‘You want to know why I left the family?’ she asks, her expression settling into something more serious.
‘I do.’
‘I left because of what happened.’
‘With Bobby,’ I push.
‘You know I can’t talk about Bobby,’ she says curtly, her gaze flitting back on me, suddenly on edge. ‘You’re a wife, aren’t you?’
I flounder, caught out by the directness of the question.
‘No, I’m not. Not yet,’ I say carefully, and as I say it, the reality of that fact hits me for the first time in weeks. I have made no promises; there are things I might learn that might make marrying into Ed’s family impossible. ‘Why can’t you talk about Bobby?’
‘The NDA.’
I feel my eyebrows raise. ‘They made you sign a non-disclosure agreement – about Bobby?’
She looks irritated by the question. ‘No. Everyone who works for the Holbecks signs an NDA the day they start. It’s not unusual in wealthy families. It gives them a sense of security. Families discuss their private lives, their businesses, their family relationships, we hear it all,’ she breaks off, with a look to me. ‘I wish I could help; you seem like a nice girl, but I’m afraid I can’t speak to specifics. Especially around something as delicate as Bobby. If they were to sue – I have nothing except my house, Harriet. I’m sure you understand. I bought it with the payout they gave me.’
‘Why would they give you a payout if you chose to leave yourself?’
She looks at me mutely. I’ve caught her out.
‘Samantha, please. I just need to know what I’m getting into here,’ I beg, then quickly change tack. ‘Why agree to meet me, if you can’t or won’t say anything? Why come?’
‘Because you dusted off the past and presented it back to me. I needed to know who you were; if this might become a problem for me.’
And then, as much as I hate myself for doing it, I use my trump card. ‘It might become a problem for you. I’m pregnant and I’m concerned about my safety around these people. I need you to tell me about them. It will go no further, I promise you. I don’t want to put you in a compromising position.’
Her eyes drop to my stomach and I feel her take me in in an entirely different light.
‘Oh, I see,’ she says. ‘Well, at least now I understand why you’re here. That makes sense. One of the boys. Yes, yes, I suppose you had better ask me what you want to know and we’ll see where we get.’
‘Bobby. Was there something strange about the way he died?’ I ask immediately.
‘Strange how?’ she asks.
‘Did he jump or—’
‘Or was he pushed? He jumped,’ she says with a firmness that tells me this is not the area I should be looking into.
I throw my mind back to Robert’s tape. He describes Samantha’s death because she knew something incriminating about that day. If Bobby jumped, then what could she have had over Robert? ‘Did something make Bobby jump? Was the suicide triggered by a person or an event?’
Samantha holds my gaze, then her mouth pulls into a pinched line and she gives me a tight nod. ‘Um-hum. Bobby was having trouble with his father at the time. Too much pressure on him for sure. But he jumped all by himself.’
Something in me loosens slightly at the reiteration of that point. Bobby killed himself and Robert killed no one. He made up the murder and Samantha is alive. The tape is a trick.
‘The family likes playing games, don’t they?’ I ask.
She straightens in her seat. If I didn’t have her full attention before, I have it now.