Connie found Meredith standing in the bread aisle, holding a bag of kaiser rolls.
Connie flooded with relief, then thought, This is ridiculous. I have to get a grip. “Oh, good,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Meredith said, “There was a USA Today photographer who staked out the Gristedes by my house, and there was a guy from the National Enquirer who frequented the D’Agostino down the street. I couldn’t go shopping for eggs. Or toothpaste.”
Connie took the rolls from Meredith’s hands and dropped them in the cart. “Well, no one’s following you here.”
“Yet,” Meredith said, adjusting her sunglasses.
“Right. Let’s not press our luck.” Connie headed for the checkout. She was grateful not to know anyone in the store. She and Wolf had made a conscious decision not to engage in Nantucket’s social scene. They attended parties and benefits and dinners at home in Washington all year long, and Nantucket was a break from that, although Wolf still had a few friends on Nantucket from summers growing up. His parents and grandparents had belonged to the Nantucket Yacht Club, and once or twice a summer Wolf was called on to sail, or he and Connie were invited to a cocktail party or barbecue in the garden of a friend’s ancestral summer cottage. But for the most part, Connie and Wolf kept to themselves. Although she had been coming to Nantucket for over twenty years, Connie often felt anonymous. She knew no one and no one knew her.
As they stood in line, Meredith handed Connie three twenty-dollar bills. “I’d like to chip in for expenses.”
Connie considered waving the money away. The television reporters had made it clear that-unless there was a cache of funds at some offshore bank-Meredith Delinn had been left penniless. “Do what you can,” Connie said. “But there’s no pressure.”
“Okay,” Meredith whispered.
On their way back to Tom Nevers, Connie noticed a commotion at the rotary. News vans were clustered in the parking lot of the Inquirer and Mirror, the island newspaper. Connie did a double take. Were those news vans?
“Get down,” Connie said. “Those are reporters.” She checked the rearview mirror. “CNN, ABC.”
Meredith bent in half; she was as low as the seatbelt would allow. “You’re kidding,” she said.
“I kid you not.”
“I can’t believe this,” Meredith said. “I can’t believe they care where I am. Well, of course they care where I am. Of course the whole world needs to know that I am now summering on Nantucket. So they can make me look bad. So they can make it seem like I’m still living a life of luxury.”
“Which you are,” Connie said, trying to smile.
“Why couldn’t you live someplace awful?” Meredith said. “Why couldn’t you live in East Saint Louis? Why couldn’t they be reporting that Mrs. Delinn was spending the summer in hot and dangerous East Saint Louis?”
“This isn’t funny,” Connie said. She checked her rearview mirror. The road behind them was clear. Connie checked again. “Well, guess what. They’re not following us.”
“They’re not?”
Connie motored on. She felt the teensiest bit disappointed. “False alarm, I guess.” She tried to think why there would have been TV vans at the rotary, and then she remembered a third-or fourth-tier news story, buried way beneath the sentencing of Freddy Delinn. “Oh, that’s right!” she said. “The president is here this weekend!”
Meredith sat up. “You scared me.” She was doing some audible Lamaze breathing to calm herself down, and Connie remembered when Meredith was in the hospital after giving birth to Leo. Connie had taken two-year-old Ashlyn to the hospital to see Meredith and the baby. Freddy had been as proud as a goddamned rooster, handing out expensive (not to mention illegal) Cuban cigars; he’d pushed one on Connie, saying, “Go home and give it to Wolf. He’s going to love it.” Connie remembered feeling jealous that giving birth had come so easily for Meredith (Connie had slogged through twenty-three hours of labor with Ashlyn and she’d suffered a uterine rupture, which precluded her from having any more children). Meredith had said, “Thank God, Freddy got his boy and the hallowed Delinn name will live on.” This had upset Connie; she had felt defensive that Ashlyn was a girl and that there would be no more children to carry on the hallowed Flute name. Feeling bad about this led to resentment that, while Connie had made the trip from Bethesda to New York to see Meredith in the hospital, Meredith hadn’t made the reverse trip two years earlier when Ashlyn was born. It was amazing how memories intruded like that. It was amazing how Connie’s mind held the good and the bad of every interaction, swirled together like children’s paints. Meredith might only remember happiness that Connie had come, or recall the cute outfit that Connie had brought. When Meredith thought of Leo being born, she might only think, Leo is under investigation.
Connie turned into her driveway and parked in front of the house. Meredith scrambled to get the groceries out of the car.
“You go in and relax,” Meredith said. “I’ll get these.”
Connie laughed. “You’re not an indentured servant,” she said. “But thank you for the help.”
She flashed back to that day at the hospital. Meredith had allowed Ashlyn to hold her hours-old infant, even though the head nurse strongly advised against it. It’ll be fine! Meredith had said. Connie and I will be right here. Meredith had snapped the pictures herself. She’d had one framed and sent it to Connie. And then, of course, she’d asked Connie to be Leo’s godmother.
“It’s nice to have someone else around,” Connie said.
“Even me?” Meredith said.
“Even you,” Connie said.
MEREDITH
At ten minutes to five, Meredith couldn’t put it off any longer: she had to call her attorneys and give them her coordinates. She was still under investigation. She wasn’t allowed to leave the country; the Feds had her passport. Burt and Dev needed to know where she was.
She sat on her bed and turned on her cell phone. This had become a suspenseful moment in Meredith’s daily routine: Had anyone called her? Had anyone texted her? Would Carver and Leo break the rules and text her the I love you that she so desperately needed? Had any of Meredith’s former friends found enough compassion in their hearts to reach out? Would she hear from Samantha? Had Burt or Dev called? Did they have good news or bad news? How bad was the bad news? Would this be the moment when Meredith received the worst news? Indeed, the reason Meredith kept her phone turned off was to limit the torture to this one moment, instead of living with it all day long.
There were no messages and no texts. This presented its own kind of misery.
She dialed the law firm and said a Hail Mary, which was what she always did when she dialed the law firm. She could hear the sounds of Connie making dinner downstairs.
Meredith had thought she might feel safer on Nantucket, but she was plagued by a low-grade terror. Nantucket was an island, thirty miles out to sea. What if she needed to escape? There would be no hopping in a cab uptown or downtown or across the bridge or through the tunnel into New Jersey. There would be no hightailing it to Connecticut if Leo or Carver needed her. She felt both exiled and trapped.
Meredith had $46,000 of her own money. This was the savings that she’d tucked away in a CD earning 1.5 percent, from her teaching job in the 1980s. (Freddy had ridiculed her for this. Let me invest it, he’d said. I’ll double it in six months.) But Meredith had kept rolling over the money in that CD for no reason other than personal pride-and how relieved she was now! She had something to live on, actual legitimate money that she’d earned and banked. Forty-six thousand dollars would seem a fortune to many people, she knew, but to her it felt like a pittance. She had run through that much in an afternoon of antiques shopping. Disgusting! she thought as the phone rang. How had she become that person?
The receptionist answered.
“May I speak with Burton Penn, please?” Meredith asked.
“May I ask who’s calling?” the receptionist said.
Meredith cringed. She hated identifying herself. “Meredith Delinn.”
The receptionist didn’t respond. The receptionist never responded, though Meredith had called and spoken to this selfsame receptionist dozens of times.
The phone rang. Although Meredith had asked for Burt, the person who answered the phone was Dev.
“Hi Dev,” Meredith said. “It’s Meredith.”
“Thank God,” Dev said. “I was just about to call your cell. Where are you?”
“I’m on Nantucket,” Meredith said.
“Nantucket?” Dev said, “What are you doing on Nantucket?”
“I’m with a friend,” Meredith said.
Dev made a noise of surprise. Clearly, he had been under the impression that Meredith didn’t have any friends. And he was right. But Meredith had Connie. Was Connie her friend? Connie was something; Meredith wasn’t sure what.
“What’s the address there?” Dev asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Phone number? Please, Meredith, give me something. The Feds want us to have contact information for you on the ground.”
Meredith had written down the phone number at the house. She recited it to Dev.
He said, “First things first. I’m glad you’re safe.” Meredith smiled. Dev was one person, aside from her sons, who didn’t want to see her jump off the George Washington Bridge. Her other attorney, Burt, would never have expressed this kind of sentiment. Burt didn’t dislike Meredith, but he was detached. She was a case, a legal problem. She was work.
Dev said, “I heard from Warden Carmell at the MCC, and he said Mr. Delinn was shipped out on the bus at noon. Ten hours down to Butner. He’s due to arrive tonight.”
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