Page 42

Julia

Everyone settled back at their respective homes after dinner, except for Taylor and Erika, who hadn’t yet returned from the movie.

Julia was restless; she found the walls of her usually comforting lake house strangely confining.

She could use a friend to talk to and promised herself she’d check on David—no time like the present.

Izzy directed Julia to the second floor, where she could see David sitting, looking handsome in shorts and a short-sleeved button-down shirt that revealed his gold chain.

It had once belonged to his father, so she understood why he always wore it, but she had never liked the look.

It reminded her of a sleazy street thug in a gangster movie.

He lounged on a cushy deck chair, soaking up the soft jazz music wafting from hidden speakers. The deck was lit in blue, colors that David could change using an app on his phone, a feature he’d bragged about at dinner that first night.

She found nothing appealing about the nightclub aesthetic or the house in general.

But in Julia’s mind, David wasn’t as harsh and uninviting as his home.

Sure, this place was pretentious, and David could be the same.

He was forever trying to be bigger than his britches—he’d had champagne wishes and caviar dreams even back when they lived off beer and fast food.

But Julia told herself that just because David could be a pompous jerk at times, that didn’t make him a killer.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

David gestured with his tumbler toward the empty chair beside him.

“By all means,” he said. He sipped his whiskey as if there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be, but Julia knew him well enough to see through his false front.

His eyes were weighty with worry. There was a nervous edge to him, like a man waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Izzy let me in. She’s tucking the kids into bed. She’s so good with them. You’re lucky to have her.”

“She’s a keeper,” he said, but Julia wasn’t convinced he was being sincere.

Either way, she was done with the pleasantries. “I’m sorry for everything that’s going on, David. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

“You think? I’d say it’s absolutely fucked. Do you have any idea how bad this looks for me, Julia?”

“Right now I’d say it looks a whole lot worse for Fiona.”

David brushed this off quickly and returned the focus to himself. “Oh, come on now. I’m sure she took off. I just can’t believe she’d do this to me. My cheating girlfriend intentionally goes missing, and now I’m a person of interest in her disappearance,” he said.

“Isn’t there someone you can call, David? Anyone in her life she may have mentioned?”

He frowned with regret. “She was always cagey about her family, so I didn’t press it.

Thought I was being polite… and I don’t know her friends.

We were in that new phase of a relationship—you know, when all you want is to be alone together.

I don’t know who to call. The police will have to figure that out. ”

“Speaking of which, maybe you should let the police look around the house? It might help. I was talking to Rick earlier, and he—”

She stopped before saying too much. David’s cold stare filled in the blanks.

“He thinks I did something to her, doesn’t he?”

Julia cleared her throat uncomfortably. “He didn’t say that, not exactly.”

David laughed under his breath. “He doesn’t have to. I know what he’s thinking. Maybe you are, too. Is that why you’re here, Julia? To accuse me? To grill me? Are you wearing a wire?”

“A—a what?”

“A wire. Didn’t you watch old cop shows? Did Baker put you up to it? Wouldn’t put it past her.”

“No, nothing like that,” said Julia. “I just came to check on you. I’m concerned, that’s all.”

“Maybe I should frisk you before we talk.”

Julia returned an uneasy laugh, trying to make light of his comment. “I’m not wearing a wire,” she said.

“Who said I’d be looking for a wire?”

He sent a coy smile, his tone shifting, hunger sparking in his eyes. It gave Julia a surprising tingle in her chest. She laughed him off again.

“Oh my god, David. You have a mental illness, you know that? This is serious business we’re talking about. People are getting suspicious because you’re not cooperating fully with the police.”

David brushed it off. “And what about you?” he asked. “Do you think I had something to do with that woman’s disappearance?”

The words stung—so harsh the way he said that woman, as if she was nothing to him.

“I know you,” was all Julia could think to say.

“Not really an answer,” he countered.

“I just think you could let them search your property,” she said.

David sank back in his chair, resigned to the ambiguity. “Why? So I can be their fall guy? No thank you. Fiona took off on me,” he repeated. “Or she died in the woods, and some hiker is going to eventually stumble across her body. It’s as simple as that.”

“How heartfelt,” said Julia, unable to mask her disgust.

“What do you want from me? It’s not like she’s the mother of my children or we’ve been together for years.

She’s a new girlfriend, I barely knew her.

And just for the record, I’ve been defying Baker’s orders by going out in the woods every day to search for her.

We’ve got her picture all over the news, in town, on social media, and nothing has turned up.

In a week, she’ll be forgotten. In ten years, they’ll find her alive or as another pile of bones some construction crew digs up. ”

“Friendly advice: Don’t say that to a reporter.”

“You don’t know her like I do,” he said.

“She’s pissed because she thinks I’m screwing around, and she’s got major trust issues.

I wouldn’t put it past Fiona, not for one second”—he holds up a finger for emphasis—“to pull a disappearing act, just to fuck with me. Who knows, she might have snuck off to meet Lucas. Why isn’t Baker looking at him? ”

Julia thought this sounded ludicrous. David didn’t sound sure of it himself, so she allowed him to vent.

“Either way, I can’t care what everyone else thinks.

Honestly, I don’t even care that much about her anymore, because Fiona screwed around with my security system, and then she left me.

I’m sure that’s what happened because that system doesn’t glitch, and we should have found her by now.

” David went quiet, letting that harsh truth land like a gavel.

Then, in a much softer tone, he added, “But I do care about you. You’ve got a lot going on. How are you holding up?”

This was how it had always been with David.

He could be callous and selfish, but as soon as he reached out, even a little, Julia would find herself opening up.

His one small gesture of concern brought back all the complications of their lifelong friendship.

She wanted to be honest with him, to spill all of it and have her friend help hold her together.

But it was never that simple with David.

She wished she could say, I’m doing absolutely shitty. That summed it up. But she couldn’t seem to answer him. The words were there, dancing on the tip of her tongue, but her thoughts were a jumbled mess.

Julia stood up to see if that would help, but instead, she felt lightheaded and dizzy.

She walked to the railing and leaned over, inhaling the fresh night air.

The lake was perfectly still, like a black mirror lit from above by a half-sized moon.

What she wanted was to call Christian and tell him to fix it, fix it now, all of it—the money, the business, his drinking—and get her house back immediately.

What she did instead was cry. A sob burst from her lips, so unexpected that it frightened her. She covered her face with her hands, trying to hold it in, but all she managed was hiccupping gasps as her tears spilled out.

David came up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. She sank into him, letting his touch comfort her, soaking in his tenderness, allowing it to calm her nerves.

“Hey, hey,” he said, brushing her hair with his hand and shushing her like a baby. “Easy now. What’s going on? Talk to me, Jules.”

Only David and Christian used that nickname. Maybe that was why she always found it soothing. She pulled away, peering back over the railing. She had a flash of falling; knowing her luck, she’d break a leg, not her neck.

“He’s lost it all,” she said, keeping her back to David.

She wanted to look out over the water, a scene as familiar to her as the Mona Lisa or The Starry Night, something equally immutable, as fixed in her reality as a calendar year.

The thought of losing her lake house struck such a deep chord that it triggered a burning anger, and when she turned to face David, he involuntarily stepped back.

“What do you mean, he lost it?”

The words Julia had been unable to find moments ago came quickly, without a filter. She left no truth untold. She told him about Christian’s drinking, the failing business, the loan that fell through, how he gambled the lake house and lost. She said it was the end of everything.

When she finished, David’s astonished look said it all. He wordlessly guided Julia back to her chair as he took the one opposite her.

The depth of caring in David’s gaze felt like an embrace. No matter how others perceived him, at that moment, he was there for her, present and whole, like a safety net. His warmth assured her he’d cradle her fall, though Julia knew his helping hand often came with a catch.

“I’m glad you told me,” he said before knocking back some more of his drink. “If Christian were here, I’d throttle him.”

“Why? That wouldn’t get my house back.”

“True,” said David. “Violence seldom solves anything.”

Seldom, not never. She wondered if it was a turn of phrase or his truth.

He continued, “But Christian isn’t your problem, Julia—you know that, don’t you?”

“What do you mean? Of course Christian is the problem here.”