and sits, like an obedient pet.
“Here’s the deal. Whatever it is you’ve got going on with her”—I gesture at Vanessa—“I want in on it. Or I’ll go to the police. I’m sure they’d be happy to give me a plea deal if I turned you in, too. You’re a much bigger fish than I am.”
“For fuck’s sake, Nina.” He looks down at his cashmere sweater, plucks an invisible thread from the front. “Sure, right. I’ll cut you in. Except you’ve just gone and cocked it all up with this little trick, haven’t you? What am I supposed to do now? Like you said, she knows. Besides, it turns out she doesn’t actually have any money.”
“I do have money,” Vanessa objects softly. Her hair has fallen out of her ponytail and it covers her face so I can’t see her expression. She’s got her hands placed flat on the table, pressing hard, as if trying to anchor herself in place.
Michael turns to look at her, with a snarl of disdain. “You have this heap of a house. You have antiques. Not the same thing at all.”
“We’ll take the antiques, then,” I say to Michael. “We’ll find a way.”
But Vanessa swings her head and peers up through the curtain of hair. “But I do. I do have cash, lots of it. At least a million. And jewels, my mother’s jewels, worth way more than that. I’ll give it all to you if you’ll just leave, the both of you.”
Michael hesitates. “Where is it?”
“The safe.”
Michael throws his hands up. “My love, you’re a terrible liar.”
“The safe was empty,” I offer. “I already looked inside.”
Vanessa’s hands are pressing down so hard on the tabletop that they are turning white. Her eyes are pink and wet. “Not the safe in the study. The safe on the yacht.”
“Where the hell’s the yacht?” Michael asks.
“My mother’s yacht. It’s dry-docked. In the boathouse.”
“Why the hell would anyone put a safe on a yacht?”
“Of course yachts have safes. Have you ever even been on one?” She straightens a bit in her seat; shoulders pulling back, almost indignant. “Where else are you supposed to keep your valuables when you’re cruising around Saint-Tropez?”
Michael glances at me, looking for backup. “Tahoe isn’t exactly Saint-Tropez.”
“Well, there’s still a safe on our boat. And that’s where Daddy stashed a lot of the valuables because he figured people like you would never be smart enough to look there.”
She sounds like her father again; the cool contempt in her voice makes my stomach curl reflexively. I study her face, looking for signs of prevarication—shifting eyes, a hitch in her breath—but there’s nothing to suggest that what she’s saying is a lie. She stares steadily back at me, her whole demeanor suddenly calm and collected.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to get a safety-deposit box?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He didn’t trust banks.”
I turn to Michael. “Look—it can’t hurt to go check it out. If it’s true, it would be easier than the antiques.”
Michael’s eyes drift to the window, as if expecting to see a boat parked down on the pier, but of course there’s nothing to see but snow swirling in the pitch-black night. “You want to go out in that?”
“It’s just snow,” Vanessa says. “If we go down and get it now, will you get the hell out? Tonight?”
Michael turns to me. I shrug: Why not?
“Sure,” he says. “We’ll go.”
* * *
—
We trudge across the great lawn and down the hill in the dark. The snow is so deep already that it sucks at our boots, fills our socks; we lurch and stumble and sink, leaving a path of destruction behind us. Vanessa leads, a few feet ahead of me, instinctively feeling her way down the path.
It feels good to be so cold; it dulls the feverish voices that vibrate inside my skull. When I breathe, it hurts, but at least it means I’m still breathing.
Michael falls into step beside