Page 42

Naomi

July 19, 1992

Capri

It was hard to know the best, most efficient way to kill someone. Neither of them had done it before. And it needed to happen quickly, before Renata arrived or Richard woke up. Sarah’s body was slumped outside, against the wall of the house, head lolled onto her chest. Blood marred the nest of gold snakes at her neck.

Seeing her like this, Naomi thought it unlikely that she would make it. She had already tried to look at the injury on the back of Sarah’s head, but the hair was too matted from the blood.

“You’re not going to let her live, are you?” Naomi asked Marcus.

She knew there was only one answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“I don’t think she’ll survive,” Marcus said.

Naomi looked from Sarah to Marcus and said, “Do you want me to go inside and get a knife? Something from the kitchen, something sharp?”

It was disgusting to admit, but some part of her was happy this had happened. Marcus could make up for his mistakes. He could choose her now. It was so simple. He had to do the right thing for them. For her. The thought of it made her feel warm and soft. Nostalgic, almost.

“Sure,” Marcus said, although he didn’t sound sure at all.

Naomi nodded and headed for the drawers in the kitchen, pulling each of them out until she found what she was looking for—a boning knife. The kind you might use to carve a bird. Long, sharp, perfect. She ran a finger down the handle and grasped it fully in her palm. The way the cool metal warmed against her skin made her giddy.

But when she crossed the foyer, before she could step back out into the dark garden, she heard it. A sound she would recognize anywhere—it was Marcus, whispering. To her. She stood on the threshold and listened. His words weren’t entirely clear, but they sounded something like:

“I’m so sorry. Sarah. I never wanted this. Neither of us ever wanted this.”

Through the darkness, Naomi could see the outline of his body, hunched over hers.

Was he holding her?

She ran her thumb across the edge of the knife just to test it. Sharp enough.

Twenty years. That’s how long they had been together. She was as much a Lingate as anyone who hadn’t been born into the family could ever be. But still, she knew there would always be an imperceptible divide.

When you marry into a family like that, her mother had said at their engagement party, you’re signing up for more than a husband.

She had been a little drunk. Her mother had always hated the fact that the Lingates, although perhaps not richer, were better known, had older money. It was the kind of money her mother had always wanted, even as her father was developing strip malls up and down the state. They were profitable, yes. More profitable than the Lingates’ holdings, at least by the third generation. But they weren’t storied. They were impossibly new and deeply, irredeemably gauche.

Naomi, at the age of fifteen, hadn’t really taken the family into consideration. She hadn’t fallen for Marcus’s name, only for his hair, which grew thick and floppy across his forehead. For his tall, broad body that even in high school looked adult size. He was affable in the way that only truly rich young men are—with a nearly impossible casual confidence. She had fallen for the way he didn’t smoke cigarettes like the other boys, but would occasionally have a cigar that he brought to parties. It wasn’t that Marcus Lingate was old money that attracted her; it was that he was old. Mature. Refined. Even back then.

“I have it,” she said, breaking up their vigil. “Do you want me to do it?”

She would. She wanted to. It was Sarah’s fault, after all. If only she and Richard had stayed away. If only Marcus hadn’t told them to come to L.A.

“No,” Marcus said, taking the knife from her. “I can handle it from here. Why don’t you go inside?”

Naomi crossed her arms, pinching her fingers against the points of her elbows, worrying them. She licked her lip. She didn’t want to leave him alone with her. She could already see it: the way he might pick her up and carry her off, the way he wanted it to be Naomi who was on the ground. Maybe always had.

“No,” Naomi said.

“Please. Let’s not argue, not right now.” His voice was high and thin. “We don’t have time. ”

It didn’t matter, Naomi realized. It didn’t matter if they ran out of darkness. What mattered was that Marcus did the right thing. He needed to make it even.

“How can I trust you to handle it?” Naomi said. She reached for the knife, her hand a pale dart in the darkness.

“For fuck’s sake, Naomi,” Marcus said, wrenching the knife away.

“She ruined our life, Marcus.” It came out as a hiss.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “This is Richard’s mess.”

“You think I don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About the two of you? You think I don’t know you well enough to know how you look at her? I’ve seen it, Marcus. I’ve fucking seen it. Back when you looked at me like that.”

Naomi’s voice cracked. It was bound to; it had been cracking in private for months. And to think of everything she had done for him. The secrets she had kept. The money.

Marcus held up his hands.

“Nom,” he said, “I love you. It’s always been you. Through everything. You know that, right? It was just passing between us. A season.”

When he said these things, it was like she was a teenager again. It was embarrassing how eager Naomi was to lap up his words. To let them heal her. She didn’t want to be like this. She wanted to be like Sarah. She wanted to be able to say that she didn’t need him, that she wanted things outside of him, outside of their family. But then, where had that gotten Sarah? Had it helped? Had it made a difference?

“You have to promise me,” she said. “It ends today.”

“It ended a long time ago, Naomi. When Helen was born. It ended then.”

“What about—”

“I promise. When Helen came, that was it. We’re a family, okay? And yes, I promise you. I also promise you it hasn’t happened since and never will.”

There was an urgency to the way he said it, like he was worried she wouldn’t believe him, really, truly worried. Like if she didn’t believe him, he would be forced to do something drastic to convince her.

“You’ll do it for me, then?” She didn’t mean it to, but her voice came out a singsong, childish and high.

“Naomi—” He stood. Took two steps toward her, pulled her in close. And even if it made her hate herself, she let him. She wanted this to be about them, only about them. Not about Sarah or the things he had done in the past.

“Do you promise this is the end?” she asked.

Begged.

“Yes. This is the end. I promise.”

“Then you have to let me watch,” she said, stepping away, letting her fingers find the back of her elbows again. “I want to see you kill her.”

Marcus looked between Naomi and Sarah.

“Otherwise, it ends,” she said.

He knew what she meant. The money ends.

“All right.” Marcus ran his hand through his hair, exhaled. “All right. But not here. Down there.” He pointed to the end of the garden, to the cliffs. Then he hoisted Sarah over his shoulder. Naomi slipped into his wake and followed him past the house, past the pool, to the edge of the patio, where the table sat empty, surrounded by chairs.

Sarah stirred when he put her on the ground, and Naomi had to resist the urge to slap her. This stupid little slut who had ruined everything. Who had come into this family and taken things from her, threatened to expose them all with her ridiculous choices. One life for their three—four, if you counted Helen. It was a fair trade.

Why get married, Naomi thought, if you knew it wouldn’t suit you? People like Sarah didn’t understand those commitments were designed to last a lifetime. They were meant to be tested. Like her marriage. And look! They had survived. They would survive.

Sarah would never have that. She never wanted that.

“Can I help?” Naomi asked.

Marcus set the knife on the table and started looking around the garden, pulling back the thick, leafy shrubs, until he found what he was looking for, hefted it in his hand. Naomi recognized what it was without fully seeing it in the darkness—a rock.

He turned back toward Sarah when they both heard it. The sound of the gate to the garden opening, and then Richard’s voice calling out: “Marcus—”

“Fuck,” Marcus said. He set the rock on the ground and looked between Sarah and the house. Neither of them wanted Richard coming down here. If he knew she was alive, he might intervene, call a doctor, and then where would they be?

“You stay here,” Marcus said. He picked up the knife and moved toward the house.

Alone, Naomi watched the boats in the marina below, their lights bobbing slightly left, then right. She chewed on the edge of her fingernail, worked at it, until there was a little bit of blood and it hurt ever so slightly. The taste of iron in her mouth was invigorating. She looked up at the house, where Marcus had disappeared, and picked up the rock he had left on the ground. It nearly weighed her down, but she used both hands to hold it, cradle it.

She waited until the lights came on upstairs. Then a light in the kitchen, too. Naomi walked toward the pool house, hoping to catch Marcus’s shadow in the window, but he never appeared. Minutes ticked by. Dawn would be here soon.

Out of the corner of her eye, Naomi saw something back at the end of the garden. A movement, a flash of red. Her head turned to see Sarah, now stooped and bent over, but on her feet. She had one hand braced against the low stone wall, another down on the ground, where the blood had begun to pool on the hard stone. As if she were rooting around in it, her own blood, looking for something.

Naomi overtook her in four sharp breaths and double that many steps. It was easy, really. She was quiet. And now she stood behind her, the rock still in both hands. She swayed a little from the weight, or from the alcohol and drugs she had downed earlier. She used the movement, that impulsive movement, to hoist the rock. But when Sarah stood, her back to her, Naomi realized she wouldn’t be able to lift the rock high enough to hit her head. And so she dropped it onto the damp grass, where it made no noise at all.

Sarah never even noticed she was there. Not until Naomi’s hands were on her back, shoving Sarah over the low wall. Naomi used so much force that it seemed as if Sarah’s body was pushed fully free of the cliff face, suspended in air. But the unmistakable sound of Sarah connecting with the rocks below—the light scatter of stones, the almost muffled thump—was enough to convince Naomi the fall was unsurvivable. Even so, she listened; she waited. The only sound, the gentle echo of the water lapping at the cliff below.

Afterward, Naomi looked up at the night sky—the smattering of stars, the glow from the other villas on the island. She thought of Helen, her small body tucked into a tiny bed. Marcus’s baby. It always amazed her that Richard never saw it, the way her forehead looked like her father’s, her eyes. Family resemblance, maybe. But Naomi had seen it right away, had known it with the kind of certainty mothers have when their children are switched in the hospital— This is not mine. Except Naomi had seen Helen and thought, right away: This is mine. This is something that has been taken from me.

She only wished she’d been able to see Sarah’s face one last time. She felt robbed that she hadn’t been able to see the look in Sarah’s eyes when she realized it was Naomi pushing her over the edge.