Page 110 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“My surgery ran over,” she said by way of greeting me before turning her attention to the waiter, who had suddenly appeared at her side. She held up a finger to him, opened the menu, and quickly scanned the wine list.

“A glass of your house Merlot,” she said. “Grace?”

“Oh, I’m fine with just water, thanks,” I said.

“Make that two glasses of your house Merlot,” Margot said to the waiter, handing him the wine list. “Don’t make me drink alone,” she said to me in a not unfriendly tone as she removed her trench coat and laid it in the booth next to her. “Besides, red wine has antioxidants. It’s good for your heart.”

“Okay,” I said, giving the waiter a small smile to reassure him as I handed him my wine list. “Thanks.”

We probably looked like old friends to him—two women who met often for lunch, who were so familiar they didn’t need to say hello. Just two friends who cared about each other’s antioxidant intake and heart health.

When the waiter left, I turned to Margot, who was scanning the menu. I had been surprised that she had agreed to meet with me when I called her last week—probably just as surprised as she had been by the invitation. Part of me wondered if she would show up at all, but she was probably too intrigued by the call to stand me up.

“How’s Oliver?” I asked. To some extent, we traveled in the same circles. We saw Margot and her husband, Oliver, a wealthy banker, at functions occasionally. I knew they had a little boy around Charlotte’s age. “How’s your son?”

Margot glanced up from the menu. “I don’t have time for pleasantries,” she said. “But you could tell me the real reason you asked me here.”

“Okay,” I said. I had run through this conversation a hundred times in my head, but now, I didn’t know what the right words were, so instead I reached in my purse and laid the photographs out on the table.

Margot glanced at them. Her brow creased. She reached down and picked them up, flipped through them one by one.

“Where did you get these?” she asked.

“They were in an old camera in a box in the closet at the lake house,” I said. “I didn’t realize they were on there until I got the film developed.”

Our waiter came back with our wineglasses and Margot set the photographs facedown on the table.

“Are you ladies ready to order?” the waiter asked.

“We’ll need just a couple more minutes,” Margot said.

When he was gone, Margot took a sip from her wineglass.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Some of these photographs were taken the night Jake died,” I said. “The red time stamp places the last photograph around the estimated time of Jake’s death. And you were there. I want to know what happened that night. What really happened.”

“Why don’t you ask Alistair?” Margot said. “He was there, too.”

“I don’t trust his answer,” I said. “This whole time, he could have told me. But he kept it from me. And I know if I ask him now, he’ll just twist the truth. That’s all I want—the truth. I need to know.”

“What does it matter what really happened that night?” Margot asked. “It won’t change anything. Jake’s dead. He’ll still be dead.”

“It matters to me,” I said.

Margot sighed and looked slightly bored. I knew she didn’t care one whit about what mattered to me. That had been the wrong angle to take with her. She tilted her head and ran a finger along the side of her wineglass, thinking.

“It was an accident,” Margot said, looking up at me.

“You mean he didn’t—he didn’t kill himself?” I asked.

“No,” Margot said.

She closed her menu and motioned the waiter over to our table. I fell silent. I could feel my heart drumming in my chest. This whole time I had blamed myself for not knowing the type of pain Jake had to be in to do something like that. I had carried that guilt with me for nearly seventeen years—half my life. And this whole time—it had all been a lie.

“Are there quail eggs in the chef salad?” Margot asked our waiter. She sounded faraway—muted somehow.

The waiter responded, but I wasn’t listening, wasn’t processing.