Then there are those two sentences—easy to dismiss at the time, increasingly ominous in hindsight—Katherine spoke while sitting in the very same rocking chair I occupy now. They refuse to leave my head, repeating in the back of my skull like lines I’ve spent too much time rehearsing.

  Tom needs me too much to agree to a divorce. He’d kill me before letting me leave.

  Ordinarily, I’d assume it was a joke. That’s my go-to defense mechanism, after all. Using humor as a shield, pretending my pain doesn’t hurt at all. Which is why I suspect there was a ring of truth to what she said. Especially after what she told me yesterday about all of Tom’s money being tied up in Mixer and how she pays for everything.

  Then there’s the fight itself, which could have been over money but I suspect was about more than that. Seared into my memory is the way Tom pleaded with Katherine, repeating that word I couldn’t quite read on his lips. How? Who? All of it climaxing with him wrenching her away from the window and her striking back.

  Just before that, though, was the surreal moment when Katherine and I locked eyes. I know from the phone call afterwards that she somehow knew I was watching. Now I wonder if, in that brief instant when her gaze met mine, Katherine was trying to tell me something.

  Maybe she was begging for help.

  Despite my vow to drop the binoculars in the trash, here they are, sitting right next to my glass of bourbon. I pick them up and look across the lake to the Royce house. Although Tom’s no longer outside, the presence of the Bentley lets me know he’s still there.

  Everything he told me mostly adds up, signaling I should believe him. Those few loose threads prevent me from doing so. I won’t be able to fully trust Tom until Katherine gets back to me—or I get proof from another source.

  It occurs to me that Tom mentioned exactly where they live in the city. A fancy building not too far from mine, although theirs borders Central Park. I know it well. Upper West Side. A few blocks north of where the Bartholomew once stood.

  Since I can’t go there myself, I enlist the next best person for the job.

  “You want me to do what?” Marnie says when I call to make my request.

  “Go to their building and ask to see Katherine Royce.”

  “Katherine? I thought she was at Lake Greene.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I give her a recap of the past few days. Katherine unhappy. Tom acting strange. Me watching it all through the binoculars. The fight and the scream and Katherine’s sudden departure.

  To Marnie’s credit, she waits until I’m finished before asking, “Why have you been spying on them?”

  I don’t have a suitable answer. I was curious, bored, nosy, all of the above.

  “I think it’s because you’re sad and lonely,” Marnie offers. “Which is understandable, considering everything you’ve been through. And you want a break from feeling all of that.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No. But this isn’t the way to take your mind off things. Now you’ve become obsessed with the supermodel living on the other side of the lake.”

  “I’m not obsessed.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Worried,” I say. “Naturally worried about someone whose life I just saved. You know that saying. Save a person’s life and you’re responsible for them forever.”

  “One, I’ve never heard that saying. Two, that is, like, the definition of being obsessed.”

  “Maybe so,” I say. “That’s not what’s important right now.”

  “I beg to differ. This isn’t healthy behavior, Casey. It’s not moral behavior.”

  I let out an annoyed huff so loud it sounds like rustling wind hitting my phone. “If I wanted a lecture, I would have called my mother.”

  “Call her,” Marnie says. “Please. She’s been bothering me instead, saying that you’re ignoring her.”

  “Which I am. If you go check to see if Katherine is there, I’ll call my mother and get her off your back.”

  Marnie pretends to think it over, even though I already know it’s a done deal.

  “Fine,” she says. “But before I go, one last question. Have you checked social media?”

  “I’m not on social media.”

  “And thank God for that,” Marnie says. “But I assume Katherine is. Find some of her accounts. Twitter. Instagram. The one her husband literally invented and owns. Surely she’s on that. Maybe it’ll give you an idea of where she is and what she’s up to.”

  It’s such a good idea I’m pissed I didn’t think of it on my own. After all, following someone on social media is just a more acceptable form of spying.

  “I’ll do that. While you go check to see if Katherine’s home. Right now.”

  After a few muttered curse words and a promise that she’s leaving this second, Marnie ends the call. While waiting to hear back, I do what she says and check Katherine’s social media.

  First up is Instagram, where Katherine has more than four million followers.

  Of course she does.

  The pictures she’s posted are an eye-pleasing mix of sun-flooded interiors, throwbacks to her modeling days, and candid selfies of her slathered in face cream or eating candy bars. Interspersed are gentle, earnest urgings to support the charities she works with.

  Even though it’s all carefully curated, Katherine still comes off as a sharp-witted woman who wants to be known as more than just a pretty face. An accurate representation of the Katherine I’ve come to know. There’s even a recent photo taken at Lake Greene, showing her reclining on the edge of their dock in that teal bathing suit, the water behind her and, beyond that, the very porch I’m now sitting on.

  I look at the date and see it was posted two days ago.

  Right before she almost drowned in the lake.

  Her most recent photo is a view of a pristine, all-white kitchen with a stainless steel teakettle on the stove, a Piet Mondrian calendar on the wall, and lilies in a vase by the window. Outside, Central Park spreads out below in all its pastoral splendor. The caption is short and sweet: There’s no place like home.

  I check when it was posted.

  An hour ago.

  So Tom wasn’t lying after all. Katherine did indeed return to their apartment, a fact that seems to have surprised her famous friends who’ve left comments.

  Ur back in the city?! YAY!! one of them wrote.

  Another replied, That was quick!

  Tom himself even weighed in: Keep the home fires burning, babe!

  I exhale, breathing out all the tension I didn’t know I was holding in.

  Katherine is fine.

  Good.

  Yet my relief is tempered by a slight stab of rejection. Maybe that was another of Tom’s truths—that Katherine gets bored quickly. Now that I know with certainty that she’s been on her phone, it’s clear Katherine didn’t miss my calls or texts. She’s avoiding me, just like I’m avoiding my mother. I realize I’m the kind of person Katherine gently chided in her voicemail message. The ones who are being ignored.

  After last night, I can’t really blame her. She knows I’ve been watching her house. Marnie was right when she said that’s not healthy behavior. In fact, it’s downright unnerving. Who spends so much time spying on their neighbors? Losers, that’s who. Lonely losers who drink too much and have nothing better to do.

  Okay, maybe Marnie’s correct and I am a little obsessed with Katherine. Yes, some of that obsession is valid. Since I saved Katherine’s life, it’s only natural to be concerned with her well-being. But the truth is harsher than that. I became fixated on Katherine to avoid facing my own problems, of which there are many.

  Annoyed—at Katherine, at Marnie, at myself—I grab the binoculars, carry them inside, and drop them into the trash. Something I should have done days ago.

  I return to the porch and my go-to security blanket of bourbon, which I sip until Marnie calls back a half hour later, the familiar sounds of Manhattan traffic honking in the background.

  “I already know what you’re going to say,” I tell her. “Katherine’s there. You were right and I was stupid.”

  “That’s not what their doorman just told me,” Marnie says.

  “You talked to him?”

  “I told him I was an old friend of Katherine’s who just happened to be in the neighborhood and wondered if she wanted to grab lunch. I don’t think he believed me, but it doesn’t matter because he still told me that the Royces are currently at their vacation home in Vermont.”

  “And those were his exact words?” I say. “The Royces. Not just Mr. Royce.”

  “Plural. I even did the whole oh-I-thought-I-saw-Katherine-across-the-street-yesterday routine. He told me I was mistaken and that Mrs. Royce hasn’t been at the apartment for several days.”

  A fierce chill grips me. It feels like I’ve just been thrown into the lake and am now lost in the water’s frigid darkness.

  I was right.

  Tom was lying.

  “Now I’m really worried,” I say. “Why would Tom lie to me like that?”

  “Because whatever’s going on is none of your business,” Marnie says. “You said yourself that Katherine seemed unhappy. Maybe she is. And so she left him. For all you know, there’s a Dear John letter sitting on the kitchen counter right now.”

  “It still doesn’t add up. I did what you suggested and looked at her Instagram. She just posted a picture from inside her apartment.”

  Marnie chews on that a minute. “How do you know it’s her apartment?”

  “I don’t,” I say. I only assumed it was because Katherine said so in the caption and because it had a view of Central Park and looked to be roughly where the Royces’ apartment is located.

  “See?” Marnie says. “Maybe Katherine told Tom she was going to the apartment but really went to stay with a friend or a family member. He might not have any clue where she is and was too embarrassed to admit that.”

  It would be a sound theory if I hadn’t seen Tom’s comment on the picture.

  Keep the home fires burning, babe!

  “That means it really is their apartment,” I tell Marnie after explaining what I saw.

  “Fine,” Marnie says. “Let’s say it is their apartment. That either means Katherine’s there and the doorman lied, or it means she posted a photo that was saved on her phone to hide the fact from her husband that she’s not really at their apartment. Either way, none of this points to Katherine being in danger.”

  “But I heard Katherine scream early this morning,” I say.

  “Are you certain that’s what you heard?”

  “It wasn’t an animal.”

  “I’m not suggesting it was,” Marnie says. “I’m merely saying that maybe you didn’t hear it at all.”

  “You think I imagined it?”

  The delicate pause I get in return warns me that Marnie’s about to drop a truth bomb.

  A big one.

  Atomic.

  “How much did you have to drink last night?” she says.

  My gaze is drawn to the mostly empty whiskey bottle still overturned on the porch floor. “A lot.”

  “How much is a lot?”

  I think it through, counting the drinks on my fingers. The ones I can remember, at least.

  “Seven. Maybe eight.”

  Marnie lets out a small cough to hide her surprise. “And you don’t think that’s too much?”

  I bristle at her too-earnest tone. She sounds like my mother.

  “This isn’t about my drinking. You have to believe me. Something about this situation isn’t right.”

  “That might be true.” Marnie’s voice remains annoyingly calm. Like someone talking to a kindergartener throwing a tantrum. “It still doesn’t mean Tom Royce murdered his wife.”

  “I didn’t say he did.”

  “But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  Not quite, but close enough. While it’s absolutely crossed my mind that Tom did something to hurt Katherine, I’m not yet ready to make the mental leap to murder.

  “Be honest,” Marnie says. “What do you think happened to her?”

  “I’m not sure anything happened,” I say. “But something’s not right about the situation. Katherine was here, and suddenly she’s not. And I’m not sure her husband is telling the truth.”

  “Or he told you what he believes to be the truth.”

  “I don’t buy that. When I talked to him, he gave me a very simple explanation to something that, at least from what I saw, looked like a complex situation.”

  “What you saw?” Marnie repeats, my words sounding undeniably stalker-y. “Is this how you spend all your time? Watching them?”

  “Only because I sensed trouble the minute I started watching.”

  “I wish you could hear yourself right now,” Marnie says, her calm tone replaced by something even worse. Sadness. “Admitting that you’re spying on your neighbors and talking about Tom Royce hiding something—”

  “You’d think it, too, if you saw the things I have.”

  “That’s the point. You shouldn’t be seeing it. None of what’s going on in that house is any of your business.”

  I can’t argue with Marnie on that point. It’s true that I had no right watching them the way I have been. Yet, in doing so, if I stumbled upon a potentially dangerous situation, isn’t it my responsibility to try to do something about it?

  “I just want to help Katherine,” I say.

  “I know you do. But if Katherine Royce wanted your help, she would have asked for it,” Marnie says.

  “I think she did. Late last night, when I saw them fighting.”

  Marnie lets slip a sad little sigh. I ignore it.

  “Our eyes met. Just for a second. She was looking at me and I was looking at her. And I think, in that moment, she was trying to tell me something.”

  Marnie sighs again, this one louder and sadder. “I know you’re going through a hard time right now. I know you’re struggling. But please don’t drag other people into it.”

  “Like you?” I shoot back.

  “Yes, like me. And Tom and Katherine Royce. And anyone else at the lake right now.”

  Although Marnie sounds nothing but sympathetic, I know the deal. She, too, has officially grown tired of my bullshit. The only surprise, really, is that it took her this long. Unless I want to lose her completely—which I don’t—I can’t push any further.

  “You’re right,” I say, trying to sound appropriately contrite. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t need you to be sorry,” she says. “I need you to get better.”

  Marnie ends the call before I can say anything else—an unspoken warning that, while all is forgiven, it’s certainly not forgotten. And when it comes to Katherine and Tom Royce, I’ll need to leave her out of it.

  Which is fine. Maybe she’s right and nothing’s really going on except the unraveling of the Royces’ marriage. I sincerely hope that’s the worst of it. Unfortunately, my gut tells me it’s not that simple.

  I return to Katherine’s Instagram and examine that picture of her apartment, thinking about Marnie’s theory that she posted an old photo to deceive her husband. The idea makes sense, especially when I take another look at the view of Central Park outside the apartment window. The leaves there are still green—a far cry from the blazing reds and oranges of the trees surrounding Lake Greene.

  I zoom in until the picture fills my phone’s screen. Scanning the grainy blur, I focus on the Mondrian calendar on the wall. There, printed right below an image of the artist’s most famous work—Composition with Red Blue and Yellow—is the month it represents.

  September.

  Marnie was right. Katherine really did post an old photo. Faced with proof that she’s being deceitful, most likely to fool her husband, I realize I can stop worrying—and, yes, obsessing—over where Katherine is or what happened to her.

  It’s none of my business.

  It’s time to accept that.

  I swipe my phone, shrinking the photo down to its original size.

  That’s when I see it.

  The teakettle on the stove, polished to a mirrorlike shine. It glistens so much that the photographer can be seen reflected in its surface.

  Curious, I zoom in again, making the kettle as big as possible without entirely blowing out the image. Although the photographer’s reflection is blurred by the amplification and distorted by the kettle’s curve, I can still make out who it is.

  Tom Royce.

  There’s no mistaking it. Dark hair, longish in the back, too much product in the front.

  Katherine never took this photo.

  Which means it was saved not on her phone but on her husband’s.

  The only explanation I can think of is that Marnie was right about the deception, wrong about who is doing it and why.

  Tom posted this photo on his wife’s Instagram account.

  And the person being deceived is me.

  The hardest part about doing Shred of Doubt eight times a week was the first act, in which my character had to walk a fine line between being too worried and not suspicious enough. I spent weeks of rehearsal trying to find the perfect balance between the two, and I never did get it completely right.

  Until now.

  Now I’m perched precisely between those two modes, wondering which one I should lean into. It’s easy now that I’m living it. No acting required.

  I want to call Marnie for guidance, but I know what she’d say. That Katherine is fine. That I should leave it alone. That it’s none of my business.

  All of that might be true. And all of it could be dead wrong. I can’t be sure until I have a better grasp on the situation. So it’s back to social media I go, leaving Instagram behind and diving into Tom Royce’s brainchild, Mixer.

  First, I have to download the app to my phone and create a profile. It’s a brazenly invasive process requiring my full name, date of birth, cell phone number, and location, which is determined through geotracking. I make several attempts to do an end run around it, entering Manhattan as my location instead. The app changes it to Lake Greene every time.