A Betrayal at Eastwick Read online

  A Betrayal at Eastwick

  L. C. Warman

  Copyright © 2019 by L.C. Warman

  All rights reserved.

  To respect the copyright of this work, please do not reproduce any part of this book in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  * * *

  Address:

  Greenleaf & Plympton

  P.O. Box 36621

  18640 Mack Ave.

  Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236-9998

  * * *

  Greenleaf & Plympton is a publisher of gothic books, both classic and modern. To see our full catalog, visit www.greenleafandplympton.com.

  Cover art: Caroline Teagle Johnson

  Proofreading: Alexandra Ott

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944387

  ISBN (e-book) 978-1-950103-18-8

  ISBN (print) 978-1-950103-19-5

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Acknowledgments

  Also by L. C. Warman

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Daniel Becker, known to the world as “Becks,” always knew it could happen to him. But he had been lucky in life, lucky enough to get a full ride to college on a football scholarship, lucky enough to be a first-draft pick in the NFL, lucky enough to meet and marry the love of his life before he had turned twenty-three.

  Except now, his luck had changed.

  And that thing that he didn’t want to speak of, didn’t want even to think about, was happening to him.

  Undeniable. That was the word Whitney had used, fear in her eyes, a question in her voice. Still not wanting to believe the worst.

  “Ready, sweetheart?”

  Becks started. Whitney stood behind him, dark hair drawn back into a wispy low bun, cocktail dress glimmering as the sequins picked up the low lamplight of their four-bedroom house. She looked exactly as she did that night, ten years before, when he had met her at a college fraternity party, except then she had been shy and overwhelmed, and now she looked sad and worried. He wanted to reach out and sweep the anxious lines from her forehead. He wanted to tell her that his head hurt, without that thing slithering between them.

  “I’m ready,” Becks said brightly, and smiled. The movement sent a jolt of pain to the back of his skull, but he took care not to show it.

  “The car’s outside.” She hesitated. “You’re sure, Daniel? You seem a little tired.”

  “I’m not, Whit. You always think that.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, and she squeezed it back with a sigh.

  “I suppose Evan wouldn’t forgive us if we skipped,” she muttered, leading the way out into the cool March night.

  “Oh, never.”

  “Have you called him?”

  “Texted. He wants to give a speech later in the night, when everyone’s arrived.”

  “I hope he doesn’t expect you to say something.”

  That hurt, but he let it slide, seeing the quick anxiety in Whitney’s face. “No, honey,” he said. “Evan’s the brains behind the organization. I’m just there to stand around and look pretty.”

  He tried to make the words sound light, but his head still hurt, and they came out resentful and petulant. He hated that voice. It was one he heard more and more often. Self-pity, the vice above all others that he wished to avoid.

  “You’re the brains, and the money, and the face,” Whitney said, squeezing his hand as they climbed into the black SUV that was to take them to the party. “Evan couldn’t do any of this without you—don’t forget that.”

  “And you think it’s a good idea?”

  “You keep asking me that, Daniel. I told you, I think it’s a good idea because you do. Evan’s your oldest friend. He’s been working on the business for years. With your funding, and connections—well, I don’t pretend to understand it, but certainly, yes, I think it’s as good an idea as any.”

  “A better idea than going to business school,” Becks said.

  Whitney shot him a look of warning and passed him a water bottle from the SUV’s center console. Their driver, a thin man with a wispy gray mustache, was professional enough to read in their manners that he should remain silent. Becks studied him for a few moments, wondering if he would trade places with him, wondering if the man’s mind, old and softening as it might be, was stronger than his own. Faster. Cleverer.

  The party was at the Eastwick mansion, or rather, the place formerly known as the Eastwick mansion—it had been sold in February, by John Eastwick Sr.’s widow and son, in a fit of caprice that still left tongues wagging. There were rumors that something had happened in the mansion, months ago, but those had been vague and unsettled, and the consensus was now that the wife was too distraught to try to take care of the sprawling family heirloom, and was going to pack herself up and move to a condo in downtown St. Clair, or, horror of all horrors, out to the city itself, amidst the skyscrapers and bustle and away from the sleepy, opulent, lakeside wonders of the town.

  Becks didn’t much care where the party was being held—Evan had rented the mansion, had organized the party, had planned the catering and the sound system and all the other million little details. And Evan had joked with Becks that it was all because he loved pomp and grandeur, because he couldn’t very well start a new business venture with Becks, his friend of fifteen years (since they were both pimply high school freshmen, as Evan liked to say), without making a big fuss about it. “I love attention,” Evan would say, sighing. “You know me.”

  Except Evan wasn’t like that at all. Evan was trying to help him, too, in his own way. To take his mind off of things, though Evan would never be so foolish as to put it like that. To bring Becks out into society again, to force him to mingle and interact with people who, if they had followed sports news at all in the past few months, knew all about Becks’ ignominious and sudden retirement.

  “Shoot,” Whitney said, checking her purse. She clucked and dug through the layers of keys and receipts and lipglosses. “I think I forgot my phone.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He said it calmly—he thought he said it calmly—but Whitney tensed, eyes darting up to him. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Could you call it? Please? Sorry, Daniel.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” he said, and Whitney winced
again, gaze shifting to the driver, who was still pretending to ignore them. Becks cleared his throat. He could never sound right these days. Everything that he said came out angry, hostile. He would ask about the weather and Whitney would spook, telling him to change his tone. Change his tone? Half the time he didn’t even realize it had changed.

  He called her phone. Seconds later, a peppy jingle started.

  “Oh, here it is,” Whitney said, relieved. She pulled it from the seat, where it had wedged beneath her, and waved it at him.

  Daniel noticed, as she settled back in, that she had scooted as far away from him as possible.

  Chapter 2

  Evan Miller ran a hand through his curly hair, keeping one eye on the entrance. He checked his watch again, foot tapping as he leaned up against the wall dividing the banquet hall from the atrium, both places already swelling with people.

  Late. Of course Becks would be late. Whitney probably wasn’t helping—she babied him, fussed over him. A man couldn’t live with that kind of mothering; it made him into a blathering idiot. A second thought followed that, and Evan shuddered.

  It’s under control, he reminded himself. The party was just a formality, a fun diversion that he and Whitney had agreed would be good for Becks and for everyone. It was one of the few things they had agreed upon the past few months, but then, with all the planning, who wouldn’t be stressed?

  Becker & Miller Associates was to be opened at the end of the week, taking up a small office in downtown St. Clair, not far from the high school where Evan and Becks had met. Becks had been large even then: a big, blond bear with a ready smile and hands the size of dinner plates, who was too shy to do well with girls and too driven to get into too much trouble. Becks’ parents weren’t wealthy and weren’t poor—they lived outside of St. Clair, but the St. Clair football coach had wanted Becks so badly that he had pulled some strings, dangling the much-better public school and his connections to college coaches in front of Becks’ parents, so that on that first day freshman year, when Becks thundered through the glass doors, half the school already knew his name.

  Evan had homeroom with him and moved right in. “We’re going to be friends,” he told Becks.

  The shy fourteen-year-old had blushed. “Okay,” he said. “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’ll make it infinitely easier for me to walk down the hall,” Evan had said. “Right now, it’s a nightmare.”

  Becks had laughed, and their friendship took off. Oh, they had their rough patches, over the years. Evan had gone to a different college, so they had spent some time apart, promising to catch up and never following through. Then, when Becks had been drafted to the Gryphons, Evan had reached back out, suggesting drinks, since he too had moved back to work at the city’s largest accounting firm. Once, when Evan was twenty-two, he had raged at Becks for not taking him to a football and cheerleader party because Becks had a fiancée (Whitney, then and always). Another time, when Becks was twenty-five or twenty-six, Becks had told Evan, quite seriously, that he was worried about Evan’s “influence” on his lifestyle—a declaration that Evan first thought came from Whitney, and only later realized came from Becks’ parents…though given subsequent events, he had chosen not to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

  The long and the short of it was that they had been together for most of their adult lives. And after Becks’ fallout with his family, Evan was now the longest relationship he had. Evan felt a burst of something like pity at this, and smoothed it over. Becks wouldn’t want that.

  The party would get Becks out of the house, at least, and also generate some publicity. Some good publicity. And, as Evan had explained to Whitney and Becks over and over, these types of ventures didn’t go anywhere without publicity.

  “Where’s the man of the night?”

  The voice shook Evan out of his reverie, and he turned to find Aaron Williamson striding towards him. They shook hands, Evan’s fingers swallowed in Aaron’s, and then Evan said, “Should be here any minute. Whitney’s coming, too.”

  “Ah, lovely,” Aaron said. “A wife. That’s what I need. You got one?”

  Evan found the statement odd, but he wouldn’t pretend to understand some of Becks’ football friends. Aaron Williamson was a tight end with the Gryphons. He and Sam O’Nally, the other football player there that night, were the only ones who would agree to be seen in public with Becks at this point. Aaron Williamson because he got along with everyone, Sam O’Nally because he got along with no one—no one, that is, except for Becks.

  “Eh?” Aaron said, nudging him. But Aaron’s eyes were circling the party, scanning for—well, at first Evan thought he was scanning for women, any women, but it seemed he was looking for someone in particular.

  “A wife?” Evan said. “No, I don’t have one.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “No.” He thought of Rhiannon, who had dumped a bag of almond flour onto his new shag carpet when he had told her that he didn’t want anything serious. You could have said that a little earlier, she had snarled, which struck him as nonsensical. Almost as nonsensical as dumping flour onto a carpet.

  “Smart man,” Aaron said. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth. Say, speaking of, you’ve seen Eliza?”

  “Who?”

  “Eliza Vorne. I came with her. Well, not came with her, exactly. I mean…never mind.” Aaron grinned sheepishly. “You let me know if you see her, okay?”

  “Sure.” One of Whitney’s friends, Evan remembered.

  “Just look for the finest woman in the room. I can say that because you don’t have a wife,” Aaron said, winking before he disappeared into the crowd. Evan sighed and downed his champagne. He felt a heavy sense of foreboding. It’s not too late to back out, a voice whispered in his ear, and he shoved it back down. This is what he had dreamed about for years, after all. What they had dreamed about.

  Evan felt mildly sick.

  Chapter 3

  Eliza took a flute of champagne from a waiter’s passing tray and then did her best to angle her body away from Aaron. The benefit of dating (or having dated) a football player was that it was so easy to spot them—in a crowd, at a bar, in the park. She could easily find Aaron or avoid him, as her desires dictated.

  Tonight, it was avoid. Whitney had invited her, and given all that the poor woman was going through, Eliza felt duty-bound to accept. Still, zipped into her tight, sequined green dress, hair stiff with spray and shoes throbbing in designer heels, Eliza couldn’t help but think about how much better it would all be if she were wrapped in a blanket at this exact moment, watching a crime television show with a glass of red wine.

  She sighed. She did, of course, still have business to attend to tonight.

  As if that weren’t enough, there was the putrid little fact that Gina Tiller had made her way to the party. The woman had been grinning at her as Eliza entered the Eastwick place, trying to hold eye contact long enough to justify coming over. As if Eliza would have ever given her the time of day, even before. Unlike Evan Miller, Eliza was not impressed by power and wealth—she had come from enough of it. Unlike Evan Miller, she would not become a sycophant to some spoiled princess whose father owned the Gryphons, and especially not if that spoiled princess was also a—

  Well.

  Eliza tapped her foot, pretending to survey the table of appetizers behind her. Shrimp cocktails, bruschetta, candied nuts, prosciutto. She would just stay long enough for Whitney to come and see her. And then she’d make her excuses—so sorry, early morning, test shoot for a special later this week. Whitney would understand; they had met in college, in a broadcast communications course, and though Whitney went on to become a teacher and then (even more work) the wife of a professional football player, Eliza had worked her way up from local television stations to a syndicated program across the tri-state area—with a potential promotion to New York on the horizon. Aaron had hated the idea, which made Eliza love it all the more.

  “I’ve been looking for y
ou everywhere.”

  Eliza cursed and turned around, plastering a benign smile on her face. She had gotten distracted and given Aaron the opening. He looked handsome as ever standing before her, all broad shoulders and dark eyes and square, chiseled features. She had fallen for him so hard three years ago, at a party not dissimilar to this one. Foolish girl, she thought.

  “Aaron,” Eliza said. “A pleasure.” She didn’t reach out to shake his hand, and he didn’t offer his.

  Instead, Aaron looked a little pleading, a lot worried. So different than his usual blustering confidence. She could see a bead of sweat on one temple.

  “I have to talk to you,” Aaron said, with a smile that turned into a grimace.

  “We’re talking,” Eliza said coolly. “Have you seen Whitney yet? And Becks?”

  Aaron glanced behind him. “Becks should be here any minute, I’m sure. Why? You’re not doing a story on him?”

  Eliza felt a rush of righteous indignation. “Absolutely not. I promised Whitney. You know I’d never...” She shook her head. “Besides, if they should be worried about anyone here tonight, it’s the journalist skulking over there in the corner.” She pointed to a small, beaver-faced young man taking a quick, self-conscious bite of the candied nuts, little eyes darting around as if expecting someone to protest.