Riptide (26 page)

B
ehind the low cover of storm clouds, dawn came to Long Island’s East End as sudden and fast as ever. The change in light woke her, the steady brightening of the room from pitch to dark gray.

Christina Cardiff had spent a fitful night, caught in the state that was neither sleeping nor awake thanks to the drugs and alcohol coursing through her system and the storm that lashed the shore just steps from where she slept. She’d dreamed noisy dreams, dreams that echoed with the sound of rooms devoid of color, only shadows in shades of gray that flitted around corners and doors that opened and closed, opened and closed.

The rain, for now, had stopped. She saw this through the dull dishwater haze that had seeped into her brain and would not leave.

They had drunk quite a bit. Not enough for Christina to get off. Just enough to produce that dull haze.

She and Danny had had sex when they came home. Raucous and bordering on rough, the way they used to before Christina went to rehab.

She had fallen into a deep sleep immediately after, as the coke’s effects faded, leaving her nervous system drained and exhausted.

But she couldn’t sleep for long. Furtive noises roused her. The bed beside her was empty each time. She was too exhausted and too sick to get up to investigate. Once, she noticed lights on and tried to sit up, but her stomach heaved. She fell back into fitful slumber.

She must have slept through the dark hours till dawn, when she finally felt strong enough to sit up.

There was a glass of clear liquid on the nightstand and she reached for it. The sharp scent of vodka filled her nostrils, and she set it back down with a shudder.

Water. Christina needed water. And aspirin.

The bed next to her was empty.

She raised herself slowly on one elbow, willing the room to stop spinning, and swung her feet cautiously over the side of the bed. Her head felt like it was going to split right down the middle. She became aware of a weight on her left hand, familiar but not.

Christina raised her hand to look and groaned out loud.

“No!” She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the ring was still there.

A brand-new diamond ring, on the fourth finger of her left hand.

“No,” she moaned again.

The thing weighed three carats at least, and looked to be machine-cut like that stuff they sold on the shopping network. The stone was set in a gaudy hunk of what looked to be white gold. No handiwork there, none of the intricate scrollwork carved in platinum that formed the base of her other engagement ring, the one that had belonged to Jason’s maternal grandmother.

The one Christina hadn’t paid for with her own Visa card.

She slumped back against the covers.

Snatches of last night came back, like snapshots torn from an album.

She had agreed to marry Daniel Cunningham.

“Ugh.” The pounding in her head intensified. Squeezing her eyes shut, Christina curled into a ball and dragged the covers over her head, willing herself back to sleep.

The sound of heavy footsteps in the hall ruled that out.

“Good morning, dollface!” Danny Cisco entered carrying a tray. “Breakfast.”

The scent of coffee hit her. Hard. Christina wrinkled her nose and tried to ignore the pull it had on the insides of her stomach.

Danny plopped the tray on the bed. “I got coffee. I got toast. I got orange juice. I got ice-cold Grey Goose.”

“Ugh.” Christina clutched the sides of her stomach and fought the urge to be sick right there.

“Little hair of the dog, that’s all.” Danny landed on the bed next to her, his movements jerky. Unsteady.

Christina opened one eye to squint at him. What she saw made her open the other for a better look.

She had never seen him like this. His skin was several shades paler than normal, with dark hollows under his eyes. His hair stuck straight up on top of his head. He reached up and ran a hand through it, for what must have been the thousandth time. He smiled at her crookedly. One side of his mouth yanked down in a kind of nervous tic.

Christina frowned. “How are you?”

“Any better, and I’d be twins.” Danny smiled. The pupils of his eyes were dilated so wide they looked
black, the lids rimmed red like blood. “Real good.” He kissed her, so she got a strong whiff of something metallic. Sweat mixed with…she didn’t know what. “Got you here, and that’s all I need.”

Christina struggled to sit up once more, swinging around to get a better look at him. He didn’t look good. For the first time she noticed that everything in the room, from the bookshelves the decorator had filled with objets d’art in varying sizes, to the drawers of the built-ins just inside the closet, to the antique lingerie chest near the mirrors, was off-kilter. Everything had been touched. Christina frowned. “Did you sleep?”

He was swirling lots of sugar into his coffee, stirring it too fast. He shrugged, smiled, and raised the cup to his lips. “Little bit, how about you?”

“A little.”

He took a sip of his coffee and offered the cup to her.

Christina wrinkled her nose and looked away. “No, thanks. I never drink it first thing.”

Danny smiled, and the effect only intensified the hollow look of his cheeks in the weak light of morning. “Guess I’ll have to get to know those things about you.”

Bile rose at the back of her throat, and she swallowed. Christina was afraid she was going to be sick.

He pulled her left hand out to admire the ring, and more snatches of last night came to her.

The manager of the jewelry store in East Hampton pulling out one ring at a time so she could try them on. Saying something to his staff while he rang up the sale. Laughing out loud.

“Quite a rock,” Danny observed.

Christina nodded.

A memory from rehab floated back. Her counselor, Peter, with his watery blue altar-boy eyes pointing at the closed door to their therapy room.

“Remember,” he’d said, “your disease is doing push-ups right outside that door. No matter how much time you spend in here doing the work, your disease is waiting for you outside this room. Waiting for you to drink again. It wants you dead.”

Christina realized that in the space of a single day she had once again turned into a blackout drinker. Wary with that knowledge and sick with her hangover, she searched for words. “I don’t think,” she began.

Danny cut her off. “First step is getting a marriage license.” He gave her another quick peck on the cheek. “I’m sure we can find someone working in Hauppauge today,” he said, naming the county seat. “It’s Saturday, but they should be there till noon.” He ran his hand across his scalp, then rolled across the king-sized bed, scratching himself. Unable to sit still.

Christina twisted the ring on her finger. It was too big, and all wrong. “Danny,” she said quietly, “I don’t think I can do this.”

He sat up. “You can,” he said simply.

His eyes were dark with shadows, deep spaces with no light inside. Christina thought again how little she knew of him. Jake had called him Danny Cisco. Jake, with his track marks and the well-worn sheet of paper he’d brought to the AA meeting that needed to be signed as proof of attendance for his probation officer, had insisted he knew Danny Cisco from Deer Park, a place Christina had never been. “I think—” she tried again.

Danny cut her off. “ I think,’” he said in a loud falsetto imitation of her.

And then, with no warning, his arm shot out and knocked her over.

Christina tumbled back onto the covers. “Danny!”

Her protest was of no use. He was on top of her in an instant, pinning her arms and smiling, trying to make it seem like foreplay.

But it didn’t feel that way to Christina.

“I think,” he repeated, leaning in close so his breath filled her nostrils, “that we should just do it. Today.”

Christina felt her breath leave her lungs in a whoosh. She longed to squirm, try to wriggle out from under him, but something warned her not to.

Danny Cisco had a bad temper.

“Too much talk is no good. You understand?” He gave her hands one final squeeze, and this time it was too much.

Christina couldn’t hold back a squeal of pain. “Okay.”

“Good.” He let go, but he leaned in closer and kissed her, forcing her mouth open and moving his tongue inside her.

Fighting the urge to wriggle out from under him, Christina lay there. Passive.

Rolling off her at last, he propped up on one elbow. “We got a lot to do. You clean yourself up. Find your birth certificate. Then we’ll go.”

He ran a finger slowly, possessively, down the length of her arm.

Christina nodded.

“I got a couple things to do while you get ready.”

She nodded again.

“Good.” He stood, walking to a suitcase propped open in a corner of the room, and pulled out a T-shirt.

She didn’t remember seeing it last night. It was black with vinyl trim and battered wheels, a world of difference from the brown-and-tan Louis Vuitton set she and Jason used.

Christina headed for the bathroom.

Everything—
everything
—was askew, as though it had been moved sometime during the night.

She was sitting on the toilet when Danny poked his head in.

Christina looked down, embarrassed.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he announced.

“Okay,” Christina mumbled.

“Hey.” His voice was loud in the tiled bathroom.

He waited until Christina looked up, forcing a smile to her lips. “Sounds good.”

“Good,” he replied.

After he had gone, she searched the medicine cabinet for something to stop the pounding in her head.

Here, too, everything had been gone through.

She filled a Dixie cup and downed three Tylenol. The water felt good on the back of her throat, which was hot and raw like a hamburger on the grill.

She went back out to the bedroom and took the phone from its handset charger. The ringer here was always set to silent, but she was certain some of the sounds in her dreams had been the ringing of the phone downstairs.

Scrolling through the
RECEIVED CALLS
list, she saw a number of attempts had been made throughout the night from a number that was blocked. Keying in her security code, the one she and Jason had shared, she got her messages.

Despite all the attempts to connect, there were only two messages.

Both from the blocked caller, Detective Frank McManus of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad. The older, white cop, the one with the stern Irish face.

In the first, he sounded pissed off. “Mrs. Cardiff, we need to speak with you at your earliest convenience. I realize you’re busy today, but we have some information we need to share with you about your husband’s death. We now know who he was with and how he spent his time. Call me as soon as possible. Thank you.” McManus left his cell-phone number. That call had been placed late yesterday afternoon.

The next message left her throat dry and her heart pounding. It had come in while they were at Langdon’s.

McManus’s tone held more of an edge, lots more. “Mrs. Cardiff, we’ve attempted to contact you several times. We have information that is very important for you to know. We need to speak with you, in person.”

McManus stressed the words “in person,” before continuing. “As soon as possible. We have learned that your companion, Danny Cisco, whom you have identified as Daniel Cunningham, was at your house the night of your husband’s death.”

Blood was pounding through Christina’s temples, loud enough to make it difficult to hear McManus’s voice.

A bluish gray mist swam up out of nowhere, clouding her vision.

She reached a hand out to steady herself and knocked over the glass.

It tumbled over, splashing vodka onto the bed, the wall, the rug.

For once in her life, Christina ignored a glass of vodka.

The detective’s message continued. “We know for a fact that Danny Cisco was among those present with your husband immediately before his death. We have some information to share with you. I urge you to call as soon as possible.” McManus repeated his cell-phone number and hung up.

Christina stood, too numb to move, while the recorded voice from the answering service listed the various options for subscribers who wished to dial another mailbox number or change personal greetings.

Danny had been here with Jason the night of his death.

Icy fingers of dread walked up her spine, fanning out across her shoulders and arms.

He had lied to her about his real name.

She stood, frozen, trying to take it all in.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The weak dawn revealed a sky heavy and swollen with low-hanging clouds. Wind tossed the wet trees. The grass was battered, littered with leaves as though autumn had come.

A movement caught her eye.

She frowned.

A jeans-clad leg disappeared around the corner of the garage.

What was Danny doing out there?

It was Saturday, the landscapers’ day off.

There was nobody on the grounds.

He passed back into her line of sight, lugging a can of gasoline Jason kept for the lawn mower he’d bought years ago and used once.

Danny held something in his other hand that tightened the panic’s icy grip.

A white plastic bag, one with the Suffolk County seal.

It contained the swim trunks Jason had been wearing when he drowned.

“What?” Christina breathed the question out loud.

There was, however, no one to hear.

Danny disappeared around the side of the garage.

She’d have a better view of that section of yard from Tyler’s room.

She grabbed her robe and headed down the hall.

The guest-room door was closed. She stuck her head in, knowing what she’d find. The room had been gone through. The closet door was open and she could see the drawers of the built-in were out of order, some half-closed with sweater sleeves and pant legs hanging over the edges. Christina wasn’t much of a housekeeper, so it was nothing that would attract attention on an average day.

Except that Señora Rosa kept the closets in apple-pie order. That’s how this closet had looked last night, when Christina and Danny came in, tearing dresses off hangers and modeling them until they settled on the pink one she wore to Langdon’s. But they hadn’t touched the built-in drawers.