She took her time showering, then slowly got dressed. There was a pitcher of ice water available—had that been there before?—and she drank two tall glasses. There were actually three exits from the changing room, one that went back out to the pool, the one she’d come in from that led to the tunnel back to the lodge, and another exit, which Abigail assumed led toward the ground-floor entrance. She decided that Scottie would most likely be waiting for her there. Before pushing through the doors, Abigail went through a mental checklist. She tried to remind herself that when she’d met Scottie he’d seemed like a nice person. He was attentive, he told her about his unhappy marriage, how much he loved his dog, how much his own parents loved his wife. He wasn’t necessarily a monster. He was a human being. She needed to try to appeal to this side of him first. Tell him that she was sorry he’d come all this way, but she really was in love with Bruce, and she wanted to make the marriage work. Ask him nicely to just leave.
And if that didn’t work? Well, then, she was fully prepared to unload on him, tell him he better get the fuck off this island before she alerted the authorities. Tell him that as far as she was concerned nothing had happened between them in California, and that Bruce would believe her. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but she needed to be prepared.
She pushed through the doors, which brought her to a staircase that led up to a reception area, although, as with all the reception areas here, there was no front desk, just the constant presence of a lingering employee. Like the changing room, the reception area was made of light wood, and one wall was covered with succulents while another had a built-in waterfall, a sheet of perpetually falling water.
Scottie was perched on a white chaise longue under a high window that showed the dark woods outside. Abigail didn’t want to talk inside, so she walked straight to the door and out into the cool air.
CHAPTER 14
At the back of the building, a path of stones led to a wooden bench that faced a grove of birch trees. Abigail sat down, and Scottie sat next to her.
“You made a new friend,” he said.
Abigail was confused for a moment, then realized that he was talking about Porter, the man in the pool.
“I did,” she said, already annoyed, and decided that she should probably just skip the treat-him-like-a-nice-guy plan.
“What kind of friend is he?” He unzipped his jacket a little, and she saw that he was wearing a flannel shirt, maybe even the same shirt he’d been wearing in California. Looking at him now, she wondered how she’d ever found him attractive. He was handsome, in that wiry way she liked, but his skin was too orange, as though he went to tanning booths. Also, he was far too intense, the way he sat with his head cocked her way, his hands—he wore three rings—thrumming on his kneecaps like he was waiting to pounce.
“What kind of friend is he?” She repeated his words. “We were having sex in the pool five minutes before you arrived.”
He recoiled slightly, and she decided not to completely abandon her plan to win him over. “I’m kidding,” she said. “I just met him this morning. But we need to talk about us, about you coming here. It’s crazy, you know that, right?”
“I do,” he said. “I know it’s crazy, but I also know that what happened between us was special. It was the best night of my life, Abigail.”
“Before we go any further, I need to know your real name. It’s not fair that you know mine.”
“It’s Scott, or you can keep calling me Scottie if you’d like.” He blinked twice, and Abigail wondered if he was lying.
“But that was just your made-up name for that night. I made it up for you,” she said.
“I know, but you guessed my real name. I suppose it had something to do with me saying that I was going to call you Madeleine. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think I called you that name because of Vertigo, maybe I was subconsciously channeling Scottie from that film. And you picked up on it. That was when I first knew that we were meant to be together.”