HARBOR: Beards & Bondage Read online

  It doesn’t hurt that she found a hunky farmer to love the hell out of her. I’ve never seen my sister so happy. She leans against the counter and gives in to her urge to coo at her baby girl for a few moments before her smile fades and she fixes her gaze on me.

  “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I’m just pissed.”

  “And you have every right to be.”

  “Pattie keeps texting me. She invited me to lunch tomorrow with her and Meredith. I get it, she lost her son but—”

  “He was cheating on you.”

  I rap my knuckles, hard, on the kitchen table. “Am I dumb?”

  “What? No!”

  I bite my lip and hold Iona a little closer. I’m so tired of crying. “You know how they met?”

  “Did you find out?”

  “Yeah. I talked to the detectives again. Ugh, I think they know I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Clearly they don’t know you, ’cause if you found out Josh was cheating on you before all of this—”

  “I would have killed him myself.”

  “Look, it’s two different things. It’s two different, horrible things. You lost someone you love. Okay, three things. You lost someone you love. You found out something horrible about that person in the process and now you don’t get a chance to confront him about it. It’s painful and it’s unfair as hell.”

  “Four things. His family somehow wants me to be over it so I can emotionally support them through their grief.” Almost on cue, my phone chimes in my purse. “Can you grab that for me?”

  Liz grabs it, immediately shaking her head. “It’s Kelsey.”

  “See?”

  “You want me to text her back?”

  “No. I feel like—I feel like they knew.”

  “That he was cheating?”

  “No. I feel like they knew he was kind of shitty and they liked me so much they didn’t tell me or tell him to get it together. Like when his buddy John just came out and said he’d told him to do right by me, it’s like, you know. You know what someone you’ve known their whole life is like. You know what they are capable of.”

  “Maybe they thought he’d changed.”

  “But that feels so unfair to me.”

  “It is.”

  “Right? I should have been given the chance to make the decision. I feel robbed. I said yes to someone I thought was faithful. Actually, let me back it up. Faithfulness never crossed my mind. That’s how duped I feel. I never for one second even considered that Josh cheating on me was in the wheel of possibility. I’m sitting here, not processing the fact that he’s gone. I’m just not. Can I be honest and say that?”

  “Of course you can. Brook, you remember what it was like to lose Mom and Dad.”

  “Yeah.” That cruel, specific pain blooms in my chest again. Almost twenty years and it still hurts like hell. “Am I a bitch if I tell these people to leave me alone?”

  Liz shakes her head and gives it to me straight. “No, not if you don’t want to continue a relationship with them, but I would maybe be a little nicer about it. His parents are pretty chill people. His dad, at least.”

  “I don’t know,” I say as a tear escapes. I dash it away and give Iona some gentle pats down her back. I don’t know how I feel about the Delinskys. I can’t look at them the same way. I don’t know them well enough to fight for something with them and I don’t like the way Pattie and the girls are making me feel, like we’re all in the same boat. We’re not. I’m in a completely different marina. I need time to heal. I need time and space to be angry and I need time and space to beat myself up for missing Josh. For missing him so fucking much.

  My chest hurts so bad. I stand and hand over Iona. “Take your adorable-ass baby.”

  “She is pretty damn cute, isn’t she?” Liz says, her eyes filled with love.

  “I stopped myself from looking her up again.”

  Liz’s expression sobers. She knows who I’m talking about. The other ghost in the room that Pattie and the rest of Josh’s family seemed hell bent on ignoring. That night, after we put Josh in the ground, after Vaughn Coleman appeared out of nowhere, I finally looked her up. Corrine Johnson. I was shocked I hadn’t done it already.

  I’d already asked the detectives to to fill me in on every detail. Put on my A.D.A. hat and grilled them right back after they’d found Ryan Morgan’s emails. Looked into Ryan Morgan's background and learned he’d been in and out of foster care until his aunt took him and his younger brother in. Saw proof that he’d found Corrine’s private photos on some 4chan-style message board and decided she was the one for him. I wanted to know what had happened and, in that process, I started to fixate on Corrine Johnson.

  What was it about her that my husband-to-be and a stalker found so interesting? It’s fucked up. I know. She didn’t deserve this. But she didn’t deserve my happiness either. She’s a lawyer too. Or she was. Family law. I try not to laugh at that idea. I find her Instagram. I fixate on her face. She’s pretty. Black as well and thick too, like me. That bothers me. Josh has a type, which he’d never mentioned. Not that it should have mattered, but it did matter, because he lied and cheated and all of that got him killed. I think of Vaughn and then try not to think about Vaughn. I haven’t reached out to him. I don’t know what to say.

  “What are you looking for?” Liz asks. “Why go digging her life up?”

  “I don’t know. A reason? My brain wants to make sense of it,” I say, leaving out the part where I have fake conversations with Corrine where I ask her why. Where I ask her about Vaughn and Christopher. Then I ask her why again. I think about my life, my career. How I’d started researching how to freeze my eggs ’cause I can’t leave it to just Liz to carry on the Lewis name and our spectacular racks. And then the moment happened. The moment where I met a cute white boy with this great apartment uptown who apparently didn’t think I was enough.

  “I think you should talk to someone,” Liz says. She’s found a great therapist online. I know she’d help me find one too.

  “I know, but I’m not ready. I need to be honest with someone and I’m not there yet.”

  “Just promise me you’ll keep talking to me.”

  “I will. I should get going.” The days are getting longer again, but I don’t want to rush back to the city after dark. I still hate driving. I kiss my sister and her baby goodbye. Tell her to send my love to Silas and Palila. I climb up into my big-body Tahoe. I need to see the road, so I refuse to drive anything small. Before I pull out of the farm, I dig Vaughn Coleman’s card out of my wallet and I text him.

  Three

  Vaughn

  I’d offered to drive down to New York and then I’d offered to at least meet Brooklyn Lewis in New Haven or Hartford, but she insisted on coming to me. A little over a month has passed since that day in the cemetery. I knew I’d overstepped. Actually I’d polevaulted over a wall of none-of-my-business, but for some stupid reason I’d thought Brooklyn would reach out to me within a few days. I knew she had questions and I was eager to know what answers she might have for me and Shaw. But nothing. Not a word. Not for a month. Then last Sunday evening, a New York area code lit up my phone. She was forward and direct. She wanted to know if we could talk that following weekend. She preferred to speak in person.

  I was just about to leave Shaw’s place in Barnstable when her text popped up on my phone. It only took a few minutes for us to figure out the details. And now we are riding up to the tenth floor of the Sheraton Downtown Boston.

  I’d extended the offer for us to meet wherever was most convenient for her. She’d suggested her hotel room.

  “I think we need to speak in private, but I’d feel more comfortable if you came to me,” she’d said. “You seem chill, but not chill enough for me to go to a stranger’s apartment.” There was no reason to argue.

  I look across the glass-and-steel elevator as it stops on the fifth floor. The woman beside me smiles like she notices the tension between Shaw
and me when the four of us all climb into the tiny space together. She and the man with her take their rolling bags, heading off to their rooms. The doors slide shut and we’re rising again. I glance over at Shaw. He’s pissed. He’s doing everything to avoid eye contact with me. He’s been like this since he arrived at my place a few hours ago and decided blasting the Celtics game was preferable to telling me how the rest of his week had gone. I get that he wants me to leave this alone, but I still want answers. And I know deep down he wants them too.

  “Say it before we get up there,” I urge.

  “Fine.” He looks up at me, his tongue rolling over his molars. “This is a bad idea.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “Yeah, but I just wanna go on record, so you know and I know that this is a bad idea. When this blows up in our faces and the detectives show up again and tell us to stop tampering with witnesses or some shit—”

  “She’s not a witness. And they said the case is closed.” The detectives interviewed me and Shaw, but soon after they dropped it. I honestly had no clue who Ryan Morgan was and no idea why he would stalk Corrine or mention me in his stalking and the detectives couldn’t find any clear reason either. It turned out Corrine had never even seen Ryan Morgan’s emails. The day he decided to take her from us, the hundreds of messages he’d sent were gathering digital dust in the spam box of an old email Corrine had linked to her barely used Facebook account.

  Talking to Brooklyn Lewis about it after the fact wouldn’t land any of us in hot water with the police. Unless she’d hired Ryan Morgan, which was extremely unlikely. Talking to her wouldn’t impact a case the cops had already moved on from. For them it’s over. For us...

  We stop at the twelfth floor and the doors open. Shaw doesn’t move to exit the elevator. He’s still looking at the floor. I put my hand out to stop the doors from closing.

  “You wanna leave?” I ask.

  Shaw is quiet for a moment, but as his expression softens the slightest bit, I know his answer.

  “We’re already here,” I say. “You can meet her and if I’m not feeling any part of this, we’ll leave.”

  “And if this whole meet and greet starts fucking you up, I’m pulling you out.” Shaw and I have been grieving in our own ways. He’s shed his tears, but he’s said almost nothing. Still, I know he’s hurting. He steps past me and I take hold of the back of his neck as we walk down the hall. He’s tense as fuck and not from bending over his workbench all afternoon. He stops suddenly, rolling his neck into my grip as he looks up at me.

  “I just need a second.” He closes his eyes, his long lashes touching his skin. I pull him closer and brush my lips over his brow. His arms wrap around my back and I feel a shuddered breath roll through him.

  “We can go. I can tell her I’ll meet with her tomorrow. You don’t have to do this.”

  “No.” He releases me and lets out a deep breath. He’s fighting like hell to hold back some completely appropriate tears and this time he wins. “Come on.”

  We continue down the hall and turn two corners before we arrive at her suite. I see Brooklyn Lewis just outside her doorway, tipping a young waiter. She’s wearing a long-sleeved, black and teal, silk sleep shirt and nothing else. Even her feet are bare.

  “Hey,” she says, her voice oddly cheerful. “Come on in.”

  We follow her into the suite. There’s a covered platter of food on the table along with a bottle of Chardonnay and three wine glasses. “I didn’t eat on the road. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “And I just got the extra glasses to be polite. I’m gonna fuck up that whole bottle.”

  I hold back a snort and incline my head toward her. “If there was ever a time to drink, it’s now. This is Shaw. Christopher Shaw. Shaw, Brooklyn Lewis.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Brooklyn says as she shakes his hand.

  “You too.”

  “You guys make yourself comfortable,” she says as she goes ahead and starts to fill all the wine glasses anyway.

  “None for me,” I say, but Shaw takes a glass with a quiet thank you.

  “How was traffic getting over here?” she asks.

  “You want to talk about the traffic?” Shaw says.

  “Oh?” I watch her as her neck snaps back in surprise. “Okay.” She sets down her glass and slides easily into a seat at the small dining table. I watch as she pulls her leg up so she can perch her foot on the seat as well. Her whole thigh is exposed now as well as the teal silk underwear she has on. She glances over at me before she turns her attention back to Shaw. “We’ll skip the small talk then. Let’s get right to it. I have my questions, but you’re my guests. So please, I’ll eat while you grill me.”

  She pulls the cover off her platter and the monster cheeseburger waiting for her makes her stomach growl. She doesn’t seem embarrassed though. She just grabs her knife and cuts the thing in half before digging in. I take a seat in the armchair by the window and take in the way Shaw is watching her.

  “We didn’t come here to grill you,” I finally say. The sound of my voice releases the tension in Shaw’s shoulders. He sets down his wine glass and takes a seat on the firm sofa in the middle of the room.

  “I’m sorry, Brooklyn,” he says, sounding more like himself. Shaw’s a prick in his own way. Still, all puffed up with women he’s just met isn’t really his style.

  “It’s okay. I’ve had to stop myself from cussing my boss out like every day. I get the short fuse. This is bullshit and no one understands why. Or even if they do, it’s like they are trying to comfort you with a rake.”

  Shaw chuckles and reaches for his wine again. I watch him take a deep sip before he lets out a breath. His shoulders finally relax.

  “I have to say, you two are quite the pair.” She nods toward me before nodding in Shaw’s direction. “A tall-slim and a swole for no reason. I mean, Josh was cute, but I don’t know that I would have given him the time of day with the two of you around. How’d this all come together?”

  “How’d we meet?” I ask for clarification.

  She nods, her mouth full of burger.

  “At a party for a shared client, actually. A scientist from the Cape.”

  “Kind of an awkward guy. Not a lot of friends,” Shaw adds. “He invited his lawyer and his carpenter—”

  “You’re a carpenter?” Brooklyn asks.

  “He’s quite the craftsman,” I say. Shaw’s work speaks for itself. He likes to let it do the talking. In public, I like to brag for him.

  “That’s cool. What’s, like, your speciality? I know shit about woodcrafting or carpentry.”

  “I mostly make furniture and some custom pieces for wealthy people who like to tell their friends how much they spent on a custom piece of furniture,” Shaw says truthfully. He’s made a name for himself through high-priced word of mouth. It’s given him the financial freedom and independence he wanted his whole life.

  Brooklyn laughs into the back of her hand before she washes down her food with another sip of wine. “Rich people do like to brag about their custom shit. That’s awesome. You on the Gram? I’d love to see your work.”

  “Yeah,” Shaw nods. “I’ll show you.”

  “But we’re not here to talk about furniture are we? Or are we?”

  “I mean, I’d rather talk about our recently murdered partners and how they were cheating on us, but furniture is cool too.” Shaw takes out his phone, crosses the room and hands it to Brooklyn. She looks at his screen, cocking her head to the side.

  “Salted Sea Customs. Oh, this is beautiful.” She hands back the phone.

  “Thanks,” Shaw says before he heads back to the couch.

  “Okay, so yeah. Josh Delinksy. Corrine Johnson. The ultimate betrayal, a brutal double-murder and suicide, and absolutely no way to deal with it.” Brooklyn sighs and sits back. I ignore the way her legs part, showing off the gentle impression of her labia against her underwear.

  “How did you and Jo
sh meet?” I ask.

  “Oh, it’s pretty boring. We met at a birthday party, found out we had some college friends in common. Dated, got engaged. Then somewhere in there, there was another woman and four shots at close range. And here we are! I’m not surprised he cheated on me, now that I look back on it. Actually...” Her gaze cuts to me, a sudden look of determination touching her features. “That’s the pain talking. I’m the shit and I have no idea why he cheated on me.”

  “I know why Corrine cheated,” Shaw says suddenly, almost to himself.

  “You do?” I say, trying to keep my voice measured. Why didn’t he tell me this sooner?

  “The last time I saw her, before she went on her supposed girls trips, she made a joke. Something about how she needed a break to recharge. A break from us.” He considers his wine glass for a moment before he looks over at Brooklyn. “We met her at a rope bondage exhibition. She was…” Shaw doesn’t finish, but I know what he wants to say. That she was wild. Insatiable. That she wanted everything she could handle and more. She wanted us and just us. Or so we thought.

  “I wanted to ask you guys about her,” Brooklyn says. “I thought knowing more about her, it would help, but I’m not sure it will. Knowing anything about her won’t turn back time.”

  “What will help?” I ask her.

  “I guess, knowing that you guys are—not hurt, I don’t want you to be hurting—but I want to know that you’re as pissed as I am.”

  “I’m pissed,” Shaw admits with a shrug.

  “There we go. Now we’re talking. Let it out!”

  Shaw smirks as he goes on. We’ve been talking, but not as much as we usually do. I hate to think there are things he can’t tell me, but sometimes you need a neutral third party to open certain doors.

  “When we got together, Vaughn went out of his way to make sure that all three of us were not only comfortable, but happy. Vaughn went out of his way to listen. If she wanted out she could have said so.”

  “My friend’s therapist says cheating isn’t about wanting out,” Brooklyn says. “It’s about wanting it all.”