sound of television chatter mingled with my son’s laughter. My mind is saturated and exhausted from the day’s events. The police search, my mother’s deepening paranoia, the reverse mortgage, tonight’s meeting with Artie Zucker. Even if I checked myself into the Four Seasons in Georgetown for a whole week, I don’t think it would be enough time to process it all.
“Everything all right?” Mark comes into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. “You’ve been in here a while.”
“Just lost in thought.” I rub makeup remover on my
