Chapter 16: Guess Which Wife

I found it on my phone with Hutch's chin on my shoulder.

The account had a gold crown for a picture and two hundred thousand followers.

The photo was a tight crop.

A girl's hip on a blue sheet. The little crescent scar. A strand of red hair and the curve of one closed eye.

Under it: "Guess which Lake Forest wife posed for Chicago's most famous nude. Hint: she just auctioned her ring."

It had nine thousand likes.

Hutch read the comments over my shoulder and then took the phone out of my hand.

"Don't," he said.

"I want to know."

"You don't."

I took it back.

Half of them were guessing. The other half had already guessed right.

Somebody had posted the video of me at the podium in my green gown.

Somebody had posted my wedding photo from the society page.

Somebody had drawn a red circle around my left hip in the wedding photo, through the dress.

I turned the phone face down on the drop cloth.

"Where did they get a photo of the painting?" I said. "She's in a crate."

"The insurance appraisal," Hutch said. "Close-ups of every inch. Cate had a copy."

"So Graydon didn't even post it himself."

"Graydon never does anything himself."

By Monday the women of the Winthrop Trust Foundation had voted me off the Christmas gala committee.

They did it by email.

Then they invited me to the December committee lunch at the club, so I could hand over the binders in person.

I'd planned every gala for four years.

I went.

I carried all three binders into the club's garden room at noon on Tuesday.

A dozen women in cashmere sat around a round table with chicken salad.

Nobody stood up.

The committee chair was a tall woman I'd sent flowers to when her husband had his heart thing.

"Neve," she said. "Thank you for coming. This must be so hard."

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