Apples Never Fall

His face hardened. “There was no affair, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know that’s what people have been saying. It’s laughable.”

“So it’s recently come to our attention that while Savannah was staying with you, she revealed certain information. Information that I understand came as a shock to you.”

He squeezed his lower lip between his thumb and his finger. “Who told you that?”

Christina di

dn’t answer. Ethan watched him trying to work out which of his children had handed over a potential motive for murder.

“Your wife betrayed you, didn’t she? She told Harry Haddad’s father that he’d be better off with another coach.”

“I wouldn’t use the word betrayed,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you? I understand that’s exactly the word you did use.” They held each other’s gaze. It felt perversely intimate, as if they were about to kiss.

Stan Delaney’s eyes, brown and dark-lashed, were young and wary in an old man’s face. Was it a young man’s violent rage that had been responsible for this old man’s unthinkable actions?

“What do you mean?” His voice quavered. He was cracking. At last.

“You said to your wife that you’d never felt so betrayed.”

“Who told you that?” Stan’s jaw shifted back and forth as though he was grinding his teeth. Ethan could no longer see the young man, only the old man. An old man wondering which of his children thought he was capable of murder.

“I’m hearing that your wife may not have been faithful. I’m hearing that she betrayed you professionally.” Christina was going in for the kill now. “You lost your temper. Justifiably so. Harry Haddad could have and should have been your greatest professional success. Your wife stole that opportunity from you and kept it a secret.”

She pushed the Polaroid of the bloodied T-shirt across the table. “Mr. Delaney, we found this T-shirt buried in bushland near the back of your house,” she said. “Have you seen it before?”

The color drained from his face.

“Buried,” repeated Stan Delaney. “You think I buried Joy’s T-shirt?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Do you recognize the shirt?”

“It’s my wife’s shirt. I’m sure you know that,” said Stan. He pushed the picture away from him, contemptuously, as if it meant nothing to him. “It’s covered in my wife’s blood. You probably know that too.”

Christina’s tone was now almost jocular. “Mr. Delaney, this is not looking great for you. I really think it would be in your best interests to turn your mind to your last interaction with your wife.”

Stan sighed. He tipped back his head, stuck his thumbs in his pants pockets, and studied the ceiling. “I think it might be in my best interests to shut up and get myself a lawyer.”

Chapter 53

VALENTINE’S DAY

It was seven a.m. and Joy couldn’t see the point in getting out of bed. There was nothing pressing to do. It would just be another day like yesterday and the day before that. The smoke haze outside her window was as gray and somber as a midwinter sky, except for the bloodred summer sun that burned like a cigarette end.

Joy had never experienced asthma, but she had recently found herself taking small, shallow, ladylike sips of air. Was it the smoke or the state of her marriage?

It had been months since Savannah had left, and it didn’t feel like anything was lessening or softening. The opposite: their anger was hardening and solidifying.

She and Stan had been through bad times before. The difference was that there were no distractions now: no work, no children. When they were younger there hadn’t been time to obsess and brood over how the other person had wronged them. They’d been too tired to keep sharpening the edges of their hurt feelings.

Now they were stuck in this big, empty, silent house and there was no way to escape the invisible yet tangible conflict between them. Joy felt like she could trace its outlines in the air.

January had been especially bad because of the Australian Open. Harry Haddad’s comeback had crashed and burned after a “shock loss” (some went as far as to say an “embarrassing loss”) in the first round to an unseeded nineteen-year-old Canadian. Ten double faults and over eighty unforced errors! Harry and his new coach, Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, were parting ways. Joy hadn’t watched the match, but she’d walked past the living room and seen Stan gripping the sides of his chair, crackling with so much fury and distress it had felt like he was a live electrical wire. If she’d touched him she’d have gone flying.