“Hey, I went to high school with this woman!” Daniele Stephens posted several months back, along with the Forbes article detailing their guesstimates about Clare’s current net worth. The picture the article had used was of Clare at one of her book signings, a long line of readers stretched away from the table where she sat, pen poised over an open copy of Would I Lie to You?, smiling up at the elderly man waiting for his autographed copy.
Not that she really cared about impressing her old high school friends. Well, that wasn’t completely true. At first she had, in those early years when fame and success were still new, still fun. Now she really just liked looking at people’s family pictures, seeing how they had changed, and sometimes, like now, pulling up Kaylee Collins-Hensel’s profile and seeing if she’d made it public yet. Clare had always been too afraid, even hiding behind her Sara Smith mask, to send a Friend Request to Kaylee.
She always worried that Kaylee would see right through her Sara disguise.
Even if Kaylee didn’t suspect Sara was really Clare, what would she maybe have posted about Clare over the years? Clare had obviously taken Adam’s last name, and Kaylee would know that, but what did she think about it?
She stared at the photo she kept always on her desk, the four-by-six snapshot now almost twenty years old, in a thin silver frame to the right of her monitor—Adam and Clare. It was her eighteenth birthday, right before Adam had given her a tiny chip diamond ring. The ring had been a secret from everyone, everyone except his twin sister, Kaylee, who had helped him pick it out.
Next to the frame, in a small two-drawer lavender velvet box, Clare kept a few of her most precious items. She pulled the dark purple tassel hanging from the handle and opened the top drawer. Inside, all the way at the back, she found the small white ring box she kept hidden, took it out, and placed it on the desk in front of her. She slid off the four-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring and matching wedding band Simon had bought her six years ago, with money he’d earned off her books, and placed them in the shallow dish next to her keyboard.
With careful fingers, just like she’d done that day, Clare pried open the box to reveal the tiny chip of a diamond, held in place by four thin silver prongs, on a delicate gold band. She pulled it from the black fabric-covered sponge holding it in place and slipped it on her finger. Adam had shoveled driveways all winter through their senior year to afford it before their graduation in May.
Twenty years ago. How was it even possible that so much time had passed? She’d lived an entire lifetime since losing Adam, but every time she thought of him, it was a new knife in an old wound that refused to heal.
Clare leaned over her desk and pulled the photo closer, ran her finger across those two faces. They were so young, so happy. So desperately in love with each other—and for practically their whole lives. They had grown up on the same street in the same small town. He had always been part of her life.
Until that night.
Clare sat back in her chair, the photo resting against her chest. She let her head fall over the back of her chair and welcomed the tears that always came whenever she thought about Adam. She still, even now, loved him. Spent too much time imagining so many versions of lives she could have had with him.
Clare wiped her eyes and sat up, stared at the computer screen in front of her that was still illuminating Kaylee’s profile picture. Like Clare, she was now thirty-eight. Unlike Clare, she had what looked like a normal life, if you could assume such a thing from a nuclear family photo complete with husband, wife, and two children—a boy and a girl. But that was all Clare had ever been able to see. Sara Smith and Kaylee Collins-Hensel were not Facebook friends.
Clare reached for her mouse and moved the cursor to hover over the Add Friend button.
Maybe she should leave Kaylee alone. Was this weird? Or even worse than weird, totally wrong to be social-media-stalking your old boyfriend’s twin sister? She twirled Adam’s ring around her finger with her thumb.
Donna’s most accurate critique from that morning came back to her. One can imagine Collins scratching at the surface of the story she wanted to tell. It was an old accusation now freshly thrown down, publicly, whereas eighteen years ago it had only been witnessed by their other roommates.
“What are you afraid of, Clare?” Donna had asked and tossed Clare’s pages on the table between them. “You have to dig deep, get into your characters’ guts. I mean, what is the fucking point of writing anything if you’re not willing to tell your reader a painful truth?”
Donna’s criticisms had always been so hard because of their laser-like accuracy. Clare wanted to tell that story, the one burning inside her, the one she’d been scratching at the surface of for over sixty books.
Donna was right. Clare was afraid of that story, but twenty years was long enough.
Kaylee was an important part of getting it right. Clare couldn’t envision telling it, diving into the guts of it, if she didn’t know what happened. Clare stared at the photo of Kaylee and her family, evidence of how she had moved on with her life. Had Kaylee really moved on? Before Clare could change her mind, she clicked her mouse—Friend Request Sent—and sat back in her chair staring at her screen.
For the first time in years, she didn’t know what would happen next.
Chapter 6
Eileen
Eileen waited with the hordes of other people in the last boarding group outside the gate. Stunned, numb, unable to believe she was about to get on a flight to San Francisco while still clutching explicit photographs detailing her husband’s affair with Lauren Andrews.
Lauren and Eric had worked together at the same consulting company for years. Dave, Lauren’s husband, had left the photos and the note.
Eileen had been to their home twice—once for a Halloween party, where Lauren had dressed up as a belly dancer, and once for a Memorial Day office barbecue. Surrounded by other people, she obviously couldn’t take the photos out of the envelope right now to check, but she was pretty sure every picture was from inside Lauren and Dave’s house. There was no way Dave had taken them himself without Eric and Lauren knowing; the photos looked like they were probably stills from an in-home security system. Did Lauren know her husband had installed a camera security system throughout their home?
Obviously not.
Actually, Eileen suddenly thought, wouldn’t it be more likely that it would be a video surveillance system? She felt ill all over again. Of course, because who had a single-shot photography home surveillance system? Which meant Dave had watched entire videos of Eric and his wife fucking, repeatedly, throughout his home. The envelope she held were just a few of the choicest shots Dave had prepared to… What? Why had he made them? Why had he left them on Eric’s car? Was Dave trying to blackmail Eric? Leaving it on Eric’s car, obviously Dave had not intended Eileen to see it first, or—oh God, their kids.