18. Playgrounds Come in Different Shapes and SizesThirty-Nine Years Ago

Playgrounds Come in Different Shapes and Sizes

Kira isn't wrong. The property paths haven't been carved out yet and it isn't an easy hike, especially in the wind and the cold, walking through woodlands and over steep hills, until we find our way to the natural playground.

Despite the cold, we are both sweaty and breathless by the time we walk over the final hill and into the clearing, where there is a team of construction workers busy at work. There is a zipline being built into the trees, a rock-climbing wall embedded into a high bolder, an in-ground trampoline secured into the valley.

The trampoline is where we find Tommy. He is bouncing on it, in his puffy vest and jeans, talking to one of the construction workers.

From a distance it could look like he is enjoying himself. But, from what I know about him, Tommy doesn't believe in enjoying himself. He is probably trying to squeeze in a bit of exercise while he works. Because what Tommy believes in is achievement.

He looks up and sees us approaching him. And it's jarring, as it always is. His eyes, so much like mine, staring back at me. That face, just like my face.

"Well, I'll be damned. What are you doing here? And together?" he says. "I'd guess that Dad died, but that's already happened."

I shake my head, done with him already. "That's hilarious, Tommy," I say.

He offers a half-smile. "Just trying to break the ice," he says. "Kira texted that you two are on the warpath about something. Or did she get that wrong? Are you just here to check in on me? Offer your condolences?"

"Cut it out, Tommy," Sam says. "Why the fuck are you talking to Paul Turner about Cece Salinger?"

Tommy turns toward Sam. "Who told you that?"

"Who told me that?" Sam says. "That's what you have to say?"

Tommy stares at Sam, his smile disappearing. Then he steps off the trampoline and turns to me.

"We need somewhere private if you guys want to get into this," he says.

"Lead the way," Sam says.

Tommy motions toward the Airstream. And we follow him up the small stairs and inside. The cabin is hot and tight, a space heater going at full blast. Tommy pulls off his puffy vest, sweat pooling under each arm.

He grabs a kombucha and takes a seat behind his makeshift desk, leaving us to find room on the built-in couch, covered with boxes of files and endless cases of additional kombucha.

"Before you go losing your shit," he says, "it's not like Dad told me about any of this. I just found out he was planning to sell to her a couple of weeks ago."

"How?" Sam says.

"One of the lawyers was talking to Joe after the will reading and I overheard him say something about Salinger, so I started digging. I got the sale confirmed by a couple of people who are in-house with Cece."

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"How do you want me to answer that?"

"By explaining why you didn't think to tell me, for starters."

Sam holds Tommy's eyes and I see it pass between them: this mix of anger and love and resentment. This quiet understanding that the two of them are always in it together and somehow, like now, the opposite of that.

"You're seriously going to give me a hard time? You've been totally fucking absent, man."

"Since Dad died?" Sam says. "I think that's understandable."

"It's been a lot worse since then, sure. But if we are going to be honest, then let's be honest," he says. "You're not exactly the partner around here you say you want to be."

"That's such bullshit," Sam says. "You just want to believe it should be you here without me."

"You know that isn't it," he says. "You're perfectly good at your job when you choose to be."

"Don't make me blush."

Tommy shakes his head, like the last thing he has time for is to convince Sam of what is true. And I certainly don't know if what Tommy is saying is accurate, but I can see how small it's making Sam feel. I feel a pull to lean in and make it stop.

"We don't need to get into all of this, Tommy," I say. "We are just trying to figure out what was going on with Dad."

"I literally don't even know what you are doing here," he says.

"Quite honestly, that makes two of us."

He looks at me and softens.

"There were things going on with Dad that we didn't know," I say. "That none of us knew…"

"Like the fact that he was involved with Cece?" Tommy asks.

Like the fact he may have been murdered.

I nod. "Among other things."

"Well, for what it's worth, Joe told me, categorically, that whatever happened with them happened a really long time ago."

"So… how did that end up with you reaching out to Paul Turner?" I ask.

He reaches into his desk and pulls out a copy of Forbes magazine—Cece Salinger on the cover, staring back at us, her arms folded across her chest.

He hands me the magazine, has one of the pages earmarked. "This was from five months ago," he says. "Page eighty-three."

I open the magazine to the earmarked page and am greeted with a large photograph of Cece walking through the small vineyard on her property in Los Alamos—the property Sam and I were turned away from two days ago.

I read the headers to each section. They focus on Cece's outsize success, on how she is rebranding the Salinger Group portfolio on the other side of her divorce, particularly as it relates to her lifestyle division.

I study the photograph and the bolded quote beneath it, which I read out loud: "?‘ Salinger's next chapter will be focused on building out her hospitality and resort portfolio, focusing on luxury-driven, private retreat experiences. '?"

"Just below that," Tommy says. "Right above the jump."

"?‘While Salinger was hesitant to discuss her personal life in great depth, she did confirm she designed her new home for herself and her current partner, whom she coyly describes as an old friend. "But that's for another day," Salinger says, declining to discuss her personal life in any detail.'?"

"Sound familiar?" Tommy asks.

"Sounds like it could be Dad," Sam says.

"What does this have to do with Paul Turner?" I ask.

"One guess who the photographer for this profile was…"

I look up and meet Tommy's eyes.

He nods. And I add that piece of information to my growing list of things that aren't adding up, not on their face, living in that strange space between uncomfortable and weird.

"That's some coincidence," Sam says.

"He does a lot of work for the magazine, apparently. But still, I thought he might have insight into what was going on with Dad and Cece. And no vested interest in keeping it to himself."

"Did he confirm anything?" I ask.

"Not what I thought he would," he says. "He seemed to confirm that, from the little he knew, anything that had happened between Cece and Dad was ancient history. Paul seemed pretty confident that if she is involved with someone at the company, he didn't think it had anything to do with Dad."

Sam looks at him, confused. Which is when I put it together.

"You mean Cece and Uncle Joe?" I ask.

"That's where I went," Tommy says. I feel my jaw tighten, just as Sam's does.

"Paul said they were together?"

Tommy shakes his head. "It's what he didn't say when I put it out there."

"And what's that?" I ask.

"That I was wrong."