We Are Us

Chapter 51 New York City

Poppy Stockton, wife of missing Manhattan mogul, Tucker Stockton, has been discharged from her hospital in Florida and is now back in the luxury Manhattan apartment she shares with her husband, Tucker Stockton, who is still missing. In the meantime, Wall Street is buzzing over rumors that his company, Stockton Capital, may have been engaged in fraudulent, some are even saying criminal, activities.

“Turn that off, please.” My voice is low, haggard.

Sadie vaults from the couch. “Poppy, you’re finally back! How did it go?”

I drop my purse and fall back onto the pillows, sighing as I point at the TV. First things first. “Off.”

Gavin and I spent hours inside Central Park, walking and talking and, in my case, crying. I told him everything. And it was hard. Really hard.

That night, of course. And the next morning, coming back from the hospital and having to face both Tucker and Wren when I could barely face my own reflection in the mirror. The choices I’d made, including the middle-of-the-night truce with Wren. Working with Tucker on TeenCharter, forgiving him and eventually falling for him. I needed Gavin to know that our romance felt real to me. I believed I was in love with Tucker, shielding myself from everything wrong about our relationship… which was basically everything.

If Tucker had been within reach, he wouldn’t have needed to fake his own death because Gavin looked ready to kill him. But for me, the worst was telling him about my babies. Through his eyes, I’d relived every excruciating moment.

I explained how angry I’d been, how vengeful. How everything I’d ignored and justified and excused came roaring back, drowning me within an endless ocean of rage.

Now Gavin knows the truth. My truth.

I asked him if he still believed I was i

And he said yes.

Gavin is more certain of my i

Sadie grabs for the remote and a moment later, the screen turns mercifully black. “So, how did it go? You were gone so long I was starting to worry.”

I have to tell her about Gavin. And I will, as soon as I fill her in on my meeting with Reese. I’m through keeping secrets. “It went well… I think.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, she basically broke down my options into six scenarios.”

After I explain each of them, Sadie says, “You’re going with number one, right? Tucker either fell or jumped overboard. He’s gone, but it wasn’t your fault.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Number five. Tucker escaped, probably with an accomplice who definitely wasn’t me.”

“Why? You wanted to divorce him anyway. If Tucker is gone,” it’s clear Sadie means dead, “everything stops. The reporters will go away, the search will end. You can put this all behind you.”

I run my fingertips inside the neck of my shirt, feeling for the warmth of the moonstone. Sadie is wrong. No matter what I choose, there is no light at the end of the tu

“Don’t patronize me,” she snaps. “I think you like the attention all this is getting you.”

I suck in a deep breath, nearly choking on it. “Sadie, how can you say that?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re hiring the most attention hungry lawyer in Manhattan. God, don’t you want this all to end?”

“It’s barely been a week! I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.” My flash of anger is replaced with guilt when I see the glimmer of tears in my sister’s eyes. “Sadie, maybe you need a break. My mess doesn’t have to be your mess. It’s not fair to you.”

“You want me to go?”

I choose my words carefully. “I want you to be happy, sis. That’s all. You got me through the worst moments of my life. And this is awful too, but I’m strong enough now to deal with it on my own.”

There is a flicker in her eyes, an emotion I can’t read. “Just think about it,” I add, reaching out to squeeze her knee before standing up and walking out onto our terrace for some fresh air.

Telling her about Gavin will have to wait. Again. I can’t spring a decade’s worth of lies on her right now.

When Sadie moved in with us it was supposed to be temporary. Just a few months until she found a job and an apartment and the babies were born. She never could have imagined what she was getting herself into. For months, my grief had known no bounds, poisoning every breath I struggled to take. Every pore of my body was clogged with guilt and shame and fury.

It was Sadie who found a therapist willing to make house calls when I couldn’t get out of bed. And when I finally did but refused to leave the apartment, she’d dragged me out onto the terrace, insisting that there was still a whole world out there.

I will never forget that first afternoon, those initial moments outside. The buildings rising above me had appeared grim and imposing, like enormous tombstones with hundreds of seeing eyes. Every single one of them turning on me. Judging me.

I’d run for the edge, wanting nothing more than to put an end to the pain of living. Sadie tackled me to the ground, held me as I sobbed and screamed and raged.

I owe her my life.

I peer over the edge now. There is a lot of wind when you are nearly thirty stories above Manhattan, air gusting through corridors made of skyscrapers. Up this high, I can’t smell the hotdogs and pretzels hawked by pushcart street vendors, or the exhaust fumes from buses and trucks and taxis. The air is different up here. Cold and sharp.

So different from the woodsy, earthy scent of The Ramble, where Gavin and I spent most of the afternoon. Now he knows everything there is to know about my relationship with Tucker. The good and the bad and the truly vile.

It’s a lot to take in.

And while I did ask Gavin what he thought happened in Florida… I didn’t ask what is happening now, with us. I know what I want to happen though. What I hope will happen, if I’m exonerated. If we have a chance at a future.

I want to fall asleep every night with Gavin’s arms wrapped around me, the heat of his breath fa

When I finally turn to go back inside, I pause at the sight of my reflection in the mirrored glass. I look frail, rather than merely thin. Wisps of blond hair have come loose from the ponytail I’d secured at the back of my head, fluttering around my face like the silken strands peeking out from an ear of corn. My eyes are tired, with purple smudges beneath them.

Do I look like a murderer?

When Gavin came to my hospital room, he called me a victim.

I still hate that word now, every bit as much as I’d hated it ten years ago. Back then, I avoided it by pretending what Tucker had done was a meaningless slip up. An inconsequential mistake.

What happened in the Florida Keys was no mistake. And the consequences are mine to bear.

But I don’t want Tucker’s death on my conscience.

What I want is the chance at a future with Gavin.

Which is why I need Reese’s scenario number five to be more than just a theory. I need it to be fact. He couldn’t have done it alone though. Wren had to have helped him.