Pete had learned that staying one move ahead was pleasant but nowhere close to the rush of letting the opponent think he was winning and blindsiding him with an attack he didn’t see coming. Max had shown him that over and over.
Beth’s death wasn’t a game of chess. It was nothing but sorrow for most of the people in her life—including Pete. But dealing with the police, his friends, her sister, Sam, even Nicola, required careful maneuvering. Pete couldn’t expect anyone to understand his point of view. He was alone in this, as he had been in most things.
Throughout his entire life, he had been told by his mother how brilliant he was. His entire extended family had acknowledged that he was the brain of the family, and many had been resentful. He’d gotten into Saint George’s, one of the best prep schools in the country. If he had wanted, he could have gone to any Ivy, but he hadn’t gone that route.
Pete was modest about his looks, but he couldn’t help being aware that women who’d been buttoned up their whole lives enjoyed the attention of a handsome bad boy who happened to be brilliant. He had dated several possibilities before Beth: another heiress, a principal in a private equity firm, a top-earning sales rep for a major pharmaceutical company. Beth had had the most potential. And surprise: he had actually loved her. In the early days of their relationship, what was not to love? She’d believed in him, almost as much as his mother had. She had handed him the keys to the gallery, the art world, and the quiet blue blood society of shoreline Connecticut.
By the time their marriage was in trouble, he’d found Nicola. As a graduate student at Bard, Nicola would be attracted only to the smartest men, and she had chosen Pete.
Beth had stopped appreciating him the way he deserved. She had at the beginning of their relationship, but it had dwindled away. She had demeaned him and had never let him forget that she owned everything.
He thought back to their early days, when he had been so full of hope and dreams. He was working for the insurance agency that had underwritten the art stolen from the Lathrop Gallery. Pete researched the case thoroughly. Back then it had been called the Harkness-Woodward Gallery. Once Pete understood the dynamics of how Garth Woodward had hired the Andersons to steal Moonlight and tie up the family in the basement, he decided it was time to meet the daughters.
He showed up at the gallery for an opening. They were both there, Kate and Beth, but Kate barely gave him a look. Beth did the opposite—drew him in with her warmth and bubbly personality. When he told her where he worked, no doubt stirring up traumatic memories, she didn’t turn away.
He remembered the sensitivity in her eyes.
“Are you in your field because you love art?” she asked.
“It’s my passion,” he lied.
“Did you know that your company and our gallery have a long-standing connection?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I am so sorry for the reason that you needed us. For what you and your family went through.”
“Thank you,” she’d said, her eyes welling. He gazed at her with all the comfort in the world; it was as if they had known each other forever—an instant bond. He wanted to give her the feeling that no one could understand what she had endured more than he could. She soaked it up—he knew what she needed, and he gave it to her. His instincts were perfect when it came to what women needed.
Greater things had happened to the gallery since he had married Beth and taken over as president. He had acted as press agent, getting articles in several art magazines and major newspapers. Because of Pete, the Lathrop Gallery had a presence on all the major social media platforms. He tweeted once a day, posted photos on Instagram, and had attracted over five thousand followers on Facebook—an impressive number for a small family-owned gallery. But she had not appreciated him.
She had never let him forget that the money came from her family. What she’d failed to fully realize was that being born rich was nothing more than blind luck. It had nothing to do with IQ. He had once—before Sam was born—tried to get her to take the Mensa test, and she had literally laughed. Not that she would have passed.
Last December, when they were decorating the gallery for Christmas, Pete had stood at the foot of the ladder while Beth had balanced the star on top of the tree, and he had felt like giving the ladder a good shake. God help him, he thought of it now, and given how she’d died, he felt more ashamed than ever about that single impulse. In that split second, when he had been so angry with her, he would have loved to see her crack her head open on the edge of the desk.
“Fuck,” he said out loud to himself, “fucking bastard.”
But it wasn’t all him—the whole family had put each other through the wringer. The damn painting. Moonlight. It had gone missing last year, and now it was again. When he’d seen that empty frame, his heart had literally stopped in his chest. Beth had just stared at him, eyes full of blame, when he’d pointed it out to her. Of course she’d probably think he took it, and he couldn’t explain to her—or even, after she died, to Reid. Not without betraying someone he loved more than the world.
“Dad?”
At the sound of Sam’s voice, he got out of his chair.
“Sam, what are you doing here?”
“Everyone’s outside,” she said, gesturing at the front window. “We came to celebrate Mom’s birthday.”
“Kate’s here?”
She nodded. “And Lulu and Scotty. Isabel, Julie, all of us.”
“Are you doing okay?” he asked.
“Well, it’s her birthday. So . . .”
“Yeah. I know.”
She brushed her long hair out of her eyes, and he caught sight of the scars on the inside of her left arm. Were the cuts fresh, or were they scars from months, a year ago, that were healing? She’s cutting because of you, Beth had said. Because of you and Nicola and your baby, because she’s afraid of losing her father.
“You still doing that?” he asked. Pointing at first, then walking over to her, gently holding her wrist. “Please tell me you’re not.”
“Not as much,” she said. “Sometimes, though.”
He traced the scar she had made last year, just before going to camp. Beth was at the gallery, cataloging new acquisitions. He went to the bank, but instead of returning straight to work, he drove home—he knew Sam had been upset with him, and he wanted a father-daughter moment, to reassure her as she was getting ready for camp that she was his number one, his oldest, his baby, and always would be.
He walked into the house through the front door, heard rummaging in the closet, saw Sam emerge. She jumped as if he’d caught her doing something wrong—the look on her face was pure guilt.
“What are you doing in there?” he asked.
“Nothing, Dad. Just looking for my boots and rain slicker. It gets a little wet up in Maine, ha ha.”
“You sure?” he asked. “What happened to your wrist?”
She glanced down at it, saw the smudge of blood. “Huh,” she said. “Must have snagged it on a nail or a hook or whatever.”
Later Beth would tell him about Sam’s cutting, but that day he didn’t have a clue.
“Well, did you find your slicker?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s in there. I’ll grab it when we drive up. Why are you here, anyway? Why aren’t you at work?”