Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

Meredith turned her face toward Connie at the mention of Dan’s name, although it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. At this moment, Connie remembered why they hadn’t spoken for three years. Meredith was formidable when she was at odds with you. Connie thought back on their fight over the phone. Oh, boy-had they been at odds.

“It was a fluke,” Connie said. She sounded like she was insisting. “We talked for a while, and then we went for a walk on the beach, and then we went to lunch at the Summer House, and then he brought me home.”

Meredith sniffed, but she wasn’t crying. Meredith didn’t cry.

“Meredith? Say something.”

“It sounds like you had a lovely day.”

Connie sat down on the coffee table. She decided she wasn’t going to lie to the woman to make her feel better. “It was a lovely day. We talked about Ashlyn, and about Dan’s son Joe. We went for a drive around the island and ended up at the Summer House. You can have lunch by the pool there and the Rosa rugosa are in bloom and you can see the ocean. We had soft-shell crab sandwiches and these French fries that were to die for. Dan threw me in the pool.”

“How much wine did you have?” Meredith asked.

Connie paused. It was an unkind question. But Connie wouldn’t take the bait. She had learned a thing or two from her other fight with Meredith. Meredith was feeling bad, and she wanted Connie to feel bad, too.

“Are you mad at me?” Connie asked. “Are you mad that I went out with Dan?”

Meredith didn’t answer.

“Do you have feelings for Dan, Meredith?” Connie asked. This hadn’t crossed Connie’s mind before; she had only been worried that Dan had feelings for Meredith.

“No,” Meredith said. “I do not have feelings for Dan. Other than thinking he is a very nice guy. And much to my surprise, I’ve had fun when the three of us were together. The fact that the two of you went out and had fun together without me stings a little, yes. Especially since I didn’t know where you were. Now, I get it. You’re an adult; this is your house. I’m living here only because you have an open mind and a kind, merciful heart. You can come and go as you please and see who you want, obviously. And I can sit here alone and feel scared shitless and sorry for myself.”

“Oh, Meredith,” Connie said. Life was, as she continued to believe, high school over and over again. Connie could have gotten snippy and defensive-this was Connie’s house, she did have every right to act spontaneously without calling home to check in with Meredith; Meredith was living there in the first place because of Connie’s good graces-but looking at Meredith now, she got it. “I hate to tell you this, but I’m going out with Dan tonight. For dinner.”

“By yourself?” Meredith asked.

Connie nodded.

“Where?”

“The Ships Inn,” Connie said. “And Meredith?”

“What?”

“I’m spending the night at Dan’s house. He asked me, and I said yes.”

Meredith turned back to her book. That was preferable, Connie understood, to Meredith acting shocked and calling her a slut. Connie stood up. She thought, I’ll bike out to Monomoy, get my car, drive to Bookworks and get Meredith those books. She’ll have them for tonight. She thought, And I’ll get the groceries! I’ll make something delicious for Meredith’s dinner.

She looked at Meredith, who now had the book tented over her face-though she wasn’t crying, never crying-and thought, How do I fix this?

It wasn’t until nine o’clock or so that Meredith realized that Connie hadn’t gone to the grocery store, or had gone not only to the grocery store. At first, Meredith assumed Connie had tacked on other errands: She went into town to shop at the farm stand or she went to the liquor store. Or she had revisited Vanessa Noel for shoes, or Erica Wilson or David Chase for a new dress or new white jeans or a new pretty top. It made sense that Connie would prefer to go shopping without Meredith. Meredith couldn’t afford anything-and she wouldn’t leave the house, anyway.

When, at noon, Connie still hadn’t returned, Meredith thought, Okay, maybe she went out and did all those other things and then went to Mass (unlikely) or to the Whaling Museum (on such a fine day?). Meredith called Connie’s cell phone from the house and another phone rang simultaneously, and Meredith was confused until she realized that Connie’s cell phone was right there in the kitchen. Which explained why Connie hadn’t called, but this didn’t make Meredith feel any better.

At one thirty, Meredith gave in to suspicion first, then fear. Her suspicion was that Connie had another friend or group of friends that she was secretly meeting. The mere idea of this hurt Meredith, but after a few minutes, Meredith rejected this theory. Connie had never mentioned other friends on Nantucket, and if she had had other friends, she would have called on them before now. This left Meredith with only fear, and her fear was that Connie’s long absence meant she had met with foul play which had been intended for Meredith. Amy Rivers had run her car off the road, or someone had accosted her in the parking lot of Stop & Shop and hurt her somehow. She was in the hospital, or someone had kidnapped her and she was, at this very second, sitting in someone’s kitchen bound by ropes to a Stephen Swift stool.

As soon as the Stephen Swift stool appeared in her field of vision, Meredith knew she was being ridiculous. Connie hadn’t met with foul play. So where was she?

When Connie did eventually arrive home at two thirty and told Meredith that she had bumped into Dan at the grocery store and they had spent the day together, Meredith was furious. Here, Meredith had spent eight hours worrying while Connie was getting her heart’s desire. Connie had been the one to drag Meredith along on both of her dates with Dan-one of them quite long-and not only had Meredith enjoyed herself but she had gotten used to the idea of the three of them being together. So to have them suddenly assert their couplehood was a shock.

Now, Connie had left for her date, dressed in a stunning pink and orange Herve Leger bandage dress that very few women even twenty years younger could pull off, and her new Vanessa Noel heels. She gave Meredith the novels that Meredith had requested from Bookworks-Connie had ridden her bike to Monomoy to get her car to go to the bookstore. She had made this effort because she felt guilty. Connie had also made Meredith supper: a chopped salad with hard-boiled eggs, bacon, blue cheese, avocado, and grilled shrimp. Before she left, Connie locked all the doors and set the alarm. Then she hugged and kissed Meredith good-bye, and when Dan’s Jeep pulled up, she disappeared out the front door.

Meredith felt resentful, mostly because Connie had left her nothing to complain about.

Alone, Meredith thought. Alone, alone.

The phone in the house rang, and Meredith gasped. She and Connie had watched too many scary movies as teenagers; all she could think was that someone out there knew she was alone. She forced herself to check the caller ID-because what if it was Connie or one of the boys?-and Meredith saw that it was the law firm.

She picked up the phone.

“Meredith, thank God.”

“Hi, Dev,” she said.

“I just called your cell phone three times, and I sent you a text. Did you get it?”

“No,” Meredith said. “I-”

“You need to keep your phone on, Meredith,” Dev said. “What’s the point in having it otherwise?”

Should she try to explain to him that by turning it off, she saved herself twenty-three and a half hours of worry about who was or was not calling her?

“Thank God you gave me the landline,” Dev said. “Because things are starting to happen.”

“Like what?” Meredith said. She sat on the very edge of the sofa. She couldn’t let herself get too comfortable.

“Well, I have good news and I have bad news.”

Meredith clenched her fists. “What?”

“The good news is from Julie Schwarz. The Feds have determined that this guy Deacon Rapp, the so-called legitimate trader who was fingering Leo, was, in fact, in on the Ponzi scheme himself.”

“You’re kidding!” Meredith said.

“He was trying to feed Leo up to the Feds in his place, which was a logical move since Leo is Freddy’s flesh and blood. But after examining the so-called hundred pieces of evidence, the Feds caught on to this guy. They have a paper trail on him now that’s miles long, and without his deposition, there’s nothing implicating Leo. Leo’s computer was clean, and they found no communication between Leo’s office and the fiends on the seventeenth floor.”

“Thank God,” Meredith said.

“Even better, they found this woman, Freddy’s supposed secretary on the seventeenth, Mrs. Edith Misurelli. They got her arriving at JFK from Rome and took her in directly for questioning. She said straight out that Leo Delinn had been denied access to the seventeenth floor, by… guess who?”

Meredith was shaking. “Who?”

“Your husband. Freddy forbade Leo from ever entering the offices where the dirty deeds were done. According to Mrs. Misurelli, Leo never once set foot on that floor.”

“Oh, my God,” Meredith said. She felt a wash of relief, like cool water over her burning concern. “So Leo is off the hook?”

“Unless something unforeseen comes out, yes. The Feds are finished looking at Leo. They’re looking at this Deacon Rapp kid who had thirty-one million bucks squirreled away. He was in cahoots with his uncle, who deposited the money in four banks in Queens.”

“So I can talk to Leo?” Meredith said. “I can call him?”

“Now for the bad news,” Dev said. “Leo has been cleared. And this pisses off the investors and their lawyers, why? Because they want to hold another Delinn accountable. So who are they going to focus on now?”

“Me,” Meredith said.

“You.”

She stood up. The other investors are clamoring for your head. She walked over to the bookshelves and stared at Wolf Flute’s collection of barometers. Oh, the hours Meredith had spent acquiring and collecting things, instead of worrying about her own freedom.

But Leo is free, she thought. Leo is free! She allowed the massive weight of those worries to slide off her shoulders, which felt amazing, but nothing felt as good as dropping the insidious nugget of doubt that Meredith herself had felt about Leo. She had never believed that he’d been involved in the Ponzi scheme, but she’d feared, deep down, that he might have known about it and been too loyal to his father to turn him in.

This mysterious woman, a secretary of Freddy’s that Meredith hadn’t even known existed, had provided the only palatable answer: Freddy had forbidden Leo from visiting the seventeenth floor.

In light of this new information, did Meredith care about her own fate? Hadn’t she said she would sacrifice herself if Leo was set free?

“That brings us to the sticking point,” Dev said.

“The fifteen million,” Meredith said. Her voice sagged. Hadn’t they gone over this? “Are you going to ask me about the fifteen million?”

“Do you have anything else to say about it?” Dev asked. “Anything?”

“No,” Meredith said.

“Are you sure?”

“I told them already,” Meredith said.

“Okay,” Dev said. “Then all you can do is to keep thinking of places where that money might be, where the Feds might look. But you shouldn’t contact Leo or Carver until you’re cleared. It’s more imperative now than ever, okay?” He paused. “Hey, but the good news is that Leo is free.”

Meredith closed her eyes. She had refused to say the words before, but she would say them now. “Yes,” she said. “That is good news.”

Meredith set down the phone. Leo was free. There would be a quiet celebration at Carver’s house tonight, possibly just Carver and Leo and Anais sharing a meal, listening to music, and laughing for the first time in months.

Meredith poured herself a glass of wine. She yearned to step out onto the deck, but she couldn’t risk the exposure. Leo was free, but she was still in peril, possibly more so than before. Meredith wished Connie were here. Meredith looked obliquely out the glass doors. She saw Harold’s dark head emerge in the smooth green glass of a cresting wave, then disappear. Only one seal.

Meredith’s new novels were lying on the table. She could allow herself the pleasure of cracking one open, but the experience would be wasted on her. There was too much to think about.

The Feds thought they knew her, the investors thought they knew her, the American media thought they knew her: Meredith Delinn, wife of financial giant Frederick Xavier Delinn, mother of two privileged sons, socialite. They thought she sat on boards, they thought she organized charity galas, they thought she shopped. And whereas she had indeed done those things, there had been other things as well. Worthy things.