“You’re trespassing, is what you are,” Mrs. Glass said. “I’m Mrs. Dustin Glass of Twenty-One Hoicks Hollow Road, and my husband, I’ll have you know, was president of the association for eighteen years. This road is private. It’s for residents only.”

“I know your husband,” Belinda said. “Dusty. I used to be married to-”

“I certainly don’t recognize you,” Mrs. Dustin Glass said. “I’ve lived on this private way since 1945, and before that I summered with my parents on Baxter Road in Sconset.”

“I know,” Belinda said. “I used to be married to Deacon, Deacon Thorpe, the chef…?” She paused, searching Mrs. Glass’s face for signs of recognition, but her expression was immutable, her watery blue eyes defiant. “We live at number thirty-three. American Paradise?”

“American Paradise?” Mrs. Dustin Glass said. “That house belongs to the Innsleys.”

Belinda smiled. “It did a long time ago,” she said. “Then my husband bought it. I lived here with him in the nineteen nineties. I’m Belinda Rowe.”

“I don’t care if you’re the queen of Sheba,” Mrs. Glass said. “You are trespassing on a private way. I intend to get to the bottom of this.” She cranked her window back up with purpose.

Belinda watched the Wagoneer until it turned into the driveway for number twenty-one. She couldn’t believe Mrs. Glass didn’t remember her. Hadn’t Belinda signed autographs for her granddaughters once upon a time? Hadn’t Deacon baked her and Dusty a triple-berry pie with a lemon-rosemary crust? But she supposed Mrs. Glass was right-Belinda didn’t belong here. Not anymore. She belonged in Los Angeles, or in Louisville, Kentucky, with her daughters and her unfaithful husband.

She passed the Sankaty Head Beach Club, PRIVATE, and rolled her eyes. She and Deacon had sat on the waiting list for a membership throughout the entirety of their marriage, and by the time they were up for consideration, they had split. Belinda had forgotten about the way Nantucket was one big private, Yankee blue-blooded club where people drove old clunkers-even though they probably had enough money in the bank to buy a Shelby Cobra with a Lamborghini chaser-just to prove some kind of point about their frugality and restraint.

But maybe-maybe the beach club had something as newfangled as a booster. Because suddenly, Belinda had reception! She stopped dead in her tracks and dialed Bob.

“Bob Percil here,” he said.

Belinda knew that Bob answered the phone this way regardless of who was calling, but still, Belinda longed for the day when he would actually check his display and greet her with a “Hey, baby.” He didn’t even have to be faithful as long as he gave her the tender, sexy attention she deserved as his wife.

“Bob,” she said. “It’s Belinda.”

No response.

“Bob?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m on Nantucket,” Belinda said.

“Oh yes,” Bob said. “I know.”

Belinda could hear the horses on the track-hooves on dirt, whinnying, whistles blowing. Bob was busy with his life. Belinda had thought marrying someone who had nothing to do with show business was a good idea-it had worked for Meryl Streep-but what, really, did she and Bob have in common?

“How are the girls?” she asked.

“They finished school Friday,” Bob said. “And they’ve been trail riding with Stella ever since. They were out until dark last night and up at it first thing this morning.”

Stella, Belinda thought. She knew she should be happy the girls were outside riding their very expensive horses. Girls who rode became interested in boys and makeup and cigarettes much later than their nonriding counterparts.

“Poor Stella,” Belinda said. “That’s not in her job description. You’ll have to pay her extra.”

“Nah,” Bob said. “She’s happy to do it. She loves the girls.”

Great, Belinda thought. What Bob was probably saying was that Stella would someday become the girls’ stepmother. She wondered if Mrs. Greene was turning a blind eye. Mrs. Greene didn’t like it when Belinda went away-for work or any other reason. She was a firm believer in family meals and bedtime reading. Mrs. Greene was happy to prepare the meals-she was a traditional Southern cook, and Belinda had to constantly watch herself around the fried chicken, macaroni salad, collard greens, corn bread, and lemon chess pie-but she wanted both Belinda and Bob to sit down at the table in the formal dining room with the girls, who were to have their hair brushed and their hands washed. And Mrs. Greene wouldn’t stay at the house past eight p.m., which meant that either Belinda or Bob was in charge of what Mrs. Greene called “stories and tuck-in,” which she deemed vital to the girls’ development.

When Belinda was away, she was pretty sure Bob let the girls eat chips and salsa and watch Dance Moms on Netflix until they fell asleep.

Belinda saw a dust cloud down the road; another car was approaching. Probably someone else to tell Belinda she didn’t belong. She closed her eyes.

“Please give the girls my love,” she said. “And tell them I miss them.”

Bob cleared his throat. “Stella picked up a phone message off the main line for the stables,” Bob said. “The call came in at four o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh yeah?” Belinda said. She wasn’t sure why Bob was telling her this. Half his owners lived in Dubai, Hong Kong, Macao. The phone at the stables rang all night long.

“The call was from Laurel,” Bob said. He cleared his throat again. “Laurel Thorpe. She said there was something she wanted to tell me. Any idea what that might be?”

Belinda nearly dropped the phone on the road. Hang up! she thought. She could pretend she lost service. She needed to think!

Laurel had called Bob. She had something she wanted to tell him. Something about Belinda, obviously. Had she found out what happened with Buck?

“Um…,” Belinda said. “We had a discussion last night about the house. It’s going into foreclosure. Deacon left me a third interest and a third to Laurel and a third to Scarlett. But the debt needs to be cleared.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Bob said. “How much money are we talking?”

“A hundred and fifty grand, for my portion,” Belinda said.

Bob whistled. “Deacon really got in over his head.”

“Yeah.” Belinda knew what Bob was thinking: Deacon may have been a great chef, but he was a terrible businessperson. Whereas Bob was a great horse trainer and an even better businessperson. The stables turned a huge profit every single quarter.

“Let it go, Belinda,” Bob said. “I don’t want you sinking our money into a pile out there.”

Our money. Ignoring advice from her accountant and Leif Larsen, her agent, Belinda had consolidated her finances with Bob’s because that was how she had run things with Deacon: what was hers, was his, was theirs. Belinda wasn’t naive, of course-she stashed all the money she’d earned in points from The Delta into an escrow account that Leif oversaw. Last time she’d checked, it was hovering just above five million. She kept it to the side, just in case.

“I know,” Belinda said.

“So, I’m sorry?” Bob said. “Do you think Laurel was calling to ask me for money? Because somehow I don’t think so. That wasn’t how it sounded.”

“Oh really? How did it sound?”

“Like something else,” Bob said.

Like Laurel had found out about Belinda and Buck and she had called Bob to tell him.

Wow, Belinda had to hand it to her: that was an effective scare tactic.

“I would just forget about it,” Belinda said. She tried to keep her voice modulated. “I’ll handle Laurel. I’m sorry she bothered you.”

“No bother,” Bob said. “I have to admit, Belinda, my curiosity was piqued.”

“Stay out of it, please, darling,” Belinda said. “Things are tricky enough here as it is.”

“Well,” Bob said. She heard him exhale smoke. Was he going to let it go? Oh please please please. “When are you coming home?”

“Wednesday,” she said. “I’ll be home on Wednesday.” She would, in truth, be home on Tuesday, but if she told him Wednesday and showed up on Tuesday, she would catch him at whatever he was doing. He was the philanderer here, not Belinda, short of one tiny indiscretion with Buck, which had lasted all of two minutes. Belinda could not believe Laurel had called the stables!

“We’ll see you on Wednesday,” Bob said. “Let me know when you’re flying in, and I’ll have Tenner pick you up at the airport.”

Tenner was the driver; airport pickups and drop-offs were his job, but was it too much to ask to have Bob pick up Belinda, either with or without the girls?

“I love you,” Belinda said.

“Okay then,” Bob said, and he hung up.


Okay then. Bob wasn’t effusive by anyone’s standards, but he could normally be counted on for an “I love you, too,” or at least a “You too.” But not today. Today, Bob Percil was suspicious-or maybe he was just distracted by the gait of Shadow, his prize dappled gray. Belinda hung up the phone and stepped into the grass to get out of the way of the approaching car. As opposed to Mrs. Glass, who drove like a sloth on barbiturates, the driver of this car was moving way too fast.

Slow down! Belinda thought. The car was a sleek, black sedan, a car-service car, one step down from a limousine, and Belinda’s mind came up question marks. But then she reasoned that someone on Hoicks Hollow Road might be an investment banker or a corporate attorney and would be used to employing this very un-Nantucket-like vehicle.

Belinda didn’t much care. She moved Bob up in her worries from number four to number one. Tears sprang to her eyes. It wasn’t fair! Belinda did one little thing, and now it was a federal case, whereas Bob had screwed around for years and years-and it was far worse than Belinda even suspected, she was sure. That was always how it worked, wasn’t it? She thought he had been with three girls, which probably meant there were thirty.