Page 105 of Old Money

“I feelrelieved.”

Jamie chuckles quietly on the other end.

“I’m serious. It’s a tragedy, and I’m fucking furious. This family, the way they used him up? God, you should have seen him at the airport. He was this shredded wreck—he could barely function. It scared me, the thought of him out there on his own.”

“Yeah,” Jamie interjects calmly. “And now he’s not. That’s the relief. I get that.”

I drop my head back, staring up at the ceiling, dappled with bursts of light bouncing off the river.

“Seriously?”

“Sure. I wouldn’t walk aroundtellingeveryone. Okay, egomaniac?” He pauses—not for a laugh, because it’s not a joke this time. It’s just a gesture. “But yeah, I get it. When you know someone like that, you worry all the time.”

I hear the gentle questioning in his tone.Are we okay? Whatever we are?I don’t answer, because I don’t know.

“How’d it go yesterday?” Jamie asks, carefully breaking the silence. “Did you talk to anyone?”

Another covert question. I told Jamie I was leaving him out of it, and here he is asking:Can I come back in?

“I did,” I answer, cracking the door. “I emailed the podcast people too.”

The sun starts prickling on my bare shoulder, and I stand, shuffling over to the tiny dresser. I tuck the phone against my shoulder and yank the top drawer open, the wood tacky and swollen in the heat.

“Whoa,” he says, either stunned or impressed. “And?”

“Nothing yet, but it’s early. And then—”

I turn to glance at the muted TV, a truly hideous thought arising: How might this news complicate my own plans with the press? And if I tell them that I’m the child witness, will I also have to disclose my meeting with the alibi? Just before he got on a plane and vanished?

“And then?” Jamie prompts, snapping me out of it.

“Yeah,” I sigh, fishing socks and underwear out of the drawer. “And then I talked to Theo.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s a whole other story.”

“Alice, what happened?”

I shove the drawer shut and it jams with a squeak, the left side sticking out at an angle.

“Alice?” Jamie says sharply.

“God, I don’t—” I mumble, banging the drawer with the side of my fist. “I don’t even—”

My phone buzzes against my shoulder and slips to the floor, thudding on the thick rug. When I pick it up, I see a text bubble from a number I don’t recognize. But this time, I know exactly who it is.

Jamie’s tiny voice calls my name again.

“Hey,” I say in a rush. “Jamie, I have to go. I’ll tell you later, okay? Tonight—the Martha.”

I hang up on the sound of his exasperated exhale, and quickly read the text again.

Check your email.

It’s Jeremy. Jeremy who doesn’t text—who “bowed out” and asked me, politely, never to contact him again. And he’s using my regular old non-secret email address.

Alice,