Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

feeling. She thought,
Don’t open it!
She thought,
Anthrax!
But that was ridiculous. This was Nantucket; it was a placid, foggy morning. She thought,
An envelope dropped on the porch?
She thought,
Something from the Tom Nevers Neighborhood Association.
They so often left her out because she was a summer resident, whereas most everyone else lived here year-round, but they’d remembered her this time. Potluck dinner or a community yard sale.
    She opened the envelope and saw there was a photograph inside, a glossy color photo, five-by-seven, of Meredith, wearing her navy tunic and white shorts, standing on Connie’s back porch, holding a glass of wine.
    Connie shivered. She looked out at her front yard and thought,
What is this? Who put this here?
    She looked at the photo again. It had been taken the night before. Meredith was turned toward the sliding door and she was smiling.

    All day they passed the photograph back and forth between themselves, and when one or the other of them wasn’t looking at it, it sat on the dining table like a time bomb.
    Meredith had blanched when Connie showed her the photograph. Someone had been out there taking her picture, but where? Meredith thought it was the same guy they’d seen by the Dumpster in the alley behind 824 Park Avenue—he must have followed them all the way from the city!—but Connie made her see this was unlikely, if not impossible. It was someone else.
    “The only way they could have gotten that shot of you was from the beach,” Connie said. “Did you see anyone walking on the beach?”
    “No one,” Meredith said.
    “Or it could have been taken from the water,” Connie said. “Did you see anyone in a boat? Or a kayak?”
    “I saw the seals,” Meredith said. “That was what I was smiling about, remember? Harold had a friend.”
    Connie said, “Harold’s ‘friend’ was a photographer in a wet suit. Is that possible?”
    “Oh, God,” Meredith said. She approached the sliding glass doors, then backed away. “You know what scares me?”
    Connie wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What scared Connie was the whole thing. Someone taking the picture, someone leaving it for them on the front porch. A person trespassing on her property. Meredith couldn’t stay here. She had to go. The whole thing was chilling. Someone was watching them.
    “What scares you?” Connie asked.
    “If it was just the paparazzi, they wouldn’t have left the photograph for us. They would have published it, and we would have woken up this morning, and it would have been splashed across the front of the
Post. HAPPY HOUR FOR MRS . DELINN .
”
    “So if it wasn’t the paparazzi, who was it?”
    “Someone who wants me to know they know I’m here. One of Freddy’s enemies. The Russian mob.”
    “The Russian mob isn’t real,” Connie said.
    “There were Russian investors who lost billions,” Meredith said. “There are a lot of people who want Freddy’s head. And since they can’t get to Freddy, they’re coming after me.” She looked at Connie. “I’m putting you in danger.”
    “No,” Connie said. “You’re not.” But she was. She had to go. Connie racked her brain. Meredith had made it clear that she’d lost everybody else in her life. But Connie had friends. Maybe she could ship Meredith quietly off to Bethesda? She could live with Wolf’s brother, Jake, and Jake’s wife, Iris. Iris was a know-it-all busybody. She had a degree in psychology from the University of Delaware and she was constantly expressing concern over others’ “general state of mind,” and especially Connie’s, since Connie had recently lost her husband and her daughter and, in Iris’s estimation, wasn’t doing terribly well. Connie would take great pleasure in inflicting Meredith on Iris, but she couldn’t bring herself to inflict Iris on Meredith. There was Toby? God, no, that could backfire in any one of a hundred ways. Plus, if Meredith left, Connie would be alone, and the absolute best