26 Who is She?
Monday 19 December
Be very careful what you do around the Holbecks.
Samantha’s warning echoes in my mind as I drive home and it occurs to me, not for the first time, that given her advice, I probably should not have just written a thriller loosely based around a wealthy family who loses a son. What seemed like an interesting idea at the time now has the potential flavour of outright bating. But I can fix that in the edit. Or not.
Though right now, I have more pressing matters. I need to find the name of Bobby’s freshman girlfriend and check she’s alive, for starters.
And if she’s not, I need to go to the police. I try not to think of what will happen to me and Edward if I am the one to bring down his father, his family. Which raises the question of why on earth Robert gave me his tape in the first place. Does he have a death wish?
I can’t help but wonder if Edward ever had his own suspicions about his father. He lived in the same house as the man for years. Perhaps I might have stumbled on the real reason they fell out.
Samantha’s question about who I was planning on marrying sticks in my mind. She didn’t seem that concerned about Edward, which makes me wonder who she might have been concerned about me marrying.
Oliver, Stuart, or even Robert himself.
* * *
Edward’s car safely returned to the parking lot under our building, I head back up to the apartment, shedding my winter layers as I pull up a chair at my desk.
I type: girlfriend Bobby Holbeck into my internet browser.
But, once again, the results auto-correct to Robert Holbeck, filling the screen instead with a plethora of images of Robert Holbeck and various models and heiresses from the ’70s and ’80s. In among them, I spot a young Eleanor, doe-eyed and mysterious – the woman he would eventually marry.
Without a name, I know I won’t find Bobby’s girlfriend.
In the kitchen I grab a consolatory snack to pep my energy and consider my options.
I could just ask someone. I could just call Edward, or Matilda, or Eleanor. Granted, it would be an odd question: what was your dead brother/son’s ex-girlfriend called? – but it would save me a lot of time and anxiety. But then I recall Samantha’s words and for some reason I am reminded of the conversation Matilda and Robert were having in Fiona’s living room the other night and I’m suddenly not sure I can trust any of them with a question like this.
But Edward was his brother, and this is his house, so there’s bound to be photos of Bobby somewhere in the apartment. All I need to find is one from Bobby’s time at college, a party, a mixer, a ball game, anything. If they were a couple, she’ll be in one of them. Bobby’s stuff must have gone somewhere after he died, because it sure as hell wasn’t in his old room.
Standing in front of Edward’s closet, I suddenly baulk at the idea of rooting through his personal belongings. Since the night of the proposal, I realize, I’ve unwittingly been chipping away at the bedrock of trust between us. Do I really want to rifle through Edward’s things, his dead brother’s life? Because I wouldn’t want him to do the same thing to me, and I know exactly what he’d find if he did.
But if I can just find out who this ex-girlfriend is and if she’s okay, then I’ll know Robert’s tape is a trick and I can go to him and end this.
Buoyed by my resolution, I grab a chair so I can reach the high shelves above, where shoe boxes peek out over the edge. Up there I find exactly what I thought I might: an old school trunk, and a sun-bleached file box.
I pause, a dark thought blossoming. If I do find a photo, and the girl is dead and Robert’s tape is real, I will have to do something about all of this, and if I do there’s a chance my own past might be dragged into things. I push the thought away. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.