“Yes,” Zoë said. “She told me she hadn’t really needed me that night, that I was just her cover, so when I wasn’t there, she went alone. She left Bob with the kids, put on her red dress, and went to see Alan Johnson.”
Zoë looked down at her empty plate. “I found out some things later, but I knew nothing that day in New York. When I got back to my apartment, I had four frantic messages on my phone from Karen. She said I had to call her, that I had to come home, that she needed me. She said I couldn’t abandon her after all she’d done for me.”
Faith put her hand over Zoë’s wrist to calm her.
“It took me a while to piece together the story of what happened the first time, but…” She looked at Amy.
“I don’t think it would have taken much on your sister’s part to make the woman believe that her husband was having an affair with you rather than the worn-out mother of two kids,” Amy said.
“I don’t think it did,” Zoë said, “and when I had the wreck and was conveniently in a coma for a while, I think my sister did everything she could to sully my name, and save her own skin.”
She smiled. “But the second time around, things happened in a very different way. When Mrs. Johnson came home, there was her husband dead, and my sister was tearing through the study trying to find the letters. Mrs. Johnson immediately called the police, and they…”
“They what?” Faith asked.
“Put my sister in jail for a few days.”
“Serves her right!” Amy said.
“I guess so,” Zoë said, “but she begged me to come back and be with her, but I wouldn’t. Thank heaven, this time around I’d had time away from her, not to mention three weeks in the eighteenth century, so I could tell her no. If it had happened right after I left—”
“You would have been stuck there for the rest of your life,” Amy said.
“Probably.”
“So what happened this time around?” Faith asked.
“They let my sister out of jail when they saw it was a suicide, but of course everyone wanted to know why such a great man had killed himself.”
“And of course they blamed a woman,” Faith said.
“Completely. The police found the letters my sister had written him, so everyone knew about the affair.”
“Why did he really kill himself?” Amy asked. “I don’t think that men of this century kill themselves over love.”
Zoë couldn’t help smiling. “How diplomatic of you. They certainly don’t kill themselves over trashy women like my sister.” She took a sip of wine. “It seems that the man had a gambling problem and was up to his ears in debt. It took a year for all the ugly details to come out, but everything he was involved in was a fake. He had no money, nothing. His wife lost everything and had to get a job.”
“And your sister?” Faith asked.
“Bob divorced her and kept the kids. Karen moved away and the last time I saw her…”
“What?” Faith asked.
“She visited me in New York and she thought I’d be the same little girl she’d bullied all her life. But I’d changed. When she said something nasty, I just laughed at her. I kept remembering that while I was lying in a hospital fighting for my life, my sister had been letting the town believe that Mr. Johnson and I had been having an affair.”
“It makes more sense that he’d want a gorgeous dame like you than a Tobacco Road girl,” Faith said.
Zoë laughed. “You two are good for my ego.”
“And what about Russ?” Amy asked. “Did she make a pass at him?”
“She’s doing it again,” Zoë said to Faith. “Yes, my sister in her polyester dress, with her four-pack-a-day habit, made a pass at my boyfriend. And when he pushed her away, she got so angry she tried to make me believe he’d come on to her.”
“Classic,” Amy said. “I bet she went away in a rage.”
“Oh, yeah,” Zoë said. “In a fury. But it didn’t bother me. In my head were the years of hurt I’d suffered at her hands. I didn’t realize it then, but I was really beaten down by what that town had done to me. There I was in a hospital with my cracked skull and they hated me without even trying to find out the truth.”
“Do you think she felt any guilt? I mean the first time,” Faith asked.