Addison couldn’t breathe, not at first. She tried to rationalize why her father had done something like this. She wondered if he had a friend in Mexico City, a friend who needed medical assistance or money for housing. She wondered if her father had gotten into debt, doing something kind for someone else. But that didn’t sound like Hugh Stapleton.
After digging more through her father’s bank account, she logged out and pulled all the drawers from the desk to rifle through his papers and letters. There had to be information here. There had to be something. It seemed that last year, her father had grown increasingly disorganized, throwing things into odd corners, like a frantic man at the end. But it wasn’t like people wrote letters as much anymore. If there was anything, it had to be on his phone or in his email. She tried opening the hotel’s email, but discovered nothing. She had to break into her father’s email account.
To do that, all she had to do was find the first Post-it, the same one that had offered up the details of her father’s bank account. In the future, she had to talk to him about internet security. But it was maybe too little, too late.
Once in his email account, Addison skimmed and skimmed. Most of it was trash and advertisements. Some of the emails were between her mother and father, reminding one another to do things for the hotel. In none of them was there a frantic air. This meant that her mother hadn’t known that the hotel was at risk until it was too late.
Finally, an email from a mysterious address appeared. It was sent the day before the most recent payment to the Mexico City account. Addison clicked and readWhat more can I say? You either pay up, or I tell your wife and daughter the truth. Yours, A.
A? Addison’s ears rang. She clicked out of that last email and searched for others from the same address to discover that the emails had begun all the way back in summer—around the time, incidentally, that Seth had gone missing. The emails started friendly enough. In them, “A” suggested that he knew more about Hugh Stapleton than Hugh wanted out in the public. Her father responded by telling “A” to “get lost,” which only led “A” to threaten him further. “A” told her father that he kneweverything that Hugh had been up to and wouldn’t hesitate to spill the beans about Hugh’s secrets.
Addison’s hands were shaking. Secrets? More secrets? But it wasn’t till she read the emails from September—right before her father paid up for the first time—that she understood.
“A” wroteYour wife and daughter will be brokenhearted when they learn about her, you know. You’ve been a very bad man, Hugh Stapleton. Do you think they’ll ever forgive you when they learn?
Addison took a sharp breath. It was clear, now. Her father had been having an affair. Her father had been in love with someone else. And somehow, “A” had discovered the truth and decided to hit her father where he hurt. He’d learned and taunted Hugh more than Hugh could possibly stand, until Hugh had had no choice but to sell the hotel and give up.
“Why did you do it, Dad?” Addison whispered, her eyes smarting.
She suddenly thought of Seth Green, of his secret identity and his secret past. She realized, with a strange heaviness in her chest, that she’d never once doubted that Seth or Jack or whoever he was loved her and was faithful to her. She wasn’t sure if she was naive or what.
Had she always thought her father was faithful to her mother? She supposed she hadn’t let her mind go there. All kids, no matter their age, wanted their parents to be in love. She thought of her children, hanging Seth’s stocking up on the fireplace. She was no different from them.
Chapter Fifteen
Late Spring 1997 - Nantucket Island
Jack was sixteen years old and richer than he’d ever been. The cash he’d earned through his partnership with Tio Angelo lined the back of his dresser, the wooden slats under his bed, and the floorboards he could pry up. When he went to sleep at night—usually much later than his parents knew—he felt bubbly with the belief that he was a powerful businessman, that his Tio Angelo wouldn’t have asked him into the business if he wasn’t special.
He was wealthy, but nobody could know that. Not yet.
It was the afternoon before the high school’s spring dance. Jack left school right after the bell, bypassing a few of his typical buyers as he headed to his car. He’d promised to help Tio Angelo with a special delivery that afternoon, a delivery that Tio Angelo was cagey about. The story was that they had to take multiple boxes of whatever it was to the pier, where they’d load it on, take the cash, then head out. Tio Angelo had told Jack it was a very special operation and he couldn’t trust anyone else to do it.
Jack got home at three ten, just ten minutes after school was out. Nina was the only one home, sprawled out on the grass with her arms on either side of her and her eyes to the sky. She was always daydreaming, always trying to throw her mind elsewhere. Jack tickled her stomach as he hurried to the tunnels beneath the lodge to help his uncle carry boxes.
“Hey!” Nina cried. “Cut it out!” But there was laughter in her voice. She loved Jack very much. And then she added, “Where are you going? Can I come, too?” but Jack was already gone.
Tio Angelo and Jack spent a good twenty minutes securing the boxes in the back of the lodge’s delivery van. Tio Angelo was in good spirits, whistling and singing an old Italian song. When they were done, he slammed the back doors closed and told Jack to hop in. “It’s showtime,” he said, wagging his thick eyebrows.
On the way to the pier, the radio played The Alan Parsons Project, and Tio Angelo tried and failed to sing all the words. He still wasn’t very good at English. Their windows were open, and beautiful fresh air streamed past their faces.
“You know what I think, my boy?” Tio Angelo asked, his smile enormous. “I think you’re about a thousand times smarter than your papa.”
Jack’s stomach stirred. Although he loved his uncle’s compliments, he never knew what to do when he began to talk badly about his father. Jack knew that his father was none the wiser about his drug dealing and Tio Angelo’s operations. He knew he wouldn’t be pleased if he found out—and that was an understatement.
“He doesn’t have the foresight you do,” Tio Angelo said. “He doesn’t think about the bigger picture!”
Jack tried to smile, but his joy felt flat.
“It’s just that your papa and your mother, my wonderful sister, they have everything,” Tio Angelo said. “They have all the money in the world. But what did they do to deserve it? Yourfather was born into the White Oak Lodge. Your mother was born into luxury in Italy.”
Jack didn’t want to point out that Angelo had also been born into luxury in Italy. He knew that Angelo felt rejected by his family, that after he’d committed so many crimes (all of which he could explain away), they weren’t entirely keen on bringing him back into the fold. But Jack’s mother was soft. She would do anything for her little brother.
“I was born into the lodge,” Jack pointed out instead. “I was born into the Whitmore family. So I guess I’m privileged too?”
“Yes, but your father wants Alexander to take over,” Angelo quipped. “Doesn’t that make you angry? Doesn’t that make you want to explode?” He smashed the steering wheel, then yanked it to the left before coming to a dramatic halt by the pier. It was time to unload.
That night at dinner, Jack considered what Angelo had said about his father and mother, about all they’d been given. As Benjamin twirled pasta around his fork, his eyes looked grave and sunken in. Jack felt that his father looked weak, far weaker than Angelo. Jack wondered what was wrong.