Her expression doesn’t flicker, like the smile is painted on to her face. “Well. That’s nice. Maybe Finn would like to go upstairs?”
She makes it sound like a question, but I know it’s not, and Finn seems to as well.
“Yeah, of course.” He backs away from us. “I’ll just go . . . uh, up to Marina’s room?”
“That’s fine,” Mom says. I’m not crazy about the idea of Finn being in my room and quickly try to remember if I’ve left anything embarrassing like underwear lying around, but Finn turns and sprints up the stairs before I can suggest another location.
“How well do you know that boy?” Mom asks, brushing my hair back behind my ears like she always does whenever it falls into my face.
“Not very well,” I say. “We just came to . . . get some things for James. Some food and stuff.”
“All right. Daniel!” she calls. “Marina’s home!”
“Dad’s here, too?” I say. “Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
“There wasn’t any time, hon.” She puts her arm around my shoulders and leads me to the living room. “Daniel? We’re in here.”
“Be right there!” Dad’s voice comes from the direction of his study.
She sits me down on the sofa and rubs her hand up and down my arm. It’s weird. “Mom, what’s going on?”
“There’s something we need to discuss,” she says as my father walks into the room. His slacks are creased from the hours on the plane; he obviously didn’t shower and change immediately upon arriving home like Mom did.
“Marina.” He bends and kisses my forehead. “How are you doing?”
“Not good,” I say, even though that should be obvious. How am I going to get out of this house now? They’d have a joint aneurysm if I told them I wanted to go to Connecticut. Maybe I can tell them we’re spending the night at Finn’s again—without mentioning where Finn lives. “I’ve been with James at the hospital since the shooting—”
“Luz let you go to the hospital last night?” Mom stiffens. “With a shooter on the loose and the media circus around that place? Sometimes I swear that woman has no sense.”
I bristle. “She didn’t let me. I just went. I couldn’t leave James there alone.”
Mom smoothes a wrinkle out of my jeans. “That’s something else we need to discuss—”
“Amanda.” Dad gives her a look. “Another time. The truth is, Mimi . . .”
I cringe at his baby nickname for me, and he perches on the edge of his chair so he can put a hand on my knee. That plus Mom’s arm around my shoulders makes me nervous.
“I know this isn’t the best time, but unfortunately it’s something we can’t put off,” Dad says. “Your mother and I have thought a lot about this, and we’ve decided that it will be best for us to separate for a while.”
I stare at them. Is this really happening?
Are they really doing this right now?
“Separating?” I say. “You mean you’re getting divorced?”
Dad and Mom exchange a look. “That’s right, sweetheart,” he says.
“I . . . Why are you telling me this?” I stand up. “I just watched Nate get shot, and you came home to tell me you’re getting a divorce?”
“The timing is awful, honey,” Mom says, “but we couldn’t put it off anymore.”
“Why not?” I say. “How long have you known?”
Years, probably. I try to remember the last time they seemed happy together, and at first I draw a blank. A picture eventually rises in my mind of the three of us in Paris. I was watching a street vendor make crepes with his little squeegee, and when I turned around, I caught my father leaning down to kiss my mom, their lips smiling against each other’s. I was twelve. I sink back to the couch.
“A little while,” Mom says. “We went out of town to sort out the details so you wouldn’t have to be a part of it, but then your father got called away for a meeting.”
“I leave for Rome in the morning,” Dad says.
“I’m going to go visit your grandparents in New York while he’s gone,” Mom says, “and I’m taking you with me.”
“What?” I whisper.
Dad squeezes my knee. “We don’t want you here with everything that’s going on right now.”
“You want me to leave?” I say. “Now?”
“It’s for the best, sweetheart,” Dad says. “I’m going to be in Rome for at least a week, and we can’t possibly leave you alone here with that insanity next door.”
I swallow my rising panic. “Then can you stay? I can’t leave James—”
Dad shakes his head. “I have to go. They’re expecting me.”
I turn to Mom. “You don’t have to go. Stay here with me.”
“It’s best if we go to New York, honey,” Mom says. “I think we could all use a little time away. You know your grandmother’s good friends with the headmistress at Spence, and the semester is just starting. I thought we might take a tour and see if you like it.”
“Why?”
They both just look at me, like they can’t find the words. It takes a long time for the truth to filter through my foggy brain. I turn to Mom.
“We’re moving?” I whisper.
“Nothing’s definite,” she says, “but I’m considering it. I know it will be an adjustment for you, but you’ve always loved New York, and your grandparents and Aunt Celeste are there. Think of all the new opportunities you’d have in a city like that.”
My throat closes up, and I have to force the words past. “But I don’t want to leave.”
“Nothing’s for certain yet, honey,” she says. “I just want you to keep an open mind while we’re there.”
“I’m not going.”
Mom sighs. “Marina. I know it’s a difficult time, but I’m only trying to do what’s best for you—”
“Bullshit!” Suddenly the fog over my brain is gone, and I’m angry. So angry that I’m shaking, like all the rage inside of me is trying to explode outward, pushing at my skin.
“Honey—”
“You didn’t come back here for me.” My voice breaks. “You don’t care about how hard the last twenty-four hours have been for me. You came to pack me up like a piece of luggage.”
Mom’s face hardens. “That’s enough, Marina. This isn’t easy for any of us.”
“Sweetheart . . .” Dad steps toward me.
I try to blink the tears back, but I can’t. I step out of Dad’s reach, backing out of the room.
“I hate you,” I say, meaning it. Finn is waiting for me at the base of the stairs, one of my tote bags slung over his shoulder. I hate him, too, for overhearing whatever he did.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Mimi!” Dad says after me.
“Let her go, Daniel,” I hear Mom tell him as I run from the house, Finn somewhere behind me.
Seventeen
Marina
We go next door and retrieve James’s car, a white hand-me-down BMW from Nate. He should be sneaking away from his protection right now, and we’ll pick him up. I only just got my learner’s permit, but Finn asks me to drive anyway.
“Hey, Marina . . .” he says as I’m pulling out of the Shaws’ driveway.
“Can we not talk about it?” I say. I’m on the verge of tears and fighting hard to keep them back. I can’t talk, contain myself, and not hit things with James’s car all at the same time.
“Sure.”
“Don’t tell James, okay?” I say.
“I won’t.”
Finn texts James when we’re a minute from the hospital, and he emerges from the Starbucks across the street just as we pull up. He takes the driver’s seat, and I climb into the passenger’s.
“Everything go okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light and even.
“Our boy’s a genius,” Finn says, patting his shoulder. “Those cops never had a chance.”
“In all fairness,” James says, “a four-year-old could have made that escape. They weren’t keeping too c
lose an eye on me since we were still in the hospital. I said I was going to the restroom and then just took the stairs and left.”
I hear the conversation, but I’m not really paying attention. I keep thinking about my parents. I used to joke with Tamsin and Sophie about the inevitable divorce all the time; it’s practically a rite of passage for a teenager. But maybe I never really expected it to happen, because this feels like a punch to the gut, sudden and shocking.
What am I going to do? If they have to split up, I’d rather live here with my dad. He and I don’t fight the way Mom and I do, even if that’s mostly because he’s never home. He’s a total workaholic, like he still thinks he’s that lower-class kid from South Boston who has to scratch and claw his way to the top. And that’s just why Mom would never let me live with him. She’s been trying to mold me into a miniature her ever since I was born; she’s not going to give up now. I could live with that if she just stays in D.C., but if she takes me away from my friends and Luz . . . from James . . . I can’t bear it.
I hate this. I hate them. And I really hate that I can feel Finn’s eyes on the back of my neck.
“Marina?” James says.
I shake myself out of my thoughts. “Yeah?”
He hands me his phone. “Can you text Viv for me? Just tell her I’m okay and sorry and I’ll be home soon? After that we need to take the SIM cards out of our phones; otherwise they could use them to trace our location.”
“You think they’d do that?” Finn asks while I start the text to Vivianne.
“No idea, but I’d rather not risk it.”
“What if . . . they need to get a hold of you?” Finn says. We all know what he means. What if Nate dies?
James’s jaw tightens. “We’ll be back by morning.”
James drives through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, only stopping once for gas. I spend most of the trip staring out of the window, trying not to think about what I can’t stop thinking about. None of us talks much.
“You okay?” James asks me as we cross the border into New York.
No, I’m not. I want to cry out all my troubles to him and let him comfort me, but even I’m not that selfish. “Yeah. Fine.”
“It’s just you’ve had that look on your face ever since you picked me up,” he says.
“What look?”
“The Marina-is-suffering-in-silence look, where you grit your teeth and pinch your lips together like something might escape you at any second and you’re trying to hold it back.”
“I have no such look.”
He smiles. “Sure you do. You had it on your face the entire time I tried to teach you how to sail last summer, and it’s the look on your face basically any time your mother talks.”
“You do totally have that look, M,” Finn says from the backseat.
I shoot him a glare. He’s not helping.
“I know you, Marina,” James says softly. “You can’t hide anything from me.”
Oh, but I can. If he only knew.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Really. Don’t worry about me.”
James must see he’ll get nowhere with me now, so he lets it drop, and we spend the rest of the ride in silence. It’s dark by the time we roll into Greenwich, Connecticut, one of those lush old towns that CEOs and neurosurgeons return to after a long day’s work in Manhattan. Just like Georgetown, but colder. The house is on the outskirts of town, protected by a gate with a guard posted there twenty-four hours a day. James slows to a halt beside the guard station, rolling down his window as the guard steps out.
“Mr. Shaw,” the man says. “I’m so incredibly sorry—”
“Thanks, Mark,” James says. “We shouldn’t be here long, but if anyone comes looking for us—anyone—please tell them you haven’t seen us.”
“Whatever you want, sir.”
“And give the house a call if anyone comes by, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
James thanks the man and rolls up his window. The driveway from the guard station to the house is a mile long and takes a couple of minutes. Finn swears softly in the backseat as we finally clear the trees and the house comes into view. James insists on calling it a house, but it’s really more of an estate. Even Mom would be impressed.
“My great-grandfather built it,” James says, offering the words up like an excuse.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. It’s a three-story stone building in the Gothic style, with high arched windows and ivy climbing the outer walls. It’s like a house out of a movie, where its inhabitants would wear corseted silk dresses and throw lavish parties with fountains of champagne.
“It’s okay,” Finn says, and a brief smile touches James’s lips as he parks the car in the circular driveway.
We climb out and approach the massive front doors, which are made of carved oak. James unlocks them and disarms the beeping security system, and then he just stands there in the foyer, in the dark.
“Where do you think we should look?” he says.
I take a step inside and immediately trip on a small landing. Finn’s hand comes out of nowhere to grab my elbow. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I say as I grope the wall for a light switch. “Thanks.”
I find the panel and turn on every light. James squints and looks around like he’s never seen the place before.
“Where did Nate do most of his work?” I ask.
“His study. Upstairs.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s start there.”
James leads us through the foyer to the wide marble staircase that curves up to the second floor landing. He doesn’t turn on a single light as he goes, so I do it in his wake, and Finn and I exchange glances.
“Where’s the staff?” I say as James leads us down a long hallway.
“They always get the week off after a recess,” he says. “This is it.”
He swings the door to Nate’s study open and stands there in the hallway, looking inside, Finn and me peering over his shoulders. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the room is a relief. There’s nothing distinctively Nate about the dark walls or heavy furniture. It smells like wood polish, not Nate’s cologne, and there’s no half-drunk mug of coffee or uncapped pen on the desk waiting for him.
It’s just a room.
I step past James and head for the filing cabinets in the corner. I pull open the first door with a rumble and start to shuffle through the hanging folders. Tax return, tax return, tax return . . .
“Hey, it’s okay,” I hear Finn saying softly. I look up. He and James are still standing in the doorway, and Finn has a hand on his arm. “We’re here to help him.”
James says something back that’s too quiet for me to hear. I realize it may just look like a room to me, but James has probably seen his brother sitting in that chair, flipping through these files, working on that computer, a thousand times.
Finn smiles. “I know, but we don’t have much choice, do we?”
James laughs softly and steps into the study, opening up the second filing cabinet. My eyes meet Finn’s briefly. I never understood why the two of them were friends, beyond the fact that Finn didn’t have anyone and James always appreciated people who weren’t impressed by his last name. But maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s that Finn has this magical ability to make you smile even when things are grim. James can use that.
Finn settles down behind the computer, somehow bypassing its security measures when James says he doesn’t know the password. He clicks around while James and I pull stack after stack of documents from the filing cabinets, laying them out across the Persian rug. All we find are dry bits of paper—old tax returns, invoices, bank statements—that couldn’t have anything to do with a man firing two shots into Nate’s chest.
I close a cabinet door a little more forcefully than I mean to, and the slam of metal on metal reverberates through the silent room. “There’s nothing here. What about his bedroom? Or the living room?”
James sighs. “May
be.”
“Or maybe there’s nothing to find?” Finn says.
“No.” I stand up and stretch my stiff legs. “Nate wouldn’t have wasted energy telling me to come here if it wasn’t important.”
“But he didn’t actually tell you that, did he?” Finn asks.
I open and shut my mouth before I’m able to collect the words. “Not exactly. There wasn’t time. But it’s what he meant, I know it.”
Finn looks skeptical, but before he can say anything, James abruptly stands and walks out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I call after him.
“Kitchen. I’m starving.”
Finn and I follow James downstairs, and he assembles the ingredients for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. James spreads the peanut butter with quick, hard strokes that rip the bread, and after two mangled pieces, he picks up the entire loaf and hurls it across the room with a guttural cry. I jump, and Finn winces. James buries his face in his hands, and for a moment there’s no movement or sound outside of his labored breathing.
Then Finn steps forward and takes the knife smeared with peanut butter out of James’s hand. He sticks it back into the jar and collects the bread off of the floor. He dumps the dirty slices into the trash and calmly starts making sandwiches with the clean ones.
James sits on the floor in the corner of the room, rubbing one hand against his forehead, his lips moving silently as he talks to himself.
I stand frozen at the counter, so unsure of what to do that I can’t do anything.
Finn puts a peanut butter sandwich on a paper towel and slides it over to me. He puts one beside James, who doesn’t even look up at him, and then sits beside me at the counter to eat one himself.
When our eyes meet, he gives me a small shake of the head, his brows drawn close together. He’s worried. I look away and take a bite from my sandwich.
The jangle of the telephone on a side table cuts through the air, and we all start. James jumps to his feet and crosses the room to look at the caller ID.
“It’s Vivianne,” he says.
The sandwich turns to sawdust in my mouth, and I push the rest of it away.
“I think you should answer it,” Finn says.
James shakes his head. “She’s just trying to figure out where we are.”