A Betrayal at Eastwick Read online

  “Becks?” Rick whispered. He gave the sleeping body a nudge. “Becks! What are you doing?”

  The ex-football player yawned, his body awkwardly attempting to curl itself close as it lay draped over the hard, gray stones. Rick poked him with the corner of his foot. “Becks! Daniel! Wake up!”

  Rick leaned forward to see if he could smell alcohol on the man—nothing. Just as he was leaning back, though, Becks’ eyes flew open, and one hand shot out to grab Rick’s collar.

  “Take it easy!” Rick squealed. “I-I mean, take it easy, man. You were sleeping. I’m just waking you up.”

  Becks was breathing heavily, chest rising and falling, eyes wide and haunted. His hand was shaking, Rick realized. Had it always been?

  “You okay?” Rick said, gently trying to pry off Becks’ fingers. The ex-footballer let him, and Rick took a quick step back, massaging his throat and taking deep gulps of air.

  “Where am I?” Becks said, blinking up at Rick.

  Rick’s stomach flipped. “You’re at the Eastwick mansion. We’re having your party. You know, Becker & Miller? Big money? You and your buddy Evan, hamming it up with all these rich folks?”

  Becks blinked at Rick. Rick felt another stab of panic.

  “The Eastwick mansion,” Becks repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “I shouldn’t be over here,” Becks said. “I was just—I was so angry—”

  “Parties will do that to you,” Rick said, aiming for lightness. “Hey, while I have you here, I’m actually working on a story—”

  But Becks didn’t seem to hear him. He rose, blinking, and Rick took another step back. He forgot just how large football players were until he stood in front of them: it was sometimes like they were gods from another world, come to live among mortals. Except, Becks was a fallen god now.

  “What am I doing,” Becks said, pressing the heels of his hands into his temples. “I was just—I came over here, and—and—”

  Rick heard shouts, building in volume from some other part of the mansion. Not the banquet hall, but the backyard, it seemed. He wondered if people were dipping in the pool—a bad idea in winter, a worse idea when drunk.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Rick said with faux cheerfulness. “We all need to get away from parties sometimes. So, I was wondering, if you could just answer one question I have—namely, how you feel about this new venture, in light of everything else going on?”

  Jeez, why was he so nervous? Rick couldn’t stop his voice from squeaking again near the end. He sounded like a frightened schoolboy. But it was the look in Becks’ eyes that terrified him, the frightened look of a wounded animal, trying desperately to make sense of his new reality. Rick shuddered.

  “New venture,” Becks repeated.

  The shouts grew louder. Rick glanced over at them, frowning, and then jumped when the door to the backyard burst open.

  “9-1-1!” a woman shouted. Eliza Vorne. “Someone call 9-1-1!” She cursed as she sprinted across the flagstones of the house, repeating her message until she was in the brightly lit banquet hall. Rick felt the hush fall over the room, the way the low buzz of voices died down into something horrible and still.

  “What happened?” Becks asked, and Rick turned back to him. The footballer looked pale and frightened. “Who’s hurt?”

  “It might be nothing,” Rick found himself saying, ridiculously. “Maybe a fire, or something got stolen, or—”

  “Is she dead?” one of the guests said, loudly, following the frazzled Eliza back through the mansion and out towards the backyard. “No vital signs?”

  “How should I know!” Eliza wailed. “Hurry!”

  Next to Rick, Becks began to shake.

  Chapter 12

  Gina Tiller was dead—undeniably.

  Eliza watched as the doctor crouched to her side, reeling back as soon as she could make out the awful stillness of Gina’s figure, the strange tilt of her neck. The doctor gingerly pressed her fingers against the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse, but withdrew it seconds later with a quick shake of her head.

  “She fell from there?” the doctor said, pointing to the balcony above. Next to her, Aaron shuddered and pulled Eliza closer, and this time, she didn’t pull away. “It’s not that far a fall. It was the landing…she might have survived it, if she had fallen differently.”

  Thanks, Eliza felt like saying. I’ll be sure to convey that to the family. But instead she said nothing, pressing her face against Aaron’s chest, trying to drown out the image of that horrible…thing…on the pool deck.

  “The police are on their way,” Eliza muttered into Aaron’s suit jacket. He was the first to hear the crash, the first to raise the alarm. Oh, God, Eliza thought. It was all just too terrible.

  “We should probably get going,” Aaron said.

  “Shouldn’t we wait to talk to them?”

  “No, baby. Not a good idea.”

  “Don’t call me baby,” Eliza said automatically. She looked up at Aaron, tilting her head far back. “Do you think—do you think that—”

  “Shh,” Aaron said. “Let’s go. It’ll all be all right.” The doctor stood behind them, awkward and uncertain now that there was nothing for her to do. In the distance, Eliza could hear sirens.

  “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

  “I do, baby—I mean, Eliza. I know. Don’t worry about it. Just look at me, huh? It’ll all be all right.”

  That was when Eliza burst into tears.

  Chapter 13

  “Daniel,” Whitney said sharply. “Where’s Daniel?”

  Her search for him had proven fruitless, and she had eventually returned to the main room, trembling after one last unpleasant errand. The night was not going anything like she had hoped—and Whitney had certainly had low expectations to begin with.

  Evan was there in the banquet hall, still making the rounds, shaking all of the hands of potential donors. But now Whitney heard sirens in the distance, and her first impulse was to grab onto her husband and hold.

  But where was he?

  “Whitney,” Evan said sharply. But Whitney pushed her way past their small group, depositing her champagne glass on the nearest table with a careless gesture that sent liquid spilling over her hand. She followed the voices and the lights; for a moment, she felt as though she were floating. A strange sense of unreality took over her.

  Whitney pushed her way through the glass doors and out onto the back patio. A police officer said something to her. Something like stop, ma’am, please, police line, but Whitney was barely listening. She saw the figure sprawled out on the stones, and for one horrible second her mind stuttered, and she thought it might be Daniel. Then she took a few steps closer, and the twisted figure of Gina Tiller was visible, still and pale in the moonlight.

  Hands closed around her arms, dragging her back. Whitney gulped in air. He did this for me, she thought wildly. He did this for me, and I have to protect him.

  Chapter 14

  “You okay?” Rick said, eyeing the still-shaking Becks. He wondered if he needed to call a paramedic over to tend to the ex-footballer.

  “D-dead?” Becks said, and he looked up at Rick with such a confused, dismayed expression, that Rick was tempted to pat Becks on the shoulder like a child, and tell him that all would be fine.

  “Gina Tiller,” Rick said instead. “Sounds like she took a tumble off a balcony upstairs.” It had been easy enough to hear that through the shouts and the police radioing each other incessantly. “Were you upstairs at the time? Did you see anything?”

  Becks just looked bewildered. Rick felt a twist in his stomach. What if….But he didn’t want it to be true.

  “Daniel!”

  Whitney Becker sprinted across the hall and into her husband’s arms. Becks rose just in time to catch her, and the two of them all but tumbled to the stairs behind them. Rick stood a few feet away, awkward and hesitating. He should leave the married couple to talk things out, he knew. But still, the
re was the opportunity for one more quote…

  “Daniel, where were you?” Whitney said, sobbing into his coat jacket. Becks held her, still looking bewildered. “Tell me. Daniel, tell me, where were you tonight? I couldn’t find you.”

  “I-I fell asleep.”

  “Where? Here?” Whitney glanced around, eyes wet with tears. “On the stairs, Daniel?”

  “I don’t remember. I-I suppose so.”

  Whitney held him tighter. Rick felt the knot in his stomach twist further. He felt, truthfully, as though he might be a little sick.

  “Daniel,” Whitney said. She seemed not to have noticed Rick. “You must not say anything to the police. Do you understand? We’re going to get a lawyer for you. A good one. You can’t tell the police anything.”

  “What would I tell them?”

  Whitney stifled a sob and pressed her cheek into her husband’s chest. Becks rubbed the back of her shoulder, squeezing his own eyes shut.

  “They can’t prove anything,” she said fiercely. And then she straightened, and jumped as she noticed Rick. “How long have you been standing there?” she demanded.

  “Rick Fales, ma’am. I was just sitting here with your husband.”

  “Sitting with him? For how long?”

  “Just the past ten minutes or so. We’ve been chatting.”

  “He doesn’t talk to reporters.”

  “Oh, hardly anything on the record, ma’am, of course.”

  Whitney hesitated. “Ten minutes. Just…ten minutes?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  “Did you see anything? Hear anything?”

  She wanted to know if Rick could exculpate Becks. He could not. “Didn’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary,” Rick said. “Until someone started shouting about a body.”

  Whitney shuddered.

  “One question, for a piece tomorrow?” Rick said hopefully. “What are—”

  “No comment,” Whitney said. She looked up at him, sharply and venomously, as if he were the worst kind of vermin that had scurried across her path. Rick shrugged sheepishly and took a few skulking steps away. He ran over and over in his head the image of Whitney’s tear-filled eyes, the sound of her panicked words.

  He wondered if he could trust his instincts.

  Because he thought that Whitney Becker was hiding something.

  Chapter 15

  “What time is physical therapy?” Eliza asked. She was standing in Aaron’s high-rise downtown apartment, with its river view and white marble floors and quartz countertops. It had been so long since she had been here—months, at least. He had gotten a new bamboo plant, which charmed Eliza until she realized that the stupid thing had probably been a gift from one of his lovers.

  “Not for another hour. Sit down, Lize. You’re making me dizzy.”

  She did, still frowning. Aaron sat at one of the high silver barstools, a plate of eggs and sausage before him. He had offered to cook some for Eliza, too, but she had demurred. It would be a long time before Eliza enjoyed any breakfast of Aaron’s again.

  She had agreed to come home with him the night before, though she had been extremely rigid on her rules: he was to take the couch, she was to shower alone in the morning, and he was not to make any moves on her, now or in the future. She was simply here to help.

  Aaron, for his part, seemed more at ease than he had been last night, as if a woman had not died, as if his major problem was just a few action steps away from being solved. Eliza didn’t know how he did it. She suspected that all men were able to relax when they had a woman to pawn their problems off on, a woman who would fuss and schedule and plan and take away all need for them to busy their pretty little heads about it.

  And fuss Eliza was. She had been working all morning on an action plan, and had presented it to Aaron with cool matter-of-factness. He had approved it while sipping black coffee and then changed the subject to that day’s weather, as if one could follow naturally from the other.

  “You don’t seem to be taking this seriously,” Eliza said.

  “What? Of course I am.”

  “This is serious, Aaron.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “I don’t know if we can fix this in time.”

  “But we’re trying. Right?” Aaron smiled at her. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Where was the terrified man of the night before, the one begging her for a few minutes of her time, the one pleading with her to get her to help him, just once more? “Sorry, babe—I mean, Lize. I take it seriously, I do. I just—I’m thinking about some other things.”

  “Like the weather.”

  Aaron shook his head. He put his gold-plated fork down—a ridiculous utensil, Eliza thought, one of his more boneheaded purchases before Eliza had met him and could tell him that such frivolous things made him look immature. “Last night,” he said. “That woman. Gina.”

  Eliza’s stomach flipped. “Please,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  Eliza knew all that she needed to know about the woman, and she didn’t want to know more. She didn’t want to have to sympathize with her, to think about her family, to consider that Gina Tiller might have been more than just a 2-D cut-out of a villain, a caricature of a society girl gone wrong.

  She had found out about Gina Tiller and Aaron through a fluke. Eliza and Aaron had been having one of their well-trodden fights. The subject of it was embarrassing enough that Eliza was vague on details with her family: in truth, they had been arguing about whether their unborn, yet-to-be-conceived children would be allowed to play football, given the possibility of head injuries. Eliza was decidedly arguing against it; Aaron insisted that a more balanced approach was appropriate, letting the children weigh the pros and cons themselves.

  “Children cannot make Venn diagrams of life decisions!” Eliza had shrieked, and had stormed out of this very apartment that she now stood in. She had slammed the door particularly hard, hoping that it would dislodge one of Aaron’s expensive paintings, and stomped down to the parking garage. Aaron did not follow her, though he usually did. He did not text her, even though Eliza had stayed up until one a.m. that night waiting for the apology, the reconciliation.

  By morning, Eliza was out for blood. She told Aaron that they were done with each other until further notice. He responded only with a thumbs up, which infuriated her. She decided then and there that she was done with him for good. Their four-year, on-again, off-again relationship was too embarrassing, Eliza decided. She was sick of not being able to make it work, of having to explain to everyone else what the current status of her relationship was. She was going to leave Aaron for good and move on with her life. At least, that had been her intention.

  One week later, Eliza found herself driving to Aaron’s place. She had cooled off considerably since their fight; she had even begun to think that perhaps she had been too harsh. She would apologize to Aaron for her behavior; he would accept her apology, of course he would, and they would try to move forward. Differently, of course. Better. Eliza might suggest something drastic like moving in, a new phase in their relationship that would mean new responsibilities and duties.

  Except, when Eliza arrived at Aaron’s place, she found more than she had bargained for. She found proof of recent relations, as she later told her mother, in Aaron’s wastepaper basket. She confronted him when he got home (Aaron had forgotten, as he always did, that he had given her a spare key), and it took an interrogation of nearly an hour to get him to simply admit that yes, he had been with someone in the week since they had broken up. Eliza flew into a rage, and even more so when she realized that Aaron did not intend to divulge the name.

  “It’s someone I know!” she had cried, sobbing. “It’s one of my friends, isn’t it?”

  But Eliza was not to be kept in suspense for very long. Two days later, she had run into Gina Tiller at the athletic club downtown. Gina caught her eyes, and a fat cat smile played over her face. Eliza knew then. But she walked right up to Gina and a
sked—“Aaron and you?” Gina had giggled—giggled!—and said that a lady never told. Eliza wanted to slap her. Instead she said, “I hope he told you that he has crabs,” and walked off. Eliza hoped that Gina spent a fortune in medical bills and time in disproving the accusation. She hoped that Gina texted Aaron in a panic afterwards.

  “We don’t have to talk much,” Aaron said now, carefully. “I just wanted to check that you were okay…with all of it.”

  “With all of what?” Eliza snapped. “The fact that she died or the fact that you slept with her? I’m not particularly fine with anything, you know.”

  Aaron watched her, carefully studying her face. Eliza blushed.

  “I love you, Lize. You know that.”

  “We’re not talking about love right now,” Eliza said. “Get dressed. We’re leaving for physical therapy.”

  He nodded at her, and Eliza’s stomach flipped. She had the sinking feeling that perhaps he was not telling her everything.

  Then again, neither was she.

  Chapter 16

  Rick Fales left his editor’s office feeling troubled.

  He had turned in his exclusive piece about the mysterious death of Gina Tiller, of course—with some nice, colorful details about the food, the guest list, the numerous tragedies of the Eastwick mansion.

  “But there’s nothing in here about Becks!” his editor had cried, exasperated. She was a leather-skinned woman of fifty-six, always dressed in a sharp suit, with designer glasses and cheap acrylic nails. “You can’t write a story and not mention Becks. Why did I send you out there?”

  “I actually pitched the story to you.”

  His editor had thrown her hands up. “Look, Rick, you want us to keep buying things from you? Keep focused.”

  “But I am! It’s just that this girl Gina—”

  “Died tragically, I know. Probably too much alcohol. She was always a partier, wasn’t she?”