“You and Andrea are nothing alike,” Stride told her.
Serena leaned forward and kissed him, her dark hair falling across his face. “I know you’d like to think so, Jonny, but that’s not entirely true. There’s more of her in me than you might want to admit. We both come from the same place. We were both violated as teens. I didn’t follow the road she did, but believe me, I know that road really well. I’m not going to blame her for how she turned out, because I could have gone there, too.”
Stride knew that Serena was right. He’d seen Andrea’s demons throughout their marriage, and he’d never been able to get around her walls. Eventually, he stopped trying. He’d failed her. It was something he still regretted.
“You also can’t blame yourself for how she turned out,” Serena went on, because she knew how to read the emotions on his face. “She was who she was long before you met her. Guess what, you can’t fix everybody.”
“Maybe not, but I did a lot of things wrong.”
“We all do. Welcome to relationships.”
His mind drifted to Cat and the way she’d brought him and Serena back together after his affair with Maggie. “Andrea talked about her and me not having kids. I wonder if that would have changed things.”
“The trouble in your marriage wasn’t about kids. She may have thought that was a magic bullet to make everything better, but you know that’s not true. Her problems went deeper than that.”
“So I take it you believe her about the rape.”
“I believe something terrible happened to her. The details? I have no idea. She admits she was drunk. She admits she passed out. She doesn’t remember where this happened or when it happened. On the other hand, she’s certain it was Devin Card in that bedroom. That wouldn’t be enough in a court of law, but it probably would have been enough to ruin Card politically if she came forward.”
“Ned Baer certainly thought so,” Stride said.
“And Ned found Andrea.”
“Yes, he did, and he was planning to write the story.”
“Do you think Ned told Devin Card that he’d located the woman behind the allegations?” Serena hesitated before saying the next name. “Or if not Card, did he tell Peter Stanhope?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t ask either of them about it back then, because doing that would have risked exposing Andrea. And remember, I really thought Ned drowned at the Deeps. I had no reason to think he’d been murdered. It may have been in the back of my head, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Peter Stanhope texted me,” Serena told him. “He wants to meet tomorrow. An off-the-record conversation.”
“You said yes?”
“I want to hear what he has to say.”
“He knows finding Ned’s body will put a focus on Devin. And himself. They’ll both be suspects. Of course, so am I.”
“And Andrea, too.”
“True.”
“We both know she’s capable of losing control,” Serena murmured.
“I know that, but I don’t think she did it.”
Serena stretched out next to him in bed. She put a bare leg over his calf and molded her skin against his body. Her face was inches from his own. “Jonny, what really happened between you and Ned Baer?”
He closed his eyes and remembered that night. He could see it again, vividly, as if no time had passed. The Deeps. The boiling hot evening. Ned on the cliff, his clothes wet from diving.
Stride stared at his wife. “Honestly? I wanted to kill him.”
As Stride crossed the footbridge over the Deeps, the river pounded through the narrows below him, erupting into foam. Its thunder was so loud that he couldn’t hear anything else. The violence of the water fed the violence that pulsed in his chest, and the heat of the evening bathed his body in sweat. He made his way along the wet rocks on the cliff, and his hands clenched into fists as he saw Ned Baer. He’d never met this man, but he already hated him.
The water roared; his mind roared. He had to do something to protect Andrea. To save her. She’d disintegrated in front of him as she confessed the truth. She’d cried that she couldn’t survive the humiliation, the lies, the attacks if her secret was exposed. Tears had poured down her face. She’d screamed and begged: stop him!
Do something. Anything. Whatever it takes.
You’re my husband.
“Don’t fall,” a voice said.
Ned Baer grinned at him as he dried his thinning hair with a towel. His clothes were sopping wet, making him look even skinnier than he was.
“Don’t fall,” Ned said again. “I hear if you drown, they never find your body.”
“You’re right. You shouldn’t be diving here. It’s not safe.”
“Gotta beat the heat somehow,” Ned replied, in a voice that whined like the chirp of a cricket.
“I’ve pulled a lot of people out of the lake who thought that,” Stride replied.
Ned focused on him with beady black eyes that looked too big for his face. “You sound like a cop.”
“I am. You’re Ned Baer, right?”
“Yeah. Who are you? What do you want?”
“My name’s Jonathan Stride.” He paused and then told him, “Andrea is my wife.”
Ned slung the towel around his neck. He knelt down and grabbed a can of beer from a six-pack. One can was already empty and crumpled on the ground. “Really. No shit.”
“I want to talk about the story you’re writing.”
“I don’t think we have much to talk about. Your wife’s the one who says Devin Card raped her when she was a teenager. You know it, I know it. I’m going to print it.”
“You can’t prove it was her,” Stride retorted.
“Oh, I have enough to cover my ass. I can put Card and your wife in the same house at the same party.”
“Along with how many others?”
“Doesn’t matter. I have an anonymous source who saw them go upstairs together. Plus, your wife went to pieces when I confronted her. She said I’d ruin her life by printing her name. That sounds like an admission to me.”
“And it doesn’t matter to you if you ruin someone’s life?”
“That’s what shrinks are for. Look, once she sent the letter, she knew the risks. You go after a public figure, you better have a thick skin. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.”
Stride felt dizzy in the heat. “Andrea says you broke into our house. If that’s true, I’ll have you arrested.”
Ned laughed. “That’s weak, Stride. You try any bullshit like that and I’ll have your badge.”
“We could sue you.”
“For printing the truth? Yeah, give that a try. That lasts all of five minutes until my lawyer asks your wife under oath if she sent the letter. The fact is, you’re wasting my time here. Hollow threats aren’t going to intimidate me.”
Sweat burned in Stride’s eyes, and he wiped it away. His voice was a low hiss. “If you print this, you’re killing her.”
Ned shrugged. “Fifty thousand.”
“What?”
“Fifty thousand dollars, and I’ll spike the story.”
“You want a bribe? You’re blackmailing me? Are you serious?”