Just then, the rain began to fall.
Agathi opened her umbrella and hurried home. When she got back to the house, she let herself in and made her way along the passage. She was shaking raindrops from the plastic-wrapped clothes, muttering to herself in Greek, in annoyance, when she entered the kitchen.
Lana smiled. “Were you caught in the rain, too? I was—I got drenched.”
Agathi didn’t reply. She draped the dry cleaning over the back of a chair. She looked miserable.
Lana glanced at her. “Darling, are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh—I’m fine.”
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
“No.” Agathi shrugged. “It’s nothing. Nothing. Just … this.” She removed the earring from her pocket.
“What is it?”
Agathi went over to Lana. She unclenched her fist. She revealed the earring.
“The dry cleaner found it. It was stuck on Jason’s jacket, inside the lapel. He thought it must be yours.”
Agathi didn’t look at Lana as she said this. Nor did Lana look at her.
“Let me see.” Lana held out her palm.
Agathi dropped the earring on her hand. Lana went through the pretense of looking at it.
“I can’t tell.” Lana gave the slightest of yawns, as if the conversation bored her. “I’ll check later.”
“I can check for you,” Agathi said quickly. “Give it back to me.”
She held out her hand—
Lana, give it back to her. Give Agathi the earring—let her cover it up and take it away, out of your life. Put it out of your mind, Lana. Forget it, distract yourself, pick up your phone, give me a ring—let’s go for dinner, or a walk, watch a movie—then this terrible tragedy will be averted.…
But Lana didn’t give the earring back to Agathi. Lana simply closed her fingers around it.
And Lana’s fate was sealed.
But not just her fate. What was I doing, I wonder, at that exact moment? Lunching with a friend? Or visiting an art gallery, or reading a book? I had no sense that my whole life had been derailed. Nor had Jason, sweating away in his office—nor had Leo, emoting in drama class—nor Kate, forgetting her lines at rehearsal.
None of us had the slightest inkling that something so monstrous had occurred, rewriting all our destinies, setting into action a series of events that would ultimately end, four days later, in murder.
This is where it started.
This is where the countdown began.
5
Lana’s reaction was extreme, I’ll grant you that.
It only makes sense if you know her. And you do know her, by now, don’t you? A little bit, anyway. So what happens next might not surprise you.
Lana remained calm, at first—she went into her bedroom and sat at her dressing table. She stared at the earring in her hand. It wasn’t hers, she could tell that at a glance. Even so, she thought she had seen it somewhere before. But where?
It’s nothing, she thought. It happened at the dry cleaner’s. A mix-up. Forget it.
But she couldn’t forget it. She knew she was being irrational and paranoid—but she couldn’t let it go. The earring signified something much bigger in her psyche, you see. A bad omen she had been dreading.
Her life had already fallen apart once before—when Otto died. Lana didn’t think she would ever recover or find love. So when she met Jason, it felt like she was being given a second chance. She could scarcely believe it. She felt safe, and happy—and loved.
Lana was deeply romantic. She had been ever since she was a little girl; ever since that chilly, empty childhood, cursed with a mother who didn’t give a damn whether Lana lived or died. Little Lana filled the vacant space with romantic dreams—fairy-tale visions of escape, and stardom; and, most important, love.
“All I’ve ever wanted was love,” she once admitted to me with a shrug. “Everything else was just … incidental.”
Lana had loved Otto—but wasn’t in love with him. When he died, it felt like losing a father, not a lover. What she experienced with Jason was ferociously physical, intense and exciting. Lana let herself be a girl again, a teenager, besotted, drunk on lust.
And it had happened so fast. One moment, she was being introduced to him by Kate—and, the next, she was walking down the aisle.
How I wish I had grabbed Lana by the shoulders that first night—the night she met Jason—and shaken her hard. Stop this, I would have said. Live in reality. Do not turn this stranger you don’t know into a fairy-tale prince. Look closely at him—can’t you see he isn’t real? Don’t be fooled by the bright eyes, the overeager smile, the false laugh. Can’t you see it’s an act? Can’t you see his desperate, mercenary mind?