Page 2

Chapter 2

Jacqueline Bennett Carter

Watcha Cove, July 2015

“Oh my God! William! William, can you hear me?” Jacqueline Bennett Carter cradled her husband’s head in her arms.

Two housekeepers and William’s first assistant rushed into the bathroom. “Call nine-one-one,” Jacqueline instructed in a clipped tone, shaking her unresponsive husband.

For a moment, everyone simply stared, confused. Just fifteen minutes ago, William Carter Jr. had been barking orders into his iPhone and demanding that security be increased tenfold for his forthcoming milestone-birthday party, despite the coordination his team had already undergone with the Secret Service over the guest list.

Jacqueline stood. “He’s not breathing. I need a phone,” she said, extending her hand forward. “Now!”

The urgency in her voice knocked something loose, and William’s assistant handed over his unlocked phone.

Jacqueline dialed 911 and waited for her call to connect. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.

“It’s my husband,” Jacqueline replied. “I think—I think he’s dead.”

Everyone stared at William Carter Jr.’s motionless body. In her shock, Jacqueline simply expected him to spring up from the tasteful gray marble floor and demand to know the status of the tasks he’d assigned the staff. But the way he was lying there, a custom Turkish rug disheveled under his side, face half covered in shaving cream, clad in running clothes that were still damp with sweat ... she knew he’d never let himself be seen this way.

Her husband was most certainly gone.

“Okay, ma’am, where are you located?” the operator asked calmly.

“We’re in Edgartown at Watcha Cove,” Jacqueline said. “We need an ambulance.”

The operator paused.

“Yes, ma’am. Right now, with the storm, it’s ... taking our teams a bit longer to get to folks. Can I walk you through CPR?”

Jacqueline looked down at William’s slack and frozen face. “Sure,” she replied without much hope. She knew that 911 calls were recorded and that the recordings were often leaked to the press. She could do this. If there was one role she auditioned for and landed, it was doting wife.

“Tell me what to do,” she said with more resolve, handing the phone back to her dead husband’s assistant after switching the call to speaker.

After six rounds of desperate chest compressions, Jacqueline felt it was an appropriate time to announce defeat. “It’s not working,” the assistant said into the phone, finally finding his voice.

“Okay,” replied the operator. “Help is on the way, but this storm—we can’t promise that someone can get there soon. Is there somewhere you can move the body?”

The four living people in the room made uncomfortable eye contact. The assistant looked around the expansive primary bathroom. Jacqueline’s eyes fell on the $40,000 tub they’d imported from Italy a few years before. A tub was not a tomb. She glanced at the ten-foot glass shower, complete with two showerheads and seventeen different jets and wondered momentarily if she’d ever turned on more than one.

“Not here,” she said decisively, and the group parted so that she could stand and exit the bathroom.

The operator, still on the line, waited patiently. “Perhaps you want to place him on a bed?” the operator offered kindly into the silence. Jacqueline took slow steps into the bedroom and let her eyes roam. She shuddered almost imperceptibly, thinking about having to sleep next to a corpse, until it occurred to her it wouldn’t be much different from sleeping next to an alive William Carter Jr.

“Yes, the bed, fine,” she said finally. “I think we’ll need help.”