She slid the packet into her pocket, then stepped out of his room, closing the door behind her. Her insides went liquid with panic. Hayes had looked awful even before he met with foul play; she had indeed thought that. She had chalked it up to Deacon’s death… but he was using.
Okay, okay, Belinda thought. What do I do?
There wasn’t time to consider this question, however, because Belinda heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and a second later, Laurel appeared, wearing only her flowered bikini, her hair hanging in damp strands down her back.
When she saw Belinda, she gasped and put a hand to her chest. “Jeez!”
“Sorry!” Belinda said.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be up here,” she said. “I just have to grab a towel for the outdoor shower…” A sudden change came over Laurel’s face as she registered that Belinda was standing outside the door to Hayes’s room. “What are you doing?”
“I…” Belinda said. The glassine packet was burning a hole in her pocket. Should she show it to Laurel? Hayes was an adult, but he was also a child, Deacon and Laurel’s child, Belinda’s stepchild. She should show Laurel the packet and let Laurel deal with it. If Deacon had been there, Belinda would have handed it right over, no question.
“Were you in Hayes’s room?” Laurel asked, with the voice of a dragon lady. “Did you…? Belinda Rowe, please tell me you did not just step out of my son’s room!”
Belinda’s mouth dropped open. Laurel was… what? Accusing Belinda of…? Being inappropriate with Hayes? Of sleeping with him? Belinda felt a wave of nausea.
Eeeeeeeeee! She had made such a mess of things. She fled past Laurel, down the stairs.
She needed to get rid of the heroin. At the bottom of the stairs, she ducked into the powder room, a sad little bathroom with a sour smell. She would flush the packet. But then common sense warned her that the plumbing in the house was ancient and temperamental, and flushing something like this might cause a backup or a flood or a housewide contamination. She could just pitch the packet into the trash, but someone might see it. In the end, Belinda stuck the packet of heroin in the mason jar filled with beach glass that was sitting on the back of the toilet. At the top of the jar was the dark-brown, frosted, nearly round bottom of a beer bottle with a curled lip. The piece was so frosted, it looked as if it were encrusted with sand. Belinda had found this piece on the beach herself years ago, back when Angie was ten or eleven and collecting beach glass had been her life’s purpose. Both Deacon and Angie had been impressed by this piece—Not bad for a prairie girl!—and Angie had awarded it the top spot in the jar.
Now Belinda would use it to conceal Hayes’s heroin.
Belinda flushed the toilet, let the water run in the sink for a second, then emerged from the powder room in time to hear Scarlett shepherding Ellery upstairs for a nap. She heard Ellery say, “Do you like my hair, Mommy? Miss Kit Kat braided it.”
Scarlett said, “You know, honey, she’s not really Miss Kit Kat.”
“Yes, she is,” Ellery said.
“No,” Scarlett said. “She just played her on TV. A long time ago. That’s what an actress does for a living. She pretends to be other people.”
Pretends to be other people? Belinda thought. Up until five seconds ago, Belinda had been a person pretending to be civil to her ex-husband’s other wives—but no longer. That comment, delivered in the most condescending of tones, was the final straw. Belinda had had it.
She entered the kitchen to find Angie at the sink, scrubbing clams.
“I need to get out of the house for a while,” Belinda said. “Do you think I could use your father’s truck?”
Angie spun around. She had become so, so beautiful, Belinda thought. Belinda loved the curve of her neck, the length and thickness of those eyelashes. She and Deacon couldn’t have made a child this beautiful in a thousand tries. “Is everything okay?”
Belinda smiled, but she was acting. She loathed nothing more than sympathy. If I want sympathy, she had once said to Deacon, I’ll look it up in the dictionary between “shit” and “syphilis.” She didn’t want Angie feeling sorry for her, but the events of the day had taken their toll.
“There’s an errand I’d like to do in town,” she said. “May I take your father’s truck?”
“Sure,” Angie said. “Keys are in it.”
“Thank you,” Belinda said. “I’ll be back.”
Belinda climbed into Deacon’s antique pickup, a worthy successor to his beloved Willys jeep. Deacon had loved old cars, and what had Belinda bought him? A brand-new Porsche. If she’d been paying attention, she would have gotten him something like this.
Oh, regrets!
Belinda took off down the road.
She was so fed up with Laurel and Scarlett that she had half a mind to drive to the airport and fly home. But that would be like quitting a movie in the middle of filming. She’d put effort into being a part of this weekend, and she had gotten embroiled in the family drama. She couldn’t leave. She had to fix things.
Besides, she had an idea.
She drove into town on Pleasant Street, then took a left up Main. She remembered everything: the yellow house on the corner with the magnificent planters on the porch, the Three Bricks—one for each of the Starbuck sons—and the royal-blue Victorian for the daughter, which was prettier, anyway. The truck bounced over the cobblestones, jarring Belinda’s teeth. She passed the Civil War monument and continued on Main until she reached number 141, the George Gardner House, built circa 1835. Everyone who had ever spent time on Nantucket had a favorite house, and this one was Belinda’s. She idled on the street out in front, admiring the white-clapboard symmetry of the house, the decorative railings of the roof walk, the Ionic portico, the ornamental balustrade, the four crisp brick chimneys. The house was simple, elegant, and distinctive all at once. The front landscaping was lush, the hydrangeas in glorious lavender bloom, the boxwood meticulously pruned. It was divine! It evoked a gracious age, summer parties with men in straw boaters and women carrying parasols, everyone drinking spiked lemonade and sloe gin fizzes. Belinda caught a glimpse of the glassed-in porch off the back and a slice of the azure swimming pool. The white spire of the Congregational church was visible in the distance. Belinda was completely charmed.
She was going to do it.
She parked the truck in front of the house and walked up the brick path to the front door. She knocked.
“Mom!” a young man’s voice called from inside.
“Answer it!” a woman’s voice said.
The door swung open. A boy of about sixteen stood before Belinda. He was wearing American-flag swim trunks and a white T-shirt that said BUCKNELL WATER POLO in orange and blue letters. He was eating a nectarine.
“Hi,” he said to Belinda. “Are you here for my mom?”
“Well…?” Belinda said. He was too young to be a fan, or even to recognize her, she supposed. He would recognize Jennifer Lopez. He would know Reese Witherspoon. But not Belinda Rowe. She would bemoan her advanced age later; right now, she was on a mission. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
He held the door open. “She’s in the kitchen, making sandwiches.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Belinda said. “And the kitchen is…”
“That way,” the boy said, pointing down the hall. He then galloped up the stairs two at a time, leaving Belinda to wander in.
The inside of the house was even more captivating than the exterior. This—this!—was how people were meant to live: with Persian rugs and antiques and Scalamandré fabrics, with clean fireplaces behind gleaming brass andirons and thoughtfully chosen window treatments. Belinda walked slowly, soaking in the impeccable white wainscoting and the chandeliers and the soft Mozart piped in through unseen speakers. She popped her head into the kitchen, where a woman stood at the counter with slices of bread in a row on the butcher block before her. The air smelled vaguely of celery and herbs.
“Chicken salad,” Belinda said. “My favorite.”
The woman’s head snapped up. “Oh!” she cried. She was pleasant looking—pretty, even—with a mass of light-brown curls secured to the top of her head and large, brown eyes. She blinked about forty times as she looked at Belinda.