Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

three shots of Macallan and how shocked she had been. She had known something was wrong then, seventy-two hours before the rest of the world knew. Freddy had turned on her with wild eyes; she had seen the desperation. She thought,
We’ve lost all our money.
But so what? Easy come, easy go. Freddy had then pulled Meredith into the bedroom and had pushed her down and taken her roughly from behind, as though it were his final act. Meredith remembered feeling raw and panicky and electrified—this was not the perfunctory lovemaking she and Freddy had engaged in for the past decade or so (its lackluster nature owing to the fact, she had assumed, that he was preoccupied with work)—she remembered thinking,
WOW .
They were ruined perhaps, but they still had each other.
    That was what she’d thought, then.
    Connie handed Meredith a glass of chardonnay and said, “You can go out to the deck.”
    “Do you need help with dinner?” Meredith asked.
    “Don’t tell me you’ve started cooking?” Connie said.
    “No,” Meredith said. And they laughed. “I ate from cartons every night after Freddy left.”
    The words “after Freddy left” echoed in the kitchen. Connie poured a stream of olive oil into a stainless steel bowl and started clanging with her whisk.
    Meredith said, “I’ll go out.”
    She stepped onto the deck and took a seat at the round teak table. She hadn’t heard from Burt and Dev; she never knew if that was good or bad. The sun spangled the water. Let’s say good. She might be going to jail, but she wasn’t going to jail today.
    Out in the water, Meredith saw a sleek, black head, then its body and flippers undulating through the waves. Then she saw a second dark form, moving less gracefully. Meredith squinted; she was wearing her prescription sunglasses, which weren’t as strong as her regular horn-rimmed glasses.
    She called out to Connie. “Hey, there are two seals today.”
    “What?” Connie said.
    Meredith stood up with her wineglass. She poked her head through the sliding door.
    “There are two seals today.”
    “Really?” Connie said. “I’ve never seen two before. Only one. Only Harold.”
    “I saw two,” Meredith said. “Harold found a friend.”
    She smiled at this.

CONNIE
    When Connie checked her cell phone in the morning, she saw that she’d missed a phone call during the night. There was no message, just a clattering hang up. Connie checked her display, then gasped. The number itself was unfamiliar, but it was from the 850 area code: Tallahassee. Which was where Ashlyn practiced medicine. So had Ashlyn called, finally, after twenty-nine months of silence? Connie’s hopes were coy, afraid to show themselves. The call had come in at 2:11 a.m., but this told Connie nothing. Ashlyn was a doctor, and doctors kept absurd hours. Connie checked the number again. It was the 850 area code; that was certainly Tallahassee, and Tallahassee was where Ashlyn now lived. So, it was Ashlyn. Was it Ashlyn? Connie was tempted to call the number right back, but it was still early, not quite seven. Should she call at eight? Ten? Should she wait and call tonight? A call at two in the morning might mean Ashlyn was in trouble. Connie decided to call right back, but then she caught herself. This was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to blow. She would wait. She would think about it.
    Connie stepped out onto the front deck. There was low-lying fog, typical of early July: How many times had the town had to cancel the Fourth of July fireworks?
Ashlyn!
Connie thought. Was it possible? Connie was going out to get muffins and the newspaper from the Sconset Market, a pleasant errand, and now she would think about Ashlyn, a phone call out of the blue.
    Connie didn’t see the envelope until she had kicked it off the porch and down the stairs. What was it? She picked it up. Manila envelope, closed with a gold clasp, nothing written on it, thin and light, nothing particularly sinister, but Connie got an awful