9

We’re all the way to the top of the yard before Paul pulls me to a stop. “It’s not what you think.”

I laugh—both at the way the climb has me huffing like I’ve just run a marathon, and at the absurdity of his statement. “Paul, even I don’t know what I’m thinking. Like, zero clue. I just watched you lie to a police officer for reasons I can’t figure out, and then you made it pretty obvious you wanted me to do the same.”

“I didn’t lie. Not technically. I said I don’t know her, and I don’t.” He shakes his head, corrects himself. “Didn’t. I don’t know her name or where she’s from. I don’t know anything about her, other than that she stopped me yesterday to ask where I got my coffee.”

“Well, I lied. I said I’d never seen her before.”

He winces. “You said that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. And I’d really like it if you told me why.”

Paul gazes down the hill to where Micah is huddled with the others at the edge of the crime scene. He stands a good head above the rest, his wet hair gleaming in the light. The cops around him stand rapt, nodding at whatever Micah’s saying. The hometown hero.

“I panicked, okay? When they flipped her over and I saw her face, I panicked. Because you know exactly what would have happened if I’d told them the truth. You know what everyone down there would have thought.”

I do know, because I thought the same thing myself: that’s two dead bodies under the same dock. Four years apart, but still. Surely, surely, that must be a horrible coincidence.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not mad about the lie per se. When you grow up like Chet and I did, stretching the truth is pretty much the same thing as surviving.”

Yes, sir, our mama will be home later tonight. No, sir, we don’t live here alone. We’re children.

But this wasn’t my lie; it was Paul’s.

If only it had been anyone other than Sam who was doing the asking. Anybody else, and maybe I would have come clean. I could have reminded Paul of their fleeting encounter and everyone would have brushed it off as a blunder.

But it wasn’t anyone else; it was Sam. Sam with his pursed lips and squinty eyes. With his silent judgment and retracted friendship. A year ago, he was capping off his workday with a glass of iced tea on my front step, and now suddenly I’m Mrs. Keller.

I reach out, touch Paul’s sleeve. “Paul, who was that woman? What did she say to you yesterday?”

He sighs, a rush of breath I can feel on my forehead. “Can we finish this upstairs? I really could use a shower.”

He really could. The cut on his forehead needs a good, deep scrubbing before it scabs over, and I can’t tell if the mud from his slide down Fontana Ridge is dried or just frozen. He smells like cold and earth and sweat.

I point him to the outdoor staircase that leads to the mudroom—the route we usually take to the house. “I’ll meet you up there. I need to open the downstairs first.”

Paul heads for the stairs, and I step around the outdoor furniture and tap in the code on the pad next to the basement door, a feature I’ve never once used until now. This door is one we usually unlock from inside, sliding the glass panels back into deep pockets that disappear into the walls and turn the indoors into outside. This entire level is made for summertime entertaining—a kitchen and fully stocked bar, a TV screen as big as the wall, his-and-hers powder rooms and a walk-in shower big enough for twenty people. In a stroke of genius, Paul painted the ceilings on the overhang a metallic bronze, so when the sun hits the lake just right, it bathes everything in an orange glow.

The lock releases with a metallic thunk, and I step inside and slide the door closed behind me. The air is warmer than outside, but just barely. I flip on the lights and crank the thermostat to toasty. In the bathrooms, I restock the toilet paper and lay out fresh towels for Micah and whoever else needs them, then haul my ass up some more stairs.

I toss my coat on the bed and step to the bathroom, where Paul is coming out of what must have been a two-second shower. Fresh rivulets of water drip down his skin, naked except for a waterproof runner’s watch and a twin to the golden necklace Micah unlooped from his neck and tucked in a pocket. A rectangular pendant engraved with the town’s coordinates hanging from a gold ball chain, a graduation gift from Paul’s mother so they could always find their way home.

My gaze dips to the fresh bruise on Paul’s hip, a dark smudge of red and purple surrounding a melon-sized lump and curling down onto his thigh. I pull a towel off the bar and hand it to him. “That must have been some tumble. I guess Noland Ridge is pretty treacherous this time of year.”

He swipes the towel over his back, scrubs it over his hair. “It wasn’t so much a tumble as a skid straight down. And it was Fontana, not Noland.” He wraps the towel around his waist, his fingers freezing on the terry cloth. “But I said that already. That was a test.”

I grin. Both ridges are nearby, and both can be dicey, but Paul would never confuse the two, not unless he was lying about how he got hurt. Of course it was a test—one I’m happy to say he passed.

I rummage through a drawer and pull out some supplies, cotton swabs and antiseptic and a tube of liquid bandage, lining everything up on the vanity. I point him to the padded seat by the mirror. “Now sit down and start talking.”

He shifts on his feet, glancing at his watch. “Can I get dressed first?”

“Not until I clean that thing on your forehead.” I drape a hand over his damp shoulder and press down, and he drops to the seat. I hook a finger under his chin and tilt his face toward mine.

His eyes drift closed. “Well, I was headed back to the office to meet you when she stopped me. She saw my coffee cup and she wanted to know if it was any good. She said she hadn’t scoped out the shops in town yet and was dying for a decent cappuccino.”

I reach for the bottle of antiseptic, making a humming sound for him to continue.

“I remember thinking I hadn’t seen her in the restaurants or on the streets. Not that I notice every tourist, but you saw her. She’s pretty—was pretty.”

I douse the cut with liquid, and he hisses at the sting. “Sorry.” Not sorry. Not jealous, but not sorry, either. “Keep going.”

Paul winces as I dab a cotton swab around the wound. “Anyway, I told her to skip the coffee shop for the counter at the back of the organic market, that their beans are way better. She thanked me, and that’s when you walked up. She stopped talking.”

“No, Paul. That’s when you stopped talking. She perked up when I introduced myself, remember? It was like a light bulb went off in her head when I said the name Keller. I think she recognized it or something.”

His eyes open. “Maybe she was house hunting. Even if she didn’t come here looking for me specifically, my name’s on at least a dozen lot signs. Maybe she didn’t make the connection until you said the name.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Paul was approached by a stranger in town, someone who saw his homes in Dwell or Architectural Digest or on Houzz and wanted to meet the wizard behind the curtain. In the architecture world, Paul is kind of a rock star. People drive hundreds of miles just to beg him to design their dream house.

I pinch the skin around the cut and seal the wound with liquid bandage, then toss the tube on the counter. “Even more reason to just admit you ran into her randomly on the street. What if they find your name in her search history? What if she, I don’t know, has pictures of some of your houses on her phone? At least then you won’t look like you’ve got something to hide.”

“Is that what you think, that I’m hiding something? Because I told you everything. There’s nothing else going on here.”

The hurt in his voice straightens my spine. “That’s not what I said at all. I know you’re not the reason that woman ended up in the lake. You have an alibi, remember? We were together all night.”

Paul leans into the mirror to inspect his forehead. “This looks great, babe. Thanks.” He squeezes my arm and brushes by, dropping his towel over the bar on his way out of the room.

I watch his naked form disappear into the closet, my chest going hot with exasperation, with aggravation. Paul is a great communicator when he wants to be, but other times—like now—he plies me with only the basics. My first wife died unexpectedly. My dad left when I was ten. My mother can be a little controlling. Jax was once a friend. Flat, nonspecific answers that tell me nothing but the facts.

I hustle after Paul into the closet. “What happens if somebody saw us talking? What if nosy old Wanda Whitaker was looking out her upstairs window and spotted the three of us standing in the alley? Sam’s already halfway to town. He’ll be questioning everybody.”

Paul steps into a pair of navy boxer shorts, digs around in a drawer for a long-sleeved shirt. “Mrs. Whitaker is in Ohio, visiting her daughter. She’s not back until after Thanksgiving.”

“Somebody else, then.”

“Who? It was freezing yesterday. Nobody was out.” Paul pulls the shirt over his head and reaches for a pair of pants. “Let’s just give it a day or two. See if anybody comes forward.”

I fold my arms across my chest, leaning a hip against the wall. “By then it’ll only be worse. Why can’t we just tell the truth? It’ll look better coming now, and from us rather than somebody else.”

“If I thought it would help the investigation in any way, I would call Sam right this second, but I just…” His shoulders slump, a sock dangling from each hand. “I can’t, Char. I can’t go through that again. The suspicion. The rumors. I just can’t.”

His pained expression, the way his voice goes raw and real… My heart cracks wide open, and I stop pushing.

He thanks me with a thin smile, then opens a door at the far end of the closet, pulls out a backpack and leans it up against the wall. It’s the big one he uses for multiday hiking trips, the one he once lugged two thousand miles up the Appalachian Trail. He yanks open some drawers and shoves in clothes much like the ones he’s wearing—waterproof pants, a thermal shirt and socks, hats and gloves and fleece neck warmers. He stuffs his feet into his brand-new leather clodhoppers, leaving them untied. The laces slither like bright red snakes across the hardwood floor.

A dull pounding starts up behind my eyes. “Paul, why does it look like you’re going camping?”

“I realize the timing’s not ideal. That I’m leaving you to deal with all this.” He swipes a hand in the general direction of the lake. “But I’ll only be gone a day, maybe two. Three at the most.” He closes the backpack with one smooth tug on the string, picks it up and slings it over a shoulder.

“Paul.” I pause, trying to pull my shit together. Failing. I press two fingers to my temples. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

“Walk with me, will you?” Paul brushes past me, moving in long strides through the bedroom and into the hall, so fast I have to jog to keep up. “With the storm blowing in, they’re going to have to push Pause on the investigation anyway. I probably won’t miss much. I’ll be back before they even notice I’m gone.”

Like hell. I rush down the stairs, picturing Paul in that hammock of his, a thin sheet of nylon wrapped around a Paul-sized chunk of ice. “Micah will notice, and you’re going to freeze to death out there. And how are you going to get anywhere? You don’t have a car, remember?”

I don’t offer up my old Honda, both because I don’t want him to go, and even if I did, he’d never get it out of the driveway. There are police cars parked every which way out there, ten tons of metal blocking the garage door. There’s no way he’d ever sneak past.

By the time I make it to the kitchen, Paul is already in the pantry, snatching items off the shelves and dropping them into his backpack in no apparent order. Granola, energy bars, some soups, an industrial-sized bag of beef jerky. Hiking food, enough to last him for days. This is a man who loads the dishwasher with mechanical precision, who after I put away the groceries rearranges the pantry so all labels are facing out. He doesn’t throw anything in anywhere willy-nilly.

A jackhammer starts up in my chest, rushing blood to my head so fast it makes me dizzy. “You know how this looks, right? What am I supposed to say? How do I explain you taking off as soon as a dead woman washes up?”

“I know how it looks, which is why I’m asking you—no, begging you—to just sit tight and not say anything. If Micah asks, which he will, make something up. Tell him I’m on a work trip or something.”

I trail Paul back into the kitchen, watching him rummage through a cabinet by the sink, pulling out a reusable bottle and clipping it to a hook on the backpack. “At least tell me where you’re going. What’s so urgent you have to leave right now?”

Now, finally, Paul stops moving. He reaches for my hands, holding them firmly in both of his. “Do you trust me, Charlotte?”

I don’t have to think about it, not even for a second. I nod.

“I’m going to find Jax.” I open my mouth to tell him Jax was looking for him, but Paul stops me. “When I get back, you and I are going to sit down, and I am going to tell you everything. I promise. But right now I really don’t have time.” He releases me, hefting the backpack onto his shoulders. “There’s money in the safe. The code’s 3-0-3-1-9. If you forget, I wrote it on the inside flap of the Le Corbusier book.”

I flinch, and automatically, my hand goes to his ring on my finger. I feel the weight of it, the significance. The day Paul slid it over my knuckle was the day I swore to never give anyone, least of all Paul, reason to think I only want him for his wealth. Yes, I like living in a pretty house. No, I never have to choose between going cold or going hungry again. But there are enough people in this town who think I traded my morals for money, and it would kill me if Paul were one of them.

“Paul, I don’t want your money.”

He stops, turns back. “That’s not what I— Come on, Charlotte. You know that’s not what I meant. What’s mine is yours is ours. You work just as hard as I do for that money. It’s there for both of us, just in case.”

I ignore the first part, even though I don’t know. Not really. It’s true I work hard, but we both know I wouldn’t have a job if not for Paul. I am a guest here, living off the back of my all-too-generous husband.

But a more pressing point is, what would Paul do if I held out my hand right now? Would he smile and slap some bills in my palm? Would it make me a different person in his eyes? Paul once told me he admired me for the way I worked two jobs at sixteen, paying the bills for Chet and me, pulling us both up by the bootstraps. He said he loved how my penniless past shaped me into a person he wished he could be.

But like I explained to him then, I wouldn’t wish my past on anyone. You have to come from nothing to be like me. You have to suffer. And one thing I know about my husband is that he’s never suffered, not that way. He has no idea what it’s like to eat nothing but ramen noodles for thirteen days in a row, or to have your electricity cut off in the dead of winter. He’s never felt that kind of worry. Privilege will do that to a person, make you blind to the struggles of those who exist outside your bubble.

“In case of what?”

“Emergency. Disaster.” He lifts his hands in the air, lets them fall to his sides with a slap. Money is his love language, and he can’t see a single thing wrong with him offering it to me now in place of himself. “I don’t know. The point is, it’s there for whatever you need while I’m gone.”

“What I need is for you to stay here, with me.”

“I wish I could do that.” He looks sincere enough, but I don’t believe him. There’s too much here I don’t understand, too much he’s not telling me. He might not say all of what he’s thinking, but he’s not supposed to lie.

He presses both hands to my face, his palms cupping my cheeks. “Promise me you’ll sit tight until I get back. Promise me you won’t tell anyone where I’m going.”

“Not even your mother?”

“Especially not her. Promise me.”

I shake my head, not because I don’t want to make that promise, but because I’ve already seen the gleam in his eyes, the determined set of his chin, and I know I can’t stop him. It’s the same expression he wears on a build site, where he can look at a pile of bricks and already see the finished walls. For Paul, there is an answer to every problem, a neat and logical path to every solution. In his head, at least, he’s halfway around the lake already.

But I can’t make myself say the words. I can’t make that promise.

“What about Friday?” I say instead.

“What happens Friday?”

“The appointment with the doctor. The ultrasound.”

Paul grimaces. “I will do my best, my very, very best, to be back.” He pauses, glancing over his shoulder at the door. “But I can’t make any promises.”

“Then neither can I.”

Paul threads a hand around my neck and pulls me in for a kiss, then drops to his knees and presses his lips to my stomach. I stand there like a statue, the room spinning like the world has shifted on its axis and I don’t know how to stop it.

“I love you.” He pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll be home before you know it. Take care of yourself and our baby.”

“I love you, too,” I whisper, but he’s already gone—off like a rabbit released from a trap.

I watch him through the front window, backpack bobbing as he kicks into an easy jog up the drive, and think of my mother. Shoving Chet in my arms and leaving us in a trailer with nothing but crumbs. Ordering me to stop fussing, that she’d be right back. The way my lungs locked up when I looked through the window to see her dropping into some stranger’s car.

Now I sink onto a stool and look around Paul’s big, fancy house—a place with everything I thought I ever wanted, only now it feels empty and cold. It doesn’t take me long to realize why.

In the thirteen months I’ve lived here, I’ve never slept in this big house alone.

Paul and I were on our fourth date, halfway up the trail to High Falls, when he told me about Katherine.

“We met in college, at one of those dives that serves hot wings and PBR in pitchers. She was on a date with some other guy, but I didn’t care. He went to the bathroom, and I slid into his seat. Later she told me they were just friends, but it was obvious they were close. I assumed they were together.” He grinned over his shoulder. “I’m persistent, but then again, you already know that.”

I smiled, thinking back to the first day he walked into the gas station, how he made me ring him up three times—for gas, then for gum, then for a $100 prepay card I knew he’d never use because clearly he was the type of guy who could afford a monthly plan. I promise not to buy one of those, he’d said, pointing to a giant jar of pickled eggs I had to fish out with a ladle, but only if you tell me your name. He was persistent, all right, and already I was smitten. Our fourth date, and I would have followed him anywhere.

“We were married eleven years, all of them happy. Until one day, a Thursday, Katherine went for a swim. Her daily morning ritual, like me and my runs. She went out the back door, me out the front. Do you know her last words to me? ‘The raccoon pooped on the back deck again.’ I wish I could say it was something more poignant, but we talked about raccoon shit. If nothing else, I’ve learned never to leave someone without a proper goodbye.”

He didn’t look back this time, but I could hear the emotion in his words, the way pain had turned his voice vulnerable. Every other sound faded away—the water pounding the rocks below, my lungs sucking air, the blood thudding in my ears. It was just me and Paul on that hill, and his love for her was flaying my heart.

“I loved her for every day of our time together. I would have loved her the rest of our lives. That’s why all the talk afterward was so infuriating, so unbelievably appalling. Those people don’t know me at all. They didn’t see how I suffered.”

“God, Paul. I’m so sorry.”

He stopped in the middle of the path then, turning back. “No, I’m sorry for burdening you with all this. But I know I’m the elephant in every room in this town. I know how people talk, and I wanted you to hear it from me, not them. Even though, obviously, it’s still a painful subject.”

Obviously. And he’d waited until he was here, leading me up a hiking trail, rather than face-to-face across a dinner table. A group of rowdy hikers came bounding down the trail, and Paul slapped on a smile for them, for me. By the time they disappeared into the woods, the moment had passed.

We started back up the hill, and that was when I knew.

The thing I wanted more than anything, the only thing, was for Paul to love me like he had once loved Katherine.