In that years-old picture, Adrienne and Ethan were being partially shielded from the cameras by a huge, broad-shouldered man with dark brown skin and close-cropped hair. As I peered out the window, I saw the same man, now a little grayer around the temples and thicker through the waist, climb out from behind the wheel of the town car that was idling at the curb. He shouldered his way easily through the crowd and up to the front door. My phone began to ring again. I answered it, looking down from the window. He was on the stoop, holding his own phone to his ear, looking up at me. His mouth formed the words as I heard them in the receiver.
“Mrs. Richards? It’s Benny. Your driver.”
“I’m ready.”
“Come on down, and I’ll escort you to the car.”
I took the stairs carefully, holding tight to the railing, my gait unnatural in Adrienne’s heels. I had been feeling proud of myself for thinking ahead, trying every pair of her shoes to find one that fit well enough, but I’d forgotten the part where I would have to walk in them. It was a struggle not to stagger. Outside, I leaned on Benny as heavily as I dared, shaking my head as reporters thronged around us, shouting questions, thrusting voice recorders in front of my face. All around me, the rapid-fire shutter sound of cameras going off. I kept my head down, eyes on my feet and my heart in my throat as we reached the bottom of the stone steps and crossed the sidewalk. I saw the car door in front of me and unthinkingly reached for the handle.
“Ma’am?”
I looked up: Benny was standing to my left, holding the door that he’d opened for me. There was a strange look on his face.
“Oh. Right. Thank you,” I said, and he blinked, his eyebrows knitting together like I’d said the wrong thing, because of course I had. Of course Adrienne wouldn’t say thank you. I could hear her voice in my head right now, incredulous: Since when do you tell people “thank you” for doing their job? That’s what the money is for. But the awkward moment was only a moment, and Benny stepped aside. I practically dove past him into the back seat, yanking my throbbing feet in behind me. The door closed. I was safe once again, invisible behind dark-tinted windows. In front, the driver’s-side door opened and then closed again.
“Hey,” Benny said. I looked up, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. He was still frowning. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I wondered what Adrienne had said to this man the last time she met him; I couldn’t begin to guess, except that it was probably awful. But Adrienne wouldn’t have wondered. Adrienne wouldn’t have cared at all. I shrugged and looked away.
“I guess not. Should I?”
I could feel Benny staring at me for several seconds longer. Then he shrugged and put the car in gear.
“Guess not,” he said. “I guess remembering isn’t your job.”
The ride to Kurt Geller’s downtown office took twenty minutes, with another awkward moment at the curb as Benny opened the door and extended a hand to help me out of the back seat. This time, I swallowed the urge to say thanks. I wondered if Geller could get someone else to drive me home, and then wondered if that might be worse; for all I knew, Adrienne might have been shitty to that person, too. Maybe even shittier. My feet were already beginning to hurt again as I clicked through the lobby doors. Someone called Adrienne’s name, and I turned to see a slender woman in a skirt suit, holding a hand up in greeting.
“I’m Ilana, Mr. Geller’s assistant,” she said. “He sent me down to get you.”
“Have we met before?” I asked cautiously, still paranoid from the encounter with Benny, but she only smiled politely.
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t with the firm yet back when your husband . . .” She caught herself and stopped midsentence, frowning sympathetically. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry. This must be very difficult for you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“If you’ll just follow me,” said Ilana, and gestured at the elevator bank. We rode in silence, a long way up. When the doors opened, I followed her again. Past a receptionist who glanced up with recognition in her eyes—I nodded at her; she nodded back—and into the office where Kurt Geller stood behind a desk to shake my hand. I had seen pictures of him, too, but was still thrown by the look of him. In Copper Falls, people were young, middle-aged, or old, and it was never hard to tell who was what; every painful year etched itself onto your face like a claw mark. Geller was like something from another planet; he could have been anywhere from a prematurely gray thirty-five to a well-preserved sixty, agelessly handsome in a way that I had never seen in real life. He nodded at Ilana, who left, shutting the door behind her.