“Can I, ah, come in?” Donnie asks.
Their home is as he remembered. Classic. Expensive. They were the it couple on the Northwest Philly cocktail party scene—the prominent lawyer and daughter of a wealthy business leader, the dashing federal judge. There’d been stories about Mia and Ben in the papers, Ben told him.
Philadelphia’s elite ate up the aristocrat marrying the poor kid from Chestertown. Ben didn’t care about such things. He shrugged off the casual racism he encountered at the county club or in the courthouse when he wasn’t wearing the robe and wasn’t recognized as His Honor.
Mia reluctantly lets Donnie inside. In the living room, the television is on a news channel.
Mia says, “I’d offer you a drink, but you’re not staying. I want you out of here before Bell is back with the nanny from the park.”
“Mia, I don’t understand. Why are you—”
“Save it, Donnie.”
“You’re clearly upset, but talk to me. What did I do, why are you—”
“This is your fault.”
“Whoa, whoa.” He holds up his hands. “What in tarnation are you talking about? I loved Benny. I love Bell. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She falls onto the sofa, tears spilling from her eyes. There’s a cocktail glass nearby and he realizes she’s had a few.
He lowers slowly to the chair opposite.
She takes a pull of her drink, sniffles.
“Mia, darlin’， I don’t understand.”
Finally: “He told me.”
“Told you what? What are you talking about?” Donnie hates this, pretending, but he’s not ready to come clean.
“That you did something horrible when you were kids.”
Donnie shakes his head, continues to plays dumb, but an icy chill crawls up his back.
He needs to shake it off. Fall back into Rock Star Donnie. “I’m afraid I’m lost here. I honestly don’t understand.”
“Someone was blackmailing him—did you know that?”
Now Donnie’s genuinely confused. “Blackmail? What on earth would anyone have to blackmail Ben about? He was the straightest arrow I’ve ever—”
“Don’t.” She cuts him off, the word laced with poison.
Donnie tilts his chin up, scratches the whiskers on his neck. “Uh … I need you to back up. Who was blackmailing Benny? Why would—”
“I don’t know who,” she says. “He told me some bad people knew something about him. About when you were kids. Something you all did.”
Donnie’s mind jumps to a dark rainy night, the patch of misery surrounded by woodland. “What did they want? Money?”
“If it was just about money, it wouldn’t have eaten him up so much,” she says.
Donnie flashes back to their last phone call. Ben didn’t seem like himself. Said work was stressful. But he didn’t say anything else. Or did Donnie simply miss it? Perhaps Ben hadn’t trusted his on-again, off-again sober friend with a secret. His heart sinks at the thought of Ben needing to talk but not wanting to risk telling something important to a fuckup like Donnie.
Mia continues, “We gave them money, but what they really wanted was for him to fix a case.”
Donnie understands now. Some criminal got dirt on a prominent judge. A get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Do you think that’s why he was in Chestertown, why he was—”
“You tell me.” She stares at him with something worse than hate in her eyes.
“Did you tell the police?” Donnie asks.
She scoffs. “And let that be how he’s remembered?”
The nanny appears at the door and Mia snaps to attention. “You need to go. Out the back. I don’t want Bell seeing you.”
“Mia, please, I just want to see her and—”
“Go now, and I never want to see you again.”
“Please, I—”
“Go!”
Instead of pleading any more, he slips out the back, heartbroken and bewildered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
NICO
Nico stands outside the elementary school as kids stream out of the building, a sea of shrieks and backpacks. A group of parents look on from the outskirts. Nico doesn’t appear to be drawing any attention. A few looks from the moms, but no one here watches The Miners. Unless they’re wondering about the sling, it’s probably his handsome face. He’s found that his square jaw and boy-next-door clean-cut attractiveness tend to elicit the benefit of the doubt. It’s a strange thing how the sheer luck of genetics draws such advantages. A handsome stranger gets more curiosity than suspicion. Ask Ted Bundy.
As parents and kids reunite, Nico keeps his eyes on the brick schoolhouse. And he finally sees her. She’s in a cotton dress, the sun breaking through a crack in the clouds for the first time the entire day, bathing her in a yellow glow. She’s directing a group of students to the bus lines in the lot. He smiles, remembering how she used to lament bus duty. She’s a special person, Natalie. You have to be, to teach. Between the overbearing parents who all think their spawn are gifted, the administrators who’ve never spent a day in the classroom yet constantly change the curriculum, the politicians obsessed with what you can’t teach, and having a master’s degree but being micromanaged like teenage hourlies at McDonald’s.
Natalie takes a little boy by the hand and guides him to the bus.
Step 9: Make direct amends to persons we harmed wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
But what can he possibly do? He stole from her, opened credit cards in her name, lied repeatedly. When she broke off the engagement, the first thing he did was pawn the ring and bet it all on an Eagles game. But his real offense, as she’d put it, was always having one foot out the door.
He contemplates leaving, but he remembers the fear he felt in the mine, thinking he might never see her again, thinking he’d never get to apologize. What if he never made it out? Now another crippling thought: What if that woman with the bizarre weapon is set on finishing the job?
He’s had several texts with Roger about the mysterious woman. The one who possibly drugged Roger and sent Nico a text from his phone to meet at the mine. His description of her is classic Maverick: lots about her breasts and legs, little about her face. She and Roger met at the crew’s favorite hangout, a bar called The Hole, so maybe someone caught the woman on social media. Nico makes a mental note to search his feeds later.
Natalie is walking across the blacktop back to the building, her hair dancing in a breeze that has
come out of nowhere to make her even more beautiful in this moment.
If he’s going to approach, he needs to do it now.
The area clears as fast as it became crowded.
Nico walks toward her. When she’s almost to the door he calls out.
“Natalie.”
His voice sounds weak in the wind. He tries again, louder now. “Nat. ”
She turns, squints like she’s looking for who called her name. He remembers she’s not keen on parents calling her by her first name, lest their kids pick up the habit.
Then her eyes lock on him. She stands there. Not smiling but not turning away either.
He reaches her. She’s even more beautiful. The freckles across her cheeks. The dimple on her left cheek.