Free The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

had the wherewithal to check what she had put in her mouth. He tried to monitor what Dr. Field prescribed her, what she took, what she stashed away, what she gave to Delilah (Phoebe was a very generous woman, even with her pharmaceuticals)—but this had dropped off in recent months, partly because of Tess, and partly because the responsibility of being on constant watch with his wife was wearying. He had tried lecturing, he had tried an intervention (a mini-intervention, him and Dr. Field, explaining to Phoebe that she was becoming dependent on these drugs and she had to wean herself off them—the antidepressants, the pain meds, the sleep aides). Nothing worked. Phoebe popped pills, and rather than killing her, they seemed to be keeping her alive. So whereas Addison felt like he wanted to take a steak knife and eviscerate his insides, cut his heart out so it would stop hurting—Tess was dead!—Phoebe was as calm as a houseplant. She wasn’t a person so much as a topiary.
    Addison turned off the car. He wasn’t sure that he could go into that house and pull off the acting job that was required.
    “He killed her,” Addison said.
    Phoebe turned to him. “What?” she said.
    There had been a text message, sent to his phone at quarter to ten that morning. Addison had been in his office, reviewing the purchase-and-sale agreement for the big deal. He saw that the text was from Tess and he willed it to say
I love you
—he found he needed constant reassurance of this from her—but when he opened it, it said,
I’m afraid.
    He had stared at the message, wondering how to respond. Tess was right to be afraid. Addison himself was terrified. Greg was pulling out all the stops to win her back. She had to be careful, she had to resist him! The text came just as they would have been sailing out of the harbor, so Addison thought that Tess meant she was afraid of the water. She had nearly drowned in Dorchester Bay as a child. She swam with her kids at the beach, but only on the north shore, where the water was placid, and even then she went right in and came right out. When her kids were swimming in Addison’s pool, she stood at the side, vigilant, even though Chloe and Finn had suffered through years of swimming lessons, born from this very same fear. Sailing, fishing, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, even the ferry back and forth to the mainland, made Tess uncomfortable. She remembered what it had been like, at age nine, to slip under the water’s surface and not be able to fight her way back up.
    Addison shuddered.
    Phoebe said, “I think we should offer to take the kids.”
    “Let’s go in,” Addison said.
    The Drake house was not the Drake house. There was no food or drink, no music, no Delilah. In the living room, Jeffrey sat with the Chief, face-to-face, saying nothing.
    Addison said, “We’re here.”
    The two men nodded.
    Phoebe said, “Where’s Delilah?”
    “In our bedroom,” Jeffrey said. “Waiting for you.”
    Phoebe said, “Where are the kids?”
    “Downstairs.”
    “Do they know?” Addison asked.
    “Not yet,” the Chief said.
    “We’ll take them,” Phoebe said. “We have lots of room.”
    “Phoebe—” Addison said. He should have headed off this notion while they were still outside. No one was going to be comfortable with Addison and Phoebe taking even temporary custody of the kids.
    “One step at a time,” the Chief said.
    “Where’s Andrea?” Addison said.
    “Asleep upstairs,” the Chief said.
    “Asleep?”
    “The doctor gave her something. She can’t handle it. Tess was… everything to her.”
    She was everything to me, Addison thought. And no one will ever know it.
    I’m afraid
, the text had said.
    Phoebe tiptoed down the hall to Delilah. Downstairs, Addison could hear the kids.
    “What happened, exactly?” Addison said.
    “It’s not clear,” the Chief said. “The boat capsized, they drowned. They got caught underneath the boat. Greg’s foot was tangled in the ropes.