Page 79 of Love and Lies

Anytime. She followed this with a video of two hamsters singing “Happy Birthday,” and I laughed, although I didn’t really feel like it. My sister had had a secret account, and my brother had clearly given her money for something no one was supposed to know about. Did he know what she’d been planning to do with it? Whether she had asked Carter for those extras at her engagement party? I’d have to ask him. And not on the phone, but face-to-face.

As soon as possible.

Elizabeth Street Garden was one of my favorite spots in New York City. A lot of people didn’t even know it was there, this green space in Lower Manhattan between Elizabeth and Mott Streets—it was open to the public but somewhat hidden behind the high hedges and nondescript wire netting. But as soon as you found the entrance, it opened onto a little green oasis in the middle of the city, with verdant trees, blooming flowers, and a quaint collection of statues. I sat on a bench at the periphery waiting for my brother, but as I looked around, my nerves started to calm a little. I loved this little park.

Sometimes they held small concerts or private parties here, and when I first came with Valerie years ago, I’d said to her that it would be the perfect wedding venue. She’d laughed and wished me luck discussing the subject with our parents one day. But I was adamant: if I was ever going to get married, it would be here. No matter what anyone thought about it.

My brother appeared at the park entrance, and I stood up, giving him a quick wave.

He had an appointment in the area, he’d told me, and wanted to see me on his lunch break, so I’d suggested we meet here. He didn’t know why I wanted to talk to him, though—I was planning to catch him off guard with Malia’s discovery.

“Hey, Len.” He greeted me with a hug and handed me a slightly crumpled gift bag. “Happy birthday, little sister. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to stop by yesterday.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I gave a little smile and took the bag from him, sitting down again to open it. Beneath a layer of tissue paper lay a rectangular wooden object. I lifted it out with both hands, and my breath caught in my throat when I realized what it was.

“Lincoln, this… this is…”

“Valerie’s antique music box.” He nodded. “I knew it was one of her favorite things, and when Mom and Dad gave all her stuff away, I sort of… saved it. I should have given it to you as soon as you got back, but I was afraid it would upset you too much. So I kept it till now.”

I opened the lid of the filigree box. Tears welled up in my eyes as the delicate notes of The Nutcracker began, and I watched the ballerina figurine pirouetting on the spot in her red dress. Valerie had loved the Tchaikovsky ballet and she had discovered this music box one day in a little antique shop in Brooklyn. It had been really special to her.

“Thank you.” I put the box carefully down on the bench next to me and gave my brother a tight hug. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“That’s okay.” He smiled bashfully before looking at me in earnest. “How are you, Len? Are you coping okay?”

When he said that, the first thing that came to my mind was Jess. Especially here, in this garden, a part of New York he might even appreciate. I’d have loved so much to show him this little corner of the city, just like all my other favorite spots, but it was never going to happen. The pain of that squeezed all the breath out of me for a second. I tried not to let anything show.

“Yes,” I said a little hesitantly. I couldn’t tell my brother what was going on. He couldn’t know I was missing Jess. “I’m coping fine. Although…”

“Although what?”

I took a deep breath, focusing on the reason I’d asked him here. “Well, I’ve been asking around. About Valerie, and the night she and Adam died. And something came up that I need your help with.”

Lincoln’s eyes narrowed. “Okay.” He didn’t ask why; presumably he could imagine. “What can I do?”

“You can tell me why you wired ten thousand dollars to her emergency account shortly before she died.” I tried to make it sound harmless, but my voice was shaking.

My brother gazed at me in disbelief. “You know about that? How?”

“Malia helped me out.”

He gave a curt nod. “Under no circumstances are you to tell Mom and Dad anything about this,” he said, and made me swear. “If they knew Val had a secret account to hide funds from them, they’d only think she was involved in something shady.”

“So she wasn’t?”

“Of course not.” Lincoln shook his head. “She only had the Caymans account so she could support projects that weren’t supposed to be connected with the Weston name—so as not to upset Mom and Dad. Bypassing bureaucracy to help victims of domestic violence, advising women on abortions, things like that.”

My eyes widened, and a chill crept up my back. “So… she had an abortion? Is that what the money was for?”

“No!” Lincoln shook his head vehemently. “No, she wasn’t pregnant. The money she asked me for was for a friend of hers. Valerie said he needed it urgently; his accounts were all under surveillance by his family. She didn’t want to send the wire herself, since she was being audited by her accountant at that time. So she asked me to cover it. Then she gave it to her friend in cash.”

I was relieved, though it didn’t help me any further. “Do you know what he wanted with it?”

“Not exactly, I’m afraid, but it seems it was something to do with a bank loan that went overdue because the installments weren’t paid on time. It must have been pretty serious.”

I did a mental tally of Valerie’s male friends and came up with a few names who might have made that kind of request. Carter wasn’t one of them, though—his family didn’t care what he wasted his money on. So my next task was to talk to the possible candidates, to try to confirm that Valerie hadn’t given the money to Carter.

“Why does it matter what the money was for, anyway?” Lincoln asked.