Page 18 of The Expat Affair

It takes an eternity to get out of the funeral home. The rows empty out one by excruciatingly slow one, a bottleneck of fidgety people jostling for the lobby and the promise of room-temperature wine and sweaty cheese blocks on toothpicks.

I stand behind Thomas in the center aisle, pinned in the swarm of people, and my legs are still wobbly with leftover adrenaline. When the news hit our phones like a string of tiny bombs going down the row, my first thought was of Sem. That he was hurt, or worse. I was scrambling for my cell when I saw the newsflash on Thomas’s screen.

Body of diamond trader linked to House of Prins found in Amstel River.

No name, no further details, but it was enough. My heart settled, the kicks morphing into a painful churning in my gut. A dead Prins trader, another death linked to the House. Whatever is going on here, it can’t be good.

I lean my face into Thomas’s shoulder and whisper, “Did the article say how long he was in there?”

There being the Amstel, the wide waterway that slices through the center of Amsterdam on its way to the River IJ. Big and busy enough that it’s conceivable he landed in the water months ago, that his death was a boating accident, that he drowned. Prins is one of the largest diamond houses in the city. Lots of traders work with them. Maybe this death means nothing.

Thomas shakes his head, his muscles going rigid under the lambswool of his suit jacket. Not an answer to my question but a signal for me to stop talking. People are watching. They could hear. A funeral is neither the time nor the place to talk about a second dead body.

In the lobby, we make a quick pit stop at Xander’s sister, who must have no idea of the animosity between her brother and Thomas, because she accepts our condolences with a warm hug. If any of the Prins family find it awkward that we’re here, pretending to mourn the man they had patted down and escorted from the building only a week ago, you’d never know it by their heartfelt offers of sympathy. If nothing else, the Prinses’ manners are impeccable.

Thomas and I are the first to make it outside.

“I don’t think it’s one of ours,”

he says, scrolling through the news clips on his phone. “It must have been an independent trader, but even then, I would have known if one of them went missing.”

“Maybe he wasn’t missing for that long,”

I suggest. “Or it could have been a foreign trader.”

“Still weird I haven’t heard something, even if it was only a rumor. Traders are a tight-knit group, a lot of them from families that have been in the business for generations.”

He shakes his head, thumb flicking on his iPhone screen. “The media’s not giving me anything but the headline.”

I think back to the words I saw on Thomas’s screen: Body of diamond trader linked to House of Prins found in Amstel River. Linked could mean anything. The cousin of a trader who works for Prins, or a transaction that happened some twenty years ago. My thoughts spin, and I can’t be the only one wondering. Social media will already be lit up by now, endless rambling theories of how the two deaths are connected, a slew of armchair detectives pointing their conspiracies back to the House. To Thomas, who may or may not have a 3D-printed gun.

One of the double doors pops open and out breezes Willem, his cellphone pressed to an ear. “I’m guessing this newsflash means you won’t make tee time.”

Arthur, I’m assuming. Willem’s golf buddy and former fraternity brother, currently head of police for Amsterdam. Willem laughs at whatever he says, then turns for the parking lot, his wool overcoat flapping in his wake. Thomas hurries after his father like an obedient duckling, leaving me alone in the courtyard.

No, not alone. There’s a cluster of smokers huddled against an ivy-covered wall, the press huddled up at the street, and a low murmur of voices talking nearby. I look around for who’s speaking, but I don’t see anyone else.

Anna files out the door next, along with the rest of the family: Fleur and the ever-agreeable Roland, the twins looking surly and bored. Roland peels off to bum a smoke, while Fleur and Anna scurry after Willem and Thomas. The twins and I exchange a look before slowly taking up the rear.

We’re halfway across the parking lot when Yara wrinkles her perfect nose. “What is that smell?”

“It’s shit,”

Esmée says, covering hers. “Oh, God, it’s poisonous. This is why I only eat organic.”

Esmée is the pretty twin, her skinny limbs draped in a white-collared dress that I’m pretty sure I saw hanging in the window at Prada, and I hate to tell her, but organic sheep shit stinks, too. The pasture bordering the lot is filled with them, a long stretch of green dotted with white and black balls of fluff. While tourists come for Amsterdam’s canal houses and museums and coffee shops, this right here is the real Holland—miles and miles of reclaimed farmland crisscrossed with dikes and canals to hold in the livestock. The girls are right, though; it’s poisonous.

We catch up to Fleur, her thumbs tapping furiously at her phone. “I’ve put out a few lines,”

she says, I’m guessing to Thomas, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. His thumbs are working his phone, too. “So far nobody knows anything.”

I look around for Willem and Anna, but they must have ducked into their car, the sleek Mercedes idling at the far end of the lot.

Thomas grunts. “Wait a minute. According to the NRC, his body was found two days ago.”

“I need a name, Thomas. I can’t make a move until you give me a name.”

She pauses, groaning. “Oh, shit. The AP is reporting it too, a diamond trader connected to House of Prins. Dammit. I need to get back to the office.”

Yara comes up behind her mother, poking Fleur in the ribs. “Can we just go? I have hockey and this is taking forever.”

“Yeah,”

her twin says halfheartedly. With the dark, delicate fabric and those big eyes draped in mascara, Esmée could easily pass for sixteen, but everything else about her is still twelve. She holds her phone high and blows a big pink bubble for the camera. Snapchat, I’m guessing. The twins are both obsessed.

Fleur’s answer is aimed at Thomas. “Don’t just stand there. Do something. Call Martin, see what he knows.”

Thomas frowns. He doesn’t like being ordered around, least of all by his sister. “Martin deals with dozens of diamond traders every day. He would have told me if any of them had fallen into the Amstel.”

“Not if this guy wasn’t Dutch. Maybe Martin just assumed he flew back home.”

Thomas silently concedes the point and pulls up a number on his phone. I wonder briefly who this Martin is—an employee? an industry colleague?—but Thomas is already pressing the phone to his ear. I hear his friendly greeting as he walks away, his untroubled voice as he begins the call with chitchat, and the lightheartedness in his tone scoops out the underside of my belly. Thomas can be so contrived, so overly charming when he wants to be.

Esmée tugs on her mother’s arm. “Mama, please. It’s freezing.”

Yara’s gaze wanders to the field, her nose crinkling in disgust. “And those sheep need a bath. At least give us the car keys so we can wait where it’s warm.”

Esmée hooks a finger around the strap of Fleur’s Dior bag and slides it from her shoulder. “Why did you make us come to this stupid thing? We didn’t even know the dead guy.”

Now, finally, Fleur looks up from her phone. “Because you and your sister are next in line. The future faces of House of Prins. Because one day, this company will belong to the two of you, and it’s best to learn now that this job means taking on responsibility for every single staff member, even the ones you don’t like very much. It means attending a lot of functions when you’d really rather stay home, and talking to a lot of people you don’t know and don’t care to know, but still treating them like they’re your new best friends anyway. Because you are a Prins and people are watching, so you might as well get used to it now.”

Esmée rolls her eyes, flipping open the bag. “Jeez, Ma. You make it sound so appealing.”

Fleur returns to her phone, her thumbnails tap-tap-tapping away at the screen.

I clear my throat. “What about Sem?”

Fleur looks up, letting the silence stretch. She frowns like she just noticed me standing here, four feet away. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, what about Sem? Sem is next in line, too.”

She gives me a tight smile. “Of course he is, but Yara and Esmée are older. They’ll get there first. That’s all I meant by it.”

I press my lips together, my gaze wandering to Thomas pacing the spot two cars just left empty. He ends the call, sliding the phone into his pants pocket as he heads back our way.

“Martin saw the newsflash, too,”

he says, more to Fleur than to anyone else. “He’s spent the past hour calling everyone we do business with. He’s just as clueless as we are.”

“Still. That doesn’t mean—”

“It’s Frederik.”

Willem announces the name in a voice so commanding, even the sheep at the dike raise their heads. He shuts the door to the Mercedes with a sharp pop that echoes over the field. “The media hasn’t announced it yet, but it’s Frederik Albers. He’s the trader they pulled from the Amstel.”

His words land like a bomb in the parking lot, which by now has mostly cleared, leaving only a few dark and silent cars and the smokers up by the sidewalk. Fleur curses under her breath. Thomas looks panicked.

Frederik Albers, who Thomas fired last year, whose name police found on an invoice for a low-light video surveillance system like the one in the Prins vault, and who just a few days ago Thomas threatened to kill. We were in a private board room at Willem’s private social club, but still. It doesn’t look good.

That makes two. Two former employees of House of Prins, two men fired by Thomas, both dead.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

Fleur asks, whirling around to face her father, now coming across the lot. On the opposite side of the Mercedes, Anna stands in the open passenger’s door, watching us across its gleaming roof.

“The dental records match up,”

Willem says. “Arthur’s men are notifying the family now.”

Thomas shoves a hand in his hair, making it stick up on one side. “Fuck. Fuck.”

Fleur thrusts a hand at the twins. “Esmée, give me the keys. Now.”

Esmée stands frozen, one arm still deep in her mother’s Dior. “What about hockey practice?”

“Your father will call an Uber.”

Fleur’s stabs the air with her hand. “Give them to me.”

Esmée hands over the bag, then turns to where her father is still standing by the ivy-covered wall, a cigarette clamped between two fingers. “Papa!”

“The coroner hasn’t filed the report yet,”

Willem says, “but Arthur is pretty certain Frederik’s body wasn’t in the water all that long. They should have a window for time of death narrowed down by the end of today.”

“Did he say if it’s the same killer?”

Fleur asks.

Willem lifts both hands. “Methodology is not the same, but Arthur says it’s possible. We’ll know more after they’ve analyzed the bullet.”

At the last word, Fleur and Thomas exchange a look. Frederik was killed with a bullet, in a country where guns are illegal but can be built by a 3D printer. I stare at Thomas, whose face has gone ashen, and my thoughts tip into something darker.

Willem starts barking orders. “Girls, get your father to take you home. Anna, you take . Thomas, Fleur and I will ride with you. We’ll hammer out a strategy on the way. Let’s go.”

And because he’s still the supreme authority where House of Prins is concerned, his words set everyone in motion. The girls shriek for their father, who flicks his butt in a ditch. Anna hustles around the idling Mercedes for the driver’s seat. Fleur and Willem pile into Thomas’s BMW and slam the doors. Thomas follows behind, then stops halfway there, pivoting on his heels toward me. Almost like I’m an afterthought, which of course I am.

“You going to be okay?”

I nod.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

I do. News like this means Thomas won’t be home anytime soon. I don’t tell him that I’m used to it.

“It’s fine. Do what you have to do. I’ll be fine.”

I always am.

He gives me a brusque nod. “I promised Sem I’d be home for bedtime. Tell him I’ll take him to school tomorrow instead.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Tell him I’ll make him breakfast, then.”

My heart twists for Sem, who will be crushed. He won’t understand, but I promise to tell him anyway.

Thomas watches me for another second or two, and just when I think he’s about to turn to leave, he steps closer and drops a kiss on my lips instead, one that’s lightning quick and perfunctory. Not a good kiss but a kiss nonetheless, and my eyes burn with the sudden shock of it, with nostalgia, along with the knowledge that this kiss wasn’t for me. It was for his mother, watching from behind the windshield of her car.

And then just as suddenly he’s gone, taking off at a brisk jog toward his father and sister waiting in the car. I step backward and give him plenty of room to back out, following the glow of his taillights as he swings the car around and points it to the street. I don’t turn to Anna, not yet. I don’t want her to see my tears.

He’s pulling out when I spot her across the lot, a redhead in a giant puffy coat and black boots, pushing through a wall of willow branches. They swing behind her like a beaded curtain, long and graceful, and it’s her. It’s Rayna D.

“Kom je?”

Anna says—Are you coming?—and her voice snaps me out of the spell. I tear my gaze away from Rayna and look at Anna behind the rolled-down window of her Mercedes, stretched out alongside me. “If we’re going to beat the traffic, we need to leave now.”

I look back to Rayna, still standing in front of the weeping willow. Frozen at the edge of the gravel, staring me down.

I shake my head at my mother-in-law. “Thanks, but I think I’ll take the train.”