Jax follows me around the rest of the night. Not literally, of course, but every time the house goes quiet I feel him there, whispering in my ear. Chet settles in, taking over the entire downstairs. He blares ESPN while I putter around the house, replaying every word of the conversation over and over in my head.
That’s twice now.
I wasn’t here.
You never saw me.
I gather the laundry from the hamper in the closet and carry it downstairs to the laundry room.
Watch your back, he said, one humdinger of a closer. Was it a threat? A warning? His conversation skills could use some help, but Jax certainly knows how to end with a bang.
I’m coming down the hallway when the door in front of me pops open. I shriek and lunge backward into the wall, clutching the laundry to my chest like a shield. Paul’s mother steps out of the powder room, smoothing her sweater.
“Oh, sweetie. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Diana pulls me into a perfumed hug, awkward since I’m holding the laundry. Her bony ribs press into my arms. “I said hello when I came in, but you must not have heard me over Paul’s TV.”
Paul’s TV. Paul’s house. She never passes up an opportunity to remind me.
I release from her grip, taking a step back. “If you’re looking for your son, he’s not here. He had a work thing.”
“I’m not here to see him, dear. I’m here to see you. I heard what happened. That must have been some shock, finding that poor girl. Are you okay?”
Diana’s voice is soft and soothing, every syllable rounded with a velvety mountain cadence. Not a coarse twang like mine and Chet’s. She sounds like she comes from money, and she looks it, too, in styled hair and an oversized cream sweater that hangs artfully off one shoulder. Her boots are low and Western-inspired, chunky heels and pointy toes. She looks like a million bucks.
It helps that she’s beautiful, all dark hair and ivory skin and a body she keeps lean with daily barre and Pilates. Even if she had Paul when she was a teenager, even if she slept hanging upside down by her ankles every night, there’s no way someone her age—I’ve done the math, and the woman is well into her fifties—looks that good, not without a little help. But either her surgeon is really, really good, or somewhere along the line, Diana Keller made a deal with the devil.
“I’m fine, thank you. It was sweet of you to check on me.”
This is how we always are with each other. Cautious. Polite. Full of bright smiles and friendly words we volley back and forth, more for Paul’s benefit than for ours. Honestly, I’m surprised she wasn’t here sooner.
“I’ll make us some tea and you can tell me everything. Or would you rather have something stronger? I can pop open a bottle of wine if you prefer.”
My stomach sends up a twinge of nausea. “Tea’s perfect. Thanks.”
“Sit, sit.” She waves a manicured hand at the counter stools.
Invited to sit in my own home—scratch that, Paul’s. I edge around the island and sink into a chair, watching her bang around his kitchen like she owns the place. I wonder what Micah would say if he were here. Micah sees Diana as a second mother, the kind he calls weekly and sends flowers to on birthdays and Mother’s Day. Paul says Micah spent as much time in their house as he did his own. Is Diana one of the people I’m supposed to tell “no comment”?
“So how did you hear? About the woman in the lake, I mean.” I don’t mention her name. Sienna, assuming Jax was right. I gesture to the window I just spotted him through, a sheet of solid black glass. “Who told you?”
Her hands still, and her eyes cut to mine. “Everybody. Everybody told me. People in town are losing their minds, especially the tourists. The mayor’s making the rounds, but I don’t know how he’ll be able to put out this fire. It’s all anybody can talk about.” She grabs two cups and saucers from the cabinet and a black tin from her handbag. “Peppermint okay? Miss Mary’s is the best.”
I smile, trying not to be offended she brought her own tea. “Peppermint’s fine.”
For the millionth time today, I wish Paul were here. Diana is a lot to handle on an ordinary day, and after the stress of this one, I’m not sure I can sit across from her and pretend my nerves aren’t jangling. Too many lies to keep track of, too much bad blood boiling between us, and Paul not here to act as a buffer.
Diana chatters away, popping open the tin and rummaging through the drawer for the infuser, which it takes her three tries to pry open. The loose tea doesn’t want to cooperate, either. It comes out in a surge, raining down over the infuser and onto the counter. She swipes it with a palm into the sink. Not for nothing, but Lipton is a whole lot simpler.
“Charlotte, did you hear a single word I just said?”
I snap back to the conversation, trying to inventory the words I missed, but it’s like grabbing a handful of water. I come up empty.
“I’m sorry—what?”
“I said it’s just so strange. I can’t get over it. A body floating under the dock. I mean, what are the odds?”
If Paul were here, he could work the numbers. He’d know how many houses are lined up along the shore, and he’d use it to calculate the likelihood of the lake sending her to our yard instead of Micah’s or grumpy old Mr. Guthrie’s on the other side.
“I bet the odds are a lot higher than you’d think.”
“It’s a saying, dear.” A quick pause, her nails, a light baby doll pink, tapping on the counter. “I heard she was staying at the Crosby Shores, which means she wasn’t from around here.”
“She was a tourist.” Diana looks surprised, so I add, “Micah was here most of the day with the divers, and—”
“There were divers?” She presses a palm to her chest, fingertips fluttering over a bony clavicle. “How many? What did they find? Where were they looking?”
“A whole bunch of them, and under the dock, mostly. But it didn’t look like they had much luck. Micah said whatever evidence was on her probably washed off long before she ended up here.”
“But people don’t just fall into the lake in the middle of the night, not in this weather. Did somebody push her or, I don’t know, whack her over the head? Do they think she was murdered?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what they think.”
Diana blanches. She reaches for the teapot, settling it under the hot water tap by the stove, twisting the valve to gushing.
“Doesn’t it freak you out?” I ask. “Another woman under the dock, I mean. Because you know what people are going to say. You know who they’ll suspect.”
She scowls, her gaze whipping to mine.
“I didn’t say they’re right, just that everybody will think it. And now Micah’s saying I should keep the doors locked and the alarm on all the time, which doesn’t make me feel any better. He makes it sound like whoever did this might do it again. It could be a serial killer, for all we know.”
My gaze wanders to the windows and beyond, to the shadows shifting in the darkness on the other side, and I wonder what’s out there besides the trees. It makes me want to shut the lights off so I’m not so exposed. It makes me wish there were curtains.
Diana’s voice pulls me back into the room. “Who are they talking to? Who are they questioning?”
Chief Hunt’s words bark in my head: no comment. He and Diana are friendly—as friendly as someone can be with that man. She puts up with him because of his son, even inviting the Hunt family over for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m still waiting for her permission to bring along Chet.
“You should probably ask Micah. I’m sure he knows more.”
Diana glances over her shoulder, steam dancing around her head like smoke. “I’m talking to you, Charlotte. You just said they were here all day. I’m asking you.”
I try not to be offended by her words, her snappish tone, the way she’s looking at me like I’m a bug she’d like to squash. I lift my hands, let them fall to the marble with a slap.
“Diana, honestly. I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“Well, it’s not very much.” She shuts the tap with a flick of her wrist, grabbing the pot and swinging it around onto the island. A steaming glug of water sloshes out the spout and onto the kitchen floor.
Why do conversations with Diana always make me feel so inadequate?
“I’m only repeating what I heard, and Micah was pretty specific. I’m not supposed to go spreading anything around. He said the police are holding back details on purpose.”
“What kind of details?”
I open my mouth to respond, but a rattling starts up underneath us, a slow and subtle beat I feel in the soles of my feet. I turn to the stairs and scream, “Chet, turn it down!”
The noise builds steadily, a coal train rumbling through the hills, gaining speed and moving closer, swelling into a deafening roar.
“Chet’s here?”
For sure I caught that bitter note that crept into her voice, the way the skin around her eyes went tight, but I don’t have time to deal with it. The panel just inside the mudroom is beeping—the loud music tripping the glass break sensor on the alarm. I pop out of my chair.
I rush to the mudroom and tap in the code, then pingpong from room to room, retracing my steps from earlier. I check under the magazines on the coffee table, the cushions of the chair across from the couch, the breakfast table and the kitchen charger. I look everywhere I can think of.
“What are you looking for?”
“My cell phone. The alarm company’s about to call and ask me for the secret word, but of course Paul told me it forever ago and he just left me here to deal with everything all by myself. There was another dead woman in the lake and he left.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud, and they come out angry and acidic, like the way I feel.
I cup my hands around my mouth and holler down the stairs. “Chet! Too loud!”
Right on cue, my phone rings, a shrill clanging coming from a pile of mail by the microwave.
Diana tips her head at the sound. “Dixie Cup.” Her lips spread into a thin smile, a victorious one. “Paul’s security password is Dixie Cup.”
Of course she knows. Because if nothing else, these past four years have returned Diana to her post as the most important woman in Paul’s life. Swooping in when he lost his beloved first wife, filling his freezer with individually portioned meals, patting his hand and promising him things would get better. That he would find another, that he would love again.
Except not me. She never meant he should fall in love with me.
And so that look on her face right now? That smug little grin? It’s why instead of answering the phone, I hear myself say, “I’m pregnant.”