So I asked him, straight out. “What about your relationship with April Voss?”
He gasped, which was an answer in itself.
When he spoke again, his face was pale. “How do you know about her?”
“You’re the one who first told me about April,” I said. “Only that night in the Conservatory Gardens, you referred to her as Subject 5.”
His eyes widened. “Lydia doesn’t know, does she?”
I shook my head and checked the time on my phone. We still had several hours before Dr. Shields believed we were meeting.
He took another healthy swig of his drink. Then he looked me directly in the eyes. I could read genuine fear in his. “She can never, ever find out about April.”
That was almost exactly what he’d said about us a few seconds ago, too.
The door to the pub swung open so hard it banged against the wall.
I flinched as Thomas whipped around.
“Sorry!” A portly guy with a red beard stood in the doorway.
Thomas mumbled something and shook his head, then turned back to me. His expression was grim.
“So you’re not going to tell Lydia about April?” he asked. You have no idea what you would destroy if you did.”
I finally had something on Thomas. It was the opportunity I needed.
“I won’t tell her,” I said.
He started to thank me, but I cut him off. “As long as you tell me everything you know.”
“About what?” Thomas asked.
“About April,” I said.
He didn’t give me much. I thought about what Thomas had revealed while I walked to meet Noah for a late dinner at Peachtree Grill following my second drink of the day with Dr. Shields’s husband, the one in which we’d read our lines like actors onstage.
Thomas had said he’d been with April only once, last spring. He’d gone to meet a friend at a hotel bar. After the friend left and Thomas lingered to pay the bill, April slid into the seat across from him and introduced herself.
It’s the scene Dr. Shields had me re-create at the bar at the Sussex Hotel with Scott, I think, and suppress a shudder. But I don’t reveal that to Thomas; I might need to hold information over him again.
Did Dr. Shields set up April to test Thomas, and did April lie about it—just like I did?
Or is the truth even more depraved than that?
According to Thomas, he went to April’s apartment later that same night and left a little after midnight. Aside from the way they met, it sounds eerily like our date.
Thomas insisted he had no idea until after April died that she was connected to his wife. But given that April was a subject in Dr. Shields’s study, too, there was no way it was a random encounter.
The cover story Thomas and I created for Dr. Shields tonight might buy us a little time, I think as I approach Peachtree Grill. I heard relief in her voice when she thanked me after I told her Thomas was devoted to her.
But something tells me it won’t last.
Dr. Shields has a way of pulling the truth out of people, especially when it comes to things they want to bury. I’ve learned that firsthand.
Tell me.
It’s like I can hear her voice in my head again. I spin around and search the sidewalk. But I don’t see her anywhere.
I resume walking, even faster now, eager to get to Noah and the normality he represents.
A secret is only safe if one person holds it, I think. But when two share a confidence, and both have self-preservation as their main motive, one of them is going to give. I deleted the text chain in which I asked Thomas on a date before I knew he was married to Dr. Shields. But I doubt he did.
Thomas is a cheater and a liar; strange traits for someone married to a woman who is obsessed with morality.
He says he wants out of the marriage. Who’s to say he won’t sacrifice me to do it?
I know three things happened last spring: April served as Subject 5 in Dr. Shields’s study. April slept with Thomas. April died.
What I need to do now is find out which one of them, Dr. Shields or Thomas, first drew April into their warped triangle.
Because I’m not entirely convinced her death was a suicide.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
Friday, December 21
Thomas is waiting on the steps of the town house.
His first words defuse the suspicion that formed when no traffic was encountered between Deco Bar and my home.
“My plan was foiled,” he says wryly as he wraps me in an embrace. It’s not dissimilar to the physical greeting you just received from your friend in the navy coat, Jessica.
“Oh?”
“I was hoping to get here first so I could run you a bath and open some champagne,” he says. “But my key didn’t work. Did you have the locks changed?”
It’s a stroke of luck that the new security measure coincides with the story created for Thomas during the cab ride back to the town house.
“I completely forgot to tell you! Here, come inside.”
He hangs his coat in the closet, alongside the lighter ones you so cunningly noticed, before he is led into the study.
Instead of champagne, two snifters of brandy are poured from the bottle on the sidebar. A story like this calls for a bracing drink.
“You look distressed,” he says, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion beside him. “What is it, sweetheart?”
A soft sigh hints that it isn’t easy to begin. “There’s this young woman who entered my study,” he is told. “It’s probably nothing . . .”
It’s better if he coaxes out the story; Thomas will believe he has a stake in it.
“What did she do?” he asks.
“Nothing yet. But last week, when I stepped out of the office for lunch, I saw her. She was standing across the street from my office. She just . . . watched me.”
A sip of brandy. Thomas’s hand closing protectively over mine. The next few sentences are delivered with a slightly halting quality.
“There have been a few hang-ups on my phone as well. And then last Sunday, I saw her outside the town house. I have no idea how she obtained our home address.”
Thomas’s expression is attentive. Perhaps gears are beginning to spin in his head as he is led toward a conclusion to a vexing puzzle. But he needs to hear more.
“For confidentiality, I can’t reveal much about her. But even during those initial survey questions, it was clear she had . . . issues.”
Thomas grimaces. “Issues? Like the other girl in your study?”
A nod provides the answer to his questions.
“That explains it,” he says. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I may have seen her, too. Does she have dark curly hair?”
Now your appearances at the museum and diner have an explanation.
Downcast eyes camouflage the expression they contain: triumph.
Thomas likely imagines a swirl of other, troubling emotions that cannot be voiced due to professional rules of discretion. Actions always speak louder than words: Thomas’s sensible wife would not install a new lock without good reason.
Thomas’s embrace feels like his voice did in the darkness on the first night we met. Finally, it feels like safety again.
“I’m going to keep her away from you,” Thomas says firmly.
“From us, don’t you mean? If she has followed you as well . . .”