Elin Hilderbrand - The Rumor

“I’ll tell you about Eddie,” Grace said. “But now I don’t trust you! You have to promise me you won’t…”

“Grace,” Madeline said. “I won’t.”

The most important person in his life now was his new attorney, Bridger Cleburne. Bridger worked at a very large, prestigious firm in Boston, but he hailed from Lubbock, Texas, where he had been the star pitcher on the baseball team that won the Little League World Series in 1984. Bridger used his childhood glory days as a point of commonality with Eddie, “Fast Eddie,” the holder of so many track records at New Bedford High School.

Eddie didn’t care about his track records or about Bridger’s role in the Little League World Series. He needed Bridger to get him out of trouble.

But Eddie’s “situation,” as Bridger called it-a very long word, in his Lone Star State drawl-wasn’t an easy fix. It turned out that one of Eddie’s cleaners-teeny, tiny Elise Anoshkin-was still a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday! A minor, an illegal minor! It was all looking dire for Eddie. The FBI had been watching the house since the second week of the “shenanigans”-another long word for Bridger-and a wiretap had been installed. The evidence was damning.

At first, Eddie thought he’d been turned in by Glenn Daley. He was sure Barbie had either knowingly confided in Glenn or had let some hint or clue slip during the heat of passion. Then, crazily, Eddie wondered if Benton Coe was to blame. Possibly, Benton had been looking for a way to get Eddie out of the picture so he could marry Grace. But Bridger had told Eddie that there were two informants, neither of them Glenn or Benton. One was Eloise, Eddie’s secretary! Apparently, she had needed her paycheck so badly because her “situation” was that she had turned Eddie in: Eloise had overheard Barbie on the phone with one of the potential clients early on. Eloise had contacted her son-in-law’s brother, Officer Dixon at the Nantucket Police Department, and the police had started watching the house.

The other, more dangerous informant was the thirty-year-old billionaire owner of the house. He had given the FBI full access to install surveillance equipment.

How had the owner found out? He had bumped into Ronan LNW from DeepWell at the bar at the Bellagio in Vegas. Ronan had been wearing, of all things, a Chicken Box hat, and when the owner asked Ronan about his connection to Nantucket, Ronan said that he rented an unbelievable house on Low Beach Road in Sconset. Imagine the owner’s delighted surprise when he found out Ronan rented his house. What were the chances? The owner bought Ronan a glass of twenty-five-year-old Laphroaig, and from there it wasn’t hard to imagine that Ronan had leaked like a sieve and told the owner just how much fun he’d had in that house.

The owner wasn’t angry about the immorality of the situation. But he was furious-being a cutthroat businessman himself-that Eddie hadn’t given him a share in the profits.

Now, no matter how one looked at it, Eddie was going to jail. The feds had evidence on Barbie as well, but if Eddie made a deal, Barbie would be spared.

And so Eddie received a sentence of three to five years at MCI-Plymouth. Number 13 Eagle Wing Lane was repossessed by the bank, as were both of Eddie’s commercial properties, including the offices of Dr. Andrew McMann, D.D.S.

The house was paid up until the end of the month, but Eddie was going to advise Grace to sell it. She could buy something smaller and use the difference to send the girls to college and pay back Madeline and Trevor.

These decisions were all made quickly, in a matter of days. Nadia and the other girls were on their way back to Kyrgyzstan.

It could have been worse, he supposed. Three to five years could become two years with good behavior. MCI-Plymouth was a far cry from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Eddie would have a TV in his cell, which would be a single, and the food was supposedly sourced from a nearby farm cooperative; there were barbecues held once a month in the state forest. There was a gym where Eddie could start an exercise regimen, and an infirmary with a full-time nurse practitioner, who could, possibly, find a way to cure Eddie’s chronic heartburn. Most important, there would be other white-collar criminals, whom he might, someday, sell houses to.

These things only slightly ameliorated the anguish caused by going to jail. The shame of it was enough to kill him. Now everyone knew that Eddie Pancik was an underworld king. He was a pimp. He could barely bring himself to look at the twins. What would their lives be like at school? What would the other kids say? Their senior year would be ruined, when it should have been the best year of their lives. Eddie decided the right thing to do as a father and a man was to formally apologize to them. He did this the morning of his sentencing, in the hours before he was to plead guilty to seventeen charges of sex trafficking, harboring illegal aliens, tax evasion, and corruption of a minor.

The girls were out by the pool, side by side, reading, as they often were now, despite the fact that Eddie had returned Allegra’s cell phone, thereby restoring her access to her social life. Eddie strode out across the grass in his bare feet, head exposed to the sun now that all three of his Panama hats had bitten the dust. It was late July and one of the most glorious sunny days that God had to offer. The yard was blooming in forty different directions. It was so lush, so colorful, so aesthetically pleasing, that Eddie’s overwhelming instinct was to get on his knees and pray-for forgiveness and in gratitude for the beauty of the world that he had taken for granted and that he would now be leaving behind.

He stood equidistantly between the foot of the girls’ chaise longues. His father had managed Ramos Dry Cleaners and had never made more than twenty-five thousand dollars a year, but Charles Pancik never had to prostrate himself in front of his children. He had been a man of honor. Eddie and Barbie still talked about him with reverence.

“Girls,” Eddie said.

They set down their books and regarded him. They were wearing sunglasses, so it was hard to read their expressions. Since they had learned what had happened, they had treated him with a certain pity, almost as if he were terminally ill. But they must have been angry and disgusted with him, too. They must have been.

He said, “I owe you both an apology.”

They stared at him.

“I did an inexcusable thing. I broke the law, and I engaged in a business arrangement that debased five young women, one of them only a year older than you. I used my position of power to make money from these girls selling their bodies. I was wrong, and I want you to know I’m very sorry.”

Hope said, “It’s okay, Daddy.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not okay.”

“It was a business arrangement,” Allegra said. “You got paid, the girls got paid, the men got what they wanted. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Hope said.

“Well, that doesn’t make it right,” Eddie said, thinking, Tax evasion, corruption of a minor, sex trafficking-these would be words connected with his name for the rest of his life. “I’ve led by poor example, and as a result of my actions, I’m going to jail, and your mother is going to sell the house.”

Hope shrugged. “It’s just a house.”

Allegra said, “I’d rather live in town, anyway.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. He couldn’t understand why they were being so nice.

“Eddie!” Grace called from the porch. “We have to go!”

The girls stood to give Eddie a hug. “We love you, Daddy,” Allegra said.

“We really love you,” Hope said.

“And I love you both,” Eddie said. “So much.” He was overcome with emotion. “Take care of your mother. Please.”

“We will,” Hope said.

The ride from Polpis Road to the courthouse took twenty minutes, the last free minutes of Eddie’s old life.

He said to Grace, “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“You slept with Nadia?” she said. She kept her eyes straight ahead, but her mouth was a grim, unattractive line. “I know it hardly matters in the scheme of things, but if you did, I want you to admit it.”

“I did not sleep with Nadia,” Eddie said. “What I want to tell you isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

“You’re going to tell me something about myself?” she said.

“It’s about Benton,” Eddie said.

Grace swerved the car at the mention of his name. It was probably the last thing she’d expected to talk about today, and yet Eddie had to get it off his chest before he left.

“What is it?” she said.

“I called him the other night,” Eddie said. “Before I drove out to Low Beach Road, I called him, and I asked him to stop by the office so we could have a man-to-man talk.”

Grace gasped. “Did he show?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “I asked him what had been going on, and he told me he loved you. I honestly think he was asking me to step aside gracefully so you two could have a life together.” Eddie cleared his throat. “But he was confused, too, maybe not as sure of himself as he thought. He was worried about the effect of such a scandal on his business. Nobody wants to hire a home wrecker. He was afraid for you and the girls. He enjoyed Hope and thought she was a great kid, but he had never even met Allegra. What happened within the confines of the garden shed might have looked a little different once it was brought out into the sun.” Eddie had been struck, however, by Benton Coe’s adoration of his wife. When Benton talked about Grace, Eddie could feel love coming off the man in waves. It had given Eddie pause. “I think he was willing to take the risk if it could be done with my blessing? My permission?” Eddie was pretty sure that was why Benton had agreed to come to the office-he thought Eddie was going to surrender. “But I wasn’t about to just hand you over. You’re my wife, my life, you’re the mother of my children. I’m aware, Grace, that I haven’t been the most attentive, nor the most loving, husband. I realize I didn’t succeed at nurturing your interior life. Most days, I didn’t ask what you were thinking or feeling. You had emotional needs that I was incapable of meeting, which was why I was glad you had Madeline. And, for a while, I was even glad you had Benton. I knew you liked him, I knew his friendship was important to you. I knew you enjoyed having someone to talk about flowers. But I’m not going to lose you to him. I told him, Grace, that if he ever contacted you again, or if he even responded to a text or call that you made, I would have him killed.”