You look utterly bewildered, Jessica. As you should; what could this possibly have to do with you? But the faintest hint of frown appears on Thomas’s brow.
“I guess so,” you finally say.
“Well?” Thomas is prompted.
“I suppose . . . I would also leave and help her,” he says.
“How interesting! That’s exactly what the security guard in your building did.”
He inches closer to the armrest. Farther away from me.
He wipes his palms on his khakis as he follows my gaze to the piece of paper tucked partially beneath the laptop.
Two days after April’s death, this particular sheet of paper was removed from the visitor’s log in the lobby of Thomas’s office, the one the security guard maintains.
This was done, of course, without Thomas’s knowledge.
Thomas’s professional reputation would be destroyed if news got out that he had slept with a young woman who had come to him for a psychological consult. He might lose his license.
It was expected that after Thomas’s one-night stand with April, he would swiftly expunge evidence revealing the origin of their connection. Any electronic records, such as the appointment in his iCalendar and notes on his computer from the session, would be deleted.
But attending to every last detail is not one of Thomas’s strengths.
He is so accustomed to passing by the security guard’s station that he might have forgotten all guests must sign in to gain admittance to the building. April’s full name and the time of her visit would be recorded in the thick, leather-bound log.
The general time frame of April’s consult could be pinpointed: She met Thomas shortly before she joined my study.
The sheet containing her neat, rounded signature was torn out and tucked into my purse long before a cab could be hailed by the guard— but then, 5:30 P.M. on a rainy weekday is always a tricky time to find a taxi.
Now that piece of paper is retrieved from beneath the laptop and passed to Thomas.
“Here’s the page from the visitor’s log on the day Katherine April Voss had her consult with you, Thomas is told. “A few weeks before you slept together at her apartment.”
He stares at it for a long moment. It’s as though he can’t quite process what he is seeing.
Then he bends over and dry heaves into his napkin.
Thomas is not always effective at managing his stress.
His eyes shoot up to find mine. “Oh my God, Lydia, no, it’s not what you think—”
“I know exactly what it is, Thomas.”
When Thomas raises a shaking hand to lift his glass of Scotch, the gauntlet is laid down.
“I have something each of you desperately needs,” you and Thomas are told. “The digital tape and the visitor’s log. If those items fell into the hands of authorities, well, it would be difficult to explain. But there’s no reason for that to happen. You can both have what you desire. All you have to do is tell me the truth. Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER
SIXTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, December 25
The instant I see Thomas in Dr. Shields’s library, I know my plan won’t work.
She is a step ahead of me, again.
After she called, I thought about going to the police, but I worried the information I could give them wouldn’t be enough. She’d probably concoct some compelling story about me being a disturbed girl who’d stolen her jewelry; she’d find a way to flip things so that I was the one who got arrested. So in the hours before I responded to her summons, I found an electronics store that was open on Christmas Day and bought a slim black watch that could record conversations.
“Last-minute present?” the clerk asked.
“Sort of,” I answered as I hurried out the door.
I was bringing Dr. Shields a gift, but not this one. The present I was assembling was far more personal and consequential.
The watch was intended to record her words when she opened her gift. I had Dr. Shields to thank for the idea: She was the one who illustrated the strategy of having a secret witness to a conversation when she had me visit Reyna and Tiffani.
I envisioned her staring down at her present, stunned, as I hit her with the second part of my one-two punch: I know you gave April the Vicodin she overdosed on.
She would be dangerously mad. But she wouldn’t be able to touch me, because I’d also tell her about how I’d set up e-mails on my computer addressed to Thomas, Mrs. Voss, Ben Quick—and the private investigator—with the evidence I’ve compiled, including a photograph of the pill Dr. Shields gave me. I wrote that I was on my way to see you. The e-mails are scheduled to be automatically sent tonight unless I get home and delete them, I’d planned to say. But if don’t hand what have me, then I won’t hand over what I have on you.
That last part would be a lie because I still intended to find a way to turn in Dr. Shields. But if I could shock her into saying something incriminating on my secret recording, I’d at least have evidence to offset whatever story she concocted.
Now, as I sit in the library watching Thomas wipe his mouth with a napkin, I know I need to figure out a new strategy—fast.
I can’t believe Dr. Shields just told Thomas she knows he slept with April and that April was his client.
Thomas suddenly looks like a completely different man than the confident, take-charge guy who pulled off his jacket and covered the elderly woman who was hit by a taxi outside the museum.
My mind swirls as I try to reframe everything I thought I knew. I was right; April went to Thomas for therapy. But Dr. Shields doesn’t realize I’m aware of this, or that I already knew Thomas slept with April. It’s an explosive secret, one that could cost them everything. Why was she so cavalier about stating that information in front of me?
All of Dr. Shields’s moves are premeditated. So this wasn’t a slip. It was deliberate.
My stomach clenches like a fist as I realize she must already be certain that I’m not going to tell anyone.
A secret is only a secret if one person holds it.
What is she going to do to ensure I won’t reveal it?
My mind flashes to a vision of April, slumped on the park bench.
I shrink back against my seat as my entire body begins to tremble. My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow.
Dr. Shields tucks back a stray tendril of hair and I see the vein on her temple throb, a blue-green blemish on an otherwise-perfect sheet of marble.
The tasteful platter of hors d’oeuvres, the crackling fire, the elegant library with leather-bound volumes lining a shelf—how could I ever have thought bad things couldn’t happen in such an enviable setting?
Focus, I instruct myself.
Dr. Shields isn’t a physically violent person, I tell myself again. Her sharpest weapon is her mind. She wields it mercilessly. If I succumb to panic, I’ll lose.
I force myself to stare at her as Thomas gasps, “Lydia, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
She interrupts him: “I’m sorry, too, Thomas.”
Then I hear it: the disconnect between her words and her tone.
She doesn’t sound furious or cuttingly sarcastic, as a wife should in this moment.
Compassion fills her voice instead. It’s as though she believes she and Thomas are aligned together against the adulterous affair; as though they are both innocent parties.