Early in the morning, I stop by the house for a hot shower and a change of clothes. With my hair still wet, I swing by Little Croissant and grab coffee for both myself and Margaret, along with a couple of pistachio croissants.
Am I trying to butter Margaret up? Maybe. But I’m also buttering myself up. I’m going to need a lot of sugar and caffeine to get through today.
I’m not just tired; I’m anxious. To ask Margaret about Cecil, and about how asking might affect my chances of landing the job.
I stifle another yawn as I park in front of her house, and my phone vibrates in the cup holder.
Out on the patio, come on through.
I let myself through the unlocked front door and wind through the house to the sliding back doors. Margaret sits at one of her little garden tables under an open umbrella, with a heavily creased novel balanced face down on the arm of her chair.
“Brought you something.” I set her croissant and coffee in front of her.
“Oh, you’re an angel,” she says.
“Hardly.” I sit in the chair across from hers. “It’s just our last real session before the pitch, so I figured we’d better celebrate while we have the chance.” One of her eyebrows goes up. “I mean, I’m either going to be on a plane back to California or we’re going to be really getting down to business.”
“And what have these last few weeks been?” she says, looking suddenly as exhausted as I feel. “Easy peasy?”
I take a long sip of coffee. “An overview. Next I’d take what we’ve done so far and divide it into categories, then dig deeper into everything, one category at a time.”
“You’ll have time to sell me on all this later, you know,” she reminds me.
“I’m not selling you on it,” I say. “If anything, I guess I’m warning you. If this has been hard for you already…”
“Then it’s only going to get harder,” she guesses.
“There will be things you don’t want to talk about,” I say. “Things that might be important for the rest of the book. If you pull one loose thread out, sometimes things unravel.”
She eyes me over the lip of her coffee. “You let me worry about that.”
“Of course,” I say. “Just trying to be transparent.”
Over her shoulder, in the kitchen window, I see a flash of movement. “Is someone here?”
“Jodi,” she says.
“She’s back?” I say, surprised.
“Until I piss her off again, I suppose,” she says.
All my unanswered questions bubble to the surface. “You know, you’ve never told me what your relationship to Jodi is.”
She stares at me, unblinking, almost a challenge.
I can’t help it: I laugh. “Is it a secret?”
“It’s part of the story,” she says. “Which we may or may not get to, depending how today goes.”
“We’ll get to it,” I promise, shifting to the edge of my seat as a breeze lifts my hair off my neck, the smell of my sunscreen drifting toward my nose. “But first I wanted to ask you about something else.”
She sighs, like this notion fatigues her, but she waves a hand, gesturing for me to go on.
“Do you know anyone else on the island?”
Her head tilts. “What do you mean?”
I shake my head. “Just what I said. Do you know anyone here, other than Jodi?”
“Well, there’s the gal who does my massages,” she answers.
“Right,” I say. “Other than Jodi and her.”
She opens her mouth, a smile blooming on her lips, and I just know where this is going.
“And me and Hayden,” I add.
She presses her lips closed. “Where is this coming from?”
“You’re not going to answer the question?” I say, intrigued by her evasiveness.
“Are you going to answer mine?” she throws back.
“Cecil,” I say. “Wainwright. Or Cecil Willoughby.”
The look of shock that flares across her face quickly hardens into something like irritation, maybe even anger. “You know, you’re not the first person to bring him up to me this week. Strange coincidence.”
When I don’t reply immediately, she goes on, “Do I need to remind you that you’ve signed an NDA?”
I balk. What exactly is she implying here? That Hayden and I have been sharing information, or that she’s angry enough about it that she might sue me?
“Hayden found a lead,” I say. “I stumbled on his lead and chased it down myself.” He didn’t tell me anything, really. And even if he did, I’m not sure why it should matter so much.
This is why she brought us here, isn’t it? To tell her story. Cecil’s a part of that.
After a second, Margaret’s expression melts back into exhaustion. “I suppose I should’ve known you’d find him.”
Actually, I can’t help but feel like Cecil found me.
I think back to the email that brought me here. The address—Linda
But if so, why?
The mystery of it makes me feel like there’s electricity firing all through my body, usually dormant synapses searching for connections I’ve missed. It’s like being a treasure hunter, this part of a job. It’s addictive, really.
“What is your old family doctor doing here with you, Margaret?” I ask.
She stares back, face steely.
“Are you…” I swallow hard. “Are you sick?”
Her brows just barely jump. “No. No more than the average old lady who spent her life smoking cigarettes and drinking martinis.”
“Then what’s going on?” I ask.
“Get out your tape recorder,” she says. “I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”
