Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
When Waverly asked Waterfield if he knew where she could get a good recent picture of Kava Every, at first he had no idea. An hour later he led her to a storage room and shut the door. Leaning against a box was an eight-by-ten group photo framed in glass, now broken. “This was taken at the firm’s retreat,” he said. “That’s Kava right there.”
Waverly’s heart raced.
She was 99 percent sure that the woman was one of the same ones from the envelope under Bristol’s dresser.
She looked at Waterfield.
“Can I take this?”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Okay.”
He pulled it out, rolled it up and hid the frame behind a box.
“Are you okay?”
A beat.
Then she nodded.
“Bristol was having sex with her,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
When they opened the door and stepped out, something happened they didn’t expect.
Tom Bristol was leaning against the wall.
His arms were folded.
He was waiting for them.
His eyes fellto Waverly’s purse.
She followed them down.
To her horror, the end of the photograph stuck out. Bristol grabbed it, snatched it out and unrolled it. “This is firm property,” he said. “What else do you have in there you’re not supposed to?”
He grabbed her purse.
Then he pulled out the envelope and waved it in front of her face.
“That’s not yours either,” he said. “I called the temp agency. They never heard of you.” To Waterfield, “You knew that, didn’t you? You knew she wasn’t a real temp.”
Waterfield’s eyes flickered.
Then they got hard and he said, “If she’s not a temp, that’s news to me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, why? What’s going on?”
“Then what’s she doing with the photo?”
“What do you think? I’m sending her out to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit.”
Waterfield softened, as if caught.
“Okay, the truth is that I brought her back here in the hopes of coping a feel,” he said. “Then I got worried about someone seeing us coming out together. I gave her the photo to have an excuse for being in here, that I was giving it to her to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit,” Bristol said. “Get out of my sight, you’re fired.” Then to Waverly, “As for you, you better learn to swim because the next time you’re in the water I’m not going to pull you out.”
Waverly couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t move.
“Get out of here and don’t come back,” Bristol said.
Her lips quivered.
Leave.
Leave.
Leave.
She couldn’t make her feet move.
“Get out,” Bristol said.
Suddenly something snapped in Waverly’s head. Thunder rolled through her veins at what she was about to do.
Then she snatched the envelope out of Bristol’s hand and ran.
“Get back here you bitch!”
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!