The Best of Enemies (41 page)

I am stunned into silence.

“I have to figure out everything for you, don’t I?”
She takes hold of my wrist and begins to yank me down the beach.

“What are you doing?”
I yelp, stumbling in the sand while I try to keep up with her.

“We’re going back to the hotel to get on the Wi-Fi so you can get in touch with him.
This instant.
I’m not messing around here.
Your future starts now.”

“Now?”
I say, overcome with equal parts trepidation and anticipation.

“Right.
Flipping.
Now.”

Little Cayman Island

Saturday

“Feel free to crown me the Queen of I Told You So,” I say to Jack, who has yet to stop grinning like a complete loon.

“Did you know he was at Trip’s funeral?”
Jack says.
“He didn’t want to call attention to himself, or cause any trouble between us, so he sat in the back.
But he was there, in the hope of spotting me.”

“That’s so romantic I could throw up in my handbag.
Thank God you had on a decent dress.
P.S., stop hugging me.
You’re embarrassing us both.”

I don’t actually want her to stop.
I feel like I have my first
real
best friend back.

She says, “You wish,” then squeezes me again for good measure.
And I hug her back.
“I’m seeing him the second we get home.”

“Again, you’re welcome.
Then you’ll really be glad you listened to me about the razors.
Kitty Carricoe is never wrong about this sort of thing.
Fact.”

We hear the sound of a small plane coming in for a landing.
Betsy was leaving the chartered private jet on Cayman Brac, taking a little prop plane over here because the other’s too big to land on this wee runway.

Wow, is this place seriously wild and practically uninhabited.
No wonder Brooke Birchbaum was able to do her laundry on the beach.
I swear I just saw a goat run past us.
Not kidding.
The airport is basically a shed, so I’m glad we haven’t had to wait here for long.

“At least stop beaming when Betsy lands.
This is serious business,” I say, even though all I want to do is grab a Big Gulp full of Diet Coke and sit on the sand with Jack, reveling in every detail, while I may or may not quietly congratulate myself for having been the catalyst.
I love romance.
I do.
I wish I’d made it more of a priority over the past few years.

Betsy’s agitated when she lands, understandably so.
She’s not her usual polished self—untucked and disheveled, tottering around on impossibly high shoes not meant for walking on a grassy runway.
She has us explain everything again from the beginning.
“You two are friends again?
Just like that?”
she asks.

“Miracle, right?”
I say.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Betsy replies.

“Are you bringing in a team?”
Jack asks.
“Won’t we need help getting him into custody?”

“Taken care of, no worries,” Betsy replies.
She gestures toward the Jeep by the “airport” entrance.
“This is our ride.
Sorry it’s rustic, not a lot of choices on short notice here.”
She finds the keys under the mat and consults her map.
“He’s staying at an address on Point o’ Sand beach on the northern tip of the island.”

Jack and I look at each other and bust out laughing, as we know this is the exact pink sand–spot Brooke Birchbaum’s been bragging about for so many years.

Jack points to a tree.
“Let’s grab some mangoes—we can eat them there afterward.
Naked, naturally,” and we crack up again.

“Ooh, inside jokes.
Fun,” Betsy says, an edge to her voice.
Yet who could blame her for being upset?

“What’s our strategy?”
Jack asks.
“How are we doing this?”

“Follow my lead,” Betsy replies.

The island’s less than ten miles long, so we arrive at the property in a couple of minutes, obscuring ourselves behind a big patch of Spanish cedar.
I’m surprised at the simplicity of the accommodations.
I expected some windswept mansion on the water, a tropical version of Steeplechase, full of plantation shutters and banana leaf ceiling fans and butlers ferrying silver trays of iced beverages, the glasses thick with condensation.
Instead, we’re camped out by a spring-break-type beach shack.

“This is it?”
Jack asks, also bewildered.

I’m still trying to put all the pieces of this mystery together.
“Let’s talk this through again.
Ingrid came down with the bags to load up at the bank, right?
Jack says the international regulations have changed, but surely Trip had time to convert money from his offshore account to cash-filled safety deposit boxes.
So he’s picking up the money here before heading out on the boat to somewhere with no extradition laws.
Does that sound right?
Would he take US dollars or Cayman Island dollars?”
I ask.
“Or maybe he’s already converted the cash to the currency of where he’s headed next.”

“All totally plausible,” Jack agrees.

Bets doesn’t seem to be in the mood for chitchat, so we wait quietly.
We hear Trip and Ingrid crunching down the crushed shell drive before we see them drive up in their own Jeep, then watch as they unload all the duffels.
When they’re both weighted down with bags, Bets gives the signal.
“Now.”

We leap out of the car like we’re a bunch of Navy SEALS, which is a lot easier for those of us in sensible shoes and capri pants.
We all run up to the couple and surround them.
This?
This is so much more exciting than anything the PTO has to offer!

“Hello, Trip,” Betsy says.
“You’re looking well.
Death agrees with you.”

“Hey, Sabby!”
Trip says, grinning.
He’s since shaved his head and grown a goatee, but with the trademark pastel sweater looped around his shoulders, he’s undeniably recognizable.
“What are you doing here?”

“We could ask you that as well,” Jack replies, obviously confused by his answer.
Shouldn’t he be panicked?
Shouldn’t Trip be aghast that his fake death’s been uncovered?
Jack and I trade glances, both of us silently shrugging.

“No way!
The Miami margarita girl is here!”
Ingrid adds, waving at Jack.
“Small world!”

“You had to be stupid,” Betsy says to Trip, pacing unsteadily on her high heels.
Uh-oh.
Batcrap Breakup Betsy’s about to make an appearance.
Jack and I gravitate toward each other.

“You couldn’t just stick with the plan,” Betsy says.
“You had to freestyle and ruin everything.
I had it all set up.
It was bulletproof.
Do you know how many people I had to pay off for that ‘plane crash’?
And having the whole Gulfstream disassembled!
Millions.
The operation cost millions.
But, no.
You couldn’t just be happy on your own, waiting for me to join you after a reasonable interim.
You needed the immediate company of a woman fifteen years your junior.
A bimbo.
And she’s still probably your better in terms of emotional maturity.”

“Who’s the bimbo here?”
Ingrid asks, looking around.
“Is it me?”

Breakup Betsy’s out in full force.
Someone is getting something thrown at his head, and soon.
P.S.
Don’t get too attached to your car’s unslashed tires.
“How long did you wait to get in touch with her?
Two days?
You had to be a fucking cliché, didn’t you?”

“Betsy, what’s going on?”
I ask.
None of this is unfolding like I’d envisioned.
Jack seems equally flummoxed.

“What’s going on?
Oh, I’ll tell you what’s going on.
Golden Boy here started making bad investments about five minutes after I was ousted from CFG.
His sexist old man didn’t believe that I’d earned my seat at the table, despite his not even being a board member.
So, at Daddy’s behest, Trip bounced me.
Asked me to ‘please understand.’
After that, Trip began to drink the media’s Kool-Aid that
I’d
set in motion from Day One and started to believe he’d built CFG on his own, just like he ‘earned’ his MBA on the back of my efforts.”

“Bobby nailed it,” Jack says quietly.
“Whoa.”

Betsy’s not paying attention to either of us, her entire focus on Trip and Ingrid.
“I’m telling you, Peter Pan here invested in some stupid shit.
Want to know how much he wasted on a company that created online gyms?
Four hundred and twenty million dollars.
For a gym.
Online.
And not for a company whose apps allow customers to download workout guides to use in the privacy of their living rooms.
Or software that tracks your effort and holds clients accountable for exercising.
No.
The gym offered virtual exercise.
With an avatar.”

“But you could make the little guys do one-handed push-ups and they’d get all sweaty!”
Trip argues.
“It was hilarious!”

To Jack I say, “I always suspected Betsy was the brains of the operation.”

Betsy continues.
“And that’s just a drop in the bucket of the bullshit you invested in; you were ruining the company
I
built, while cheating on me every chance you got.”
She turns to us.
“Two years ago, when this mouth-breathing moron realized what a mess he’d made, he came to me for help.
He was in deep and it was only a matter of time before the SEC climbed up his ass.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Because even though he didn’t
steal
billions he was going to be destroyed for pissing them away.
So I figured out how to buy time and temporarily prop up earnings by courting new investors at my charity events, using their funds to provide returns to earlier investors.
I built a house of cards.
I perpetrated
fraud
, yes, for my
husband
.
Our lives on US soil would be over, but we could maintain our lifestyle abroad.
All this idiot had to do was
keep it in his pants
for once.”

“He hit on me, you know, Betsy.
Frequently.
He sent me an e-mail right before the crash saying things were about to change and he wanted me by his side,” I tell her, trying to validate her point.

Trip seems offended.
“No way, Jose!
I flirted with you because Sabby told me to.
No offense, but I don’t wanna hook up with someone’s mom.
Ruins you
down there
.
Sab said Ken was cheating on you and I should give you attention to make you feel better about yourself.
But I never e-mailed you.
That part’s messed up.”

I’m suddenly, profoundly, consumed with rage.

“You’re such a liar, Trip,” I shriek.
“Ken is not cheating on me.
Stop trying to deflect here and own up to your actions.”

Betsy snorts.
“Honey, he is
absolutely
cheating on you.
I caught your precious Ken one day about three years ago.
I stopped by after hours because of a loose filling and walked right in on them.”

I feel like I can’t take a breath, no matter how hard I try to inhale.
I’m light-headed and I fear I’m about to pass out.

No.

NO.

This cannot be true.

But what if it is?
Damn it, I knew Brandi was bad news.
I knew it!
Is Ken a cliché, too, going through his own midlife crisis?
Although, how would Betsy have caught him with Brandi?
She hasn’t been with the practice that long.
Were they an item before she was hired?
I can’t—