Jenny Leigh lived off a rutted dirt road hacked through the woods in the middle of the island. The rough-hewn cabin she rented sat on a glade surrounded by trees, its deck sheltered by a grove of pines. It was a place of quiet and seclusion and, to Adam, isolation-though reachable by all-terrain vehicles in the summer, the cabin could be sealed in for days by a winter snowstorm. As he took the gravel driveway rising to the cabin, a deer skittered across his path. This time, preoccupied with Jenny, Adam did not flinch.
He parked, walking across the grass to her cabin in the soft light of early evening. He paused there, conflicted, then rapped softly on the door.
Through the screened windows he heard a stirring, then footsteps. He felt a tightness in his chest. The door cracked open; in the space she peered through, Jenny’s expression changed from wariness to surprise, and then she managed a smile that did not erase the caution in her eyes. “I’d hoped you’d come,” she said. “Then I was afraid you would. Or wouldn’t.”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
Inside was a small living room with a table and two chairs, a single place mat marking where Jenny ate alone. The decor was simple-a couch, two wooden chairs, pieces of driftwood in one corner, and bright abstract paintings offset by one of Teddy’s stark winter landscapes. There were dishes in the sink, an open book on an end table, and a jacket on a hook beside the front door. It was neater than he had expected from a woman who, when younger, could within hours turn any space she occupied into something that, Adam had told her, evoked the contents of a madwoman’s brain.
“Would you like to see the rest?” she inquired awkwardly. “It won’t take long.”
Adam followed her, surprised further by the neatly turned bed, the papers carefully arranged on a blond wooden table larger than the one at which she ate. Even her clothes seemed to be in drawers and closets instead of strewn on chairs. Looking about him, Adam inquired, “What on earth did they do to you?”
At once, she grasped the reference. “I guess you were expecting chaos?”
“At the least.” He turned to her, adding softly, “My mother told me, Jenny.”
She glanced at the floor, then looked directly at him. “That I tried to kill myself, you mean.”
“And nearly succeeded. She rebuked me for my lack of grace.”
Her eyelids lowered. “Is that why you’re here?”
“I might have come without that.” Unsure what else to do with them, he put his hands in his pockets. “I wish I’d known.”
She looked up at him with new directness. “About my pitiful attempt at suicide? I didn’t want you to, Adam. That was all I had left.”
“What, exactly?”
“My own dignity.”
Adam regarded her, unsure of what to say. “Sit with me,” she said. “Please.”
He sat on the couch. Jenny settled beside him, neither too close nor too far away. For an odd moment he thought of Carla Pacelli, regarding him gravely from the other end of a chair swing. “Tell me how you are, Jen.”
“I’m all right.” Smiling briefly at herself, she amended this. “You could say I’m even. At whatever cost to artistic inspiration, the meds seem to level me out.” Her tone was factual and resigned. “With lithium, they tell me, I’ve got a better than fifty-fifty chance of remaining stable. But I’ll be on it for the rest of my life.”
Or my life may be shorter, she did not need to add. Tentative, Adam remarked, “It’s quiet here. That must help your writing.”
She seemed to read his expression. Adam, whose work rewarded inscrutability, realized that he had not become opaque to Jenny Leigh. In the same flat voice, she said, “If I don’t try it again, you mean.”
“The thought struck me, yes. It seems lonely here.”
Jenny shook her head. “To me, it seems peaceful. And safe. I’ve come to realize that I’m better at perceiving life than living it. I’m afraid my stories reflect that.”
Between them, Adam knew, was a constraint she felt as deeply as he. But she also seemed more self-aware, less prone to moods. Watching him closely, she said, “Your mom says you’re working in Afghanistan.”
“Yes. As an agricultural consultant.”
“For which crops? Is there anything there besides opium?”
“Not much. Taken all in all, it’s the worst job in the firm. But I’m single, and someone had to go.”
Jenny’s eyes became questioning and a little sad. “You were going to be a lawyer, Adam.”
He did not wish to pursue this. “And you were going to be a writer-and are. I’ve read some of your stories.”
“You have?”
“Uh-huh. Once you began to be published, you couldn’t hide them from me. They’re good.”
Jenny gave him the same ghost of a smile, probing his eyes for the truth. “‘Good’?” she repeated.
Adam marshaled his thoughts. “I think you have great talent. The stories are observant and precisely written, with every word the right one.” He paused. “Also a little detached. Like you’re holding back from expressing pain.”
To his surprise, Jenny nodded. “So my therapist tells me. But he seems to think I’m creeping forward-in art and in life. So I’m trying to integrate all that into a novel.”
“Your first?”
“And maybe my last.” She paused, then added, “This one hurts.”
The way she said this made him wonder why. “But you’re keeping at it.”
“I have to,” she said with quiet resolve. “In that sense your father’s advice had value. One key to writing is to show up every day. A good reason to stay alive.”
Adam felt a stab of pain. Softly, he said, “I hate what happened. To both of us.”
To his distress, Jenny’s mouth trembled, and then tears sprung to her eyes. She looked away, mutely shaking her head.
He moved closer. “You’re doing better, Jen. I can see that.”
Crossing her arms, she gained control of herself again. “Then I’m glad.”
For several moments Adam was silent, still sitting beside her on the couch. In a reluctant voice, he asked, “There’s something I need to ask you, Jenny.”
Still unable to look at him, she said miserably, “What?”
“Did you know about his bequest to you?”
Silent, Jenny shook her head again.
“Do you have any idea why my father did that?”
With seeming effort, she straightened her body. In a voice etched with irony, she said, “He liked my story, remember?”
“I remember it well. Now he’s left me with another poisoned chalice.” Adam’s tone grew firmer. “This isn’t about you-or us. But if I can help my mom and Teddy break that will, I have to.”
She squared her shoulders. “I know. What he did to your mother was incredibly cruel.”
“And so perfectly in character,” he responded bitterly. “His final touch was pitting you against my mother with me in the middle. This particular act of cruelty has a certain geometric elegance.”
Jenny closed her eyes, speaking in a near whisper. “After I tried to kill myself, Clarice treated me like a daughter. But for her-”
She could not finish. For one moment, a reflex, Adam wanted to take her hand. Then he recalled his mother’s warning that he still occupied psychic space in Jenny’s life-too much, he alone knew, given all that had happened to them. She had come this far without him; whatever affection he still felt, he could not, would not, act on it. Instead, he fell back on the distance that had become his last defense. “I know how terrible this must be-”
“You can’t.” Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “You’ll never know how sorry I am. And how ashamed.”
“It’s done, Jen. There’s nothing left but to let it go.”
Jenny bit her lip, a wet sheen in her eyes. “Can you?”
Adam felt a constriction in his chest. “No.”
Turning, she looked into his face and then, gently, put her hand behind his neck, pulling his mouth to hers. For Adam, that summer became yesterday, before everything changed, and the warmth of Jenny’s lips was once again a preface-not just to their lovemaking, but to a life. Then he pulled a few inches back, resting his forehead against hers.
“We can’t,” he murmured. “You know that.”
Her throat pulsed. “Will I see you again?”
“Yes. At least before I go.”
Gently he withdrew, then left, wishing it were not so.
When he got to the car, Adam found a message on his cell, relayed through a ghost phone no one could trace.
Stopping at the foot of Jenny’s driveway, he tried to shake off the last hour, then listened to the message. The voice belonged to Amanda Ferris. She was making headway with her new source, she told him, though it was clear that the man had no access to the coroner’s report. But she had learned that the report was crucial to a web of evidence-including the crime scene report and statements extracted from Adam’s family-that could lead to Teddy’s indictment for the murder of Benjamin Blaine.
Struggling to detach himself, Adam weighed his choices. He could walk away from this, hoping that Jack was right. But if he wanted to warn Teddy of the case against him, then work to alter the course of events, he must place himself at risk. His advantage was that no one on this island knew what he was capable of doing. In many ways, if not all, this was still an innocent place.
He started driving again. By the time he reached his family’s home, his plan was fully formed. But then, he had started on it the day he saw George Hanley.