Page 99 of Old Money

In the distance, one of the horses lets loose a ribboning cry. I jerk upward at the sound.

Jamie sighs.

“They’re fine. They act funny when the weather turns—” He gestures upward at the discomfiting gloom. “When it gets like this—something about barometric pressure. They run around in circles.”

Aren’t we all.

“It’s just not enough—one recording,” I say in a guilty whisper. “It’s too big a gamble. You read Jeremy’s report.”

This was the second blow. Jeremy sent his background file on Patrick last week. Up until then, I might’ve chalked my doubts up to anxiety. But there was no chance of that after reading Jeremy’s email—a spooky one, even for him.

Alice,

As promised, here’s the background on Yates. Sorry it took so long—I really scraped the barrel on this one. I was hoping I’d surprise us both and turn up something useful. No dice. It’s the old-money problem, like I said. They’re too damn discreet. You smell smoke, but you’ll die trying to find that fire—even with a guy like this, who reeks of it.

Hope you don’t mind me saying again, but I’d proceed with caution. Chapman vanishing is bad enough, but the fact that they haven’t found so much as a security-camshot of him—that’s the real alarm bell. People go missing all the time, but it takes real means to disappear someone. I can’t tell you what to do, but I’m going to bow out now. If you intend to pursue this further, I’ll ask you not to contact me again.

Anyhow, PDF and invoice attached. Per your contract, please delete each email individually before deactivating this account within thirty days.

Take care,

Jeremy

The report was five pages long, and as underwhelming as Jeremy said. His email itself was far more incriminating than the “dirt” he’d managed to dig up on Patrick’s last two decades. Most of the records were traffic violations—all paid. To my dismay, Jeremy had also included discharge papers from the two treatment programs Patrick had completed. Rehab hardly qualified as dirt, and just looking at the documents made me feel filthy. What made it worse was the little note Jeremy had added:It’s your call, but I wouldn’t go public with stuff like this. Makes you look like the bad guy.

“But you’re not,” Jamie says for the umpteenth time. “And Jeremy said he wouldn’t find anything. He told you that up front, right?”

“He did, but—”

But he also told me to back off for my own safety. He saidhewouldn’t do “boots on the ground” work because it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Hello?” Jamie prods. “Alice?”

“That’s it. I need to get more intel myself. More substantive evidence, or at least more witnesses.”

“Okay,” Jamie says slowly. “And when were you planning to do all that? Because the wedding’s next week.”

“I am well aware.”

“And you literally aren’t working,” he says, adding in a rush, “which is fine. Not much you can do this week anyway.”

“Okay, boss. What are you trying to say then? What would you like me to do?”

He gives me a warning look.

“That’s your call. All I’m saying is now’s the time to make it.”

We stare at each other for a long, crackling moment of silence, neither of us certain which way the conversation will tip. This too has complicated matters—this thing between the two of us that we’ve yet to name in daylight. I knew it would that first evening—flirting over pizza like a couple of middle-schoolers. But it seemed like such a harmless complication that I’d followed the impulse all the way back to Jamie’s apartment. We were adults; we’d figure it out. Why not have one sweet, messy bit of fun in this grim summer?

This is why. Because we haven’t figured anything out. We’re stuck in a holding pattern, like the rest of the village: each day, we muddle through work hours, having strange, stilted conversations like this one. Then we clock out, and without saying anything, we leave the club together, sometimes for the Martha, and sometimes for his place. From sundown on, everything’s easier—itissweet and messy and fun. Then I wake up at dawn, drive back to the Alcott, and a few hours later we both walk into work andwaveat each other.

Jamie gives the desk blotter a final, firm tap.

“Okay, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it.” He swallows. “You don’t have to do this.”

I look at him sideways. His shoulders shrug up even higher.

“I’m just saying, youcanbail. On Patrick—on all this.”