The rest of the night is filled with dark, sticky dreams. Of Skeleton Bob, doing doughnuts across the silty bottom of Pitts Cove, one bony arm dangling out the window of a rusted-out Camaro. Of Jax, flitting in and out of the waves above his head while Micah circles him like a shark. Of Paul at the water’s edge, hollering for them both to quit goofing around and come on shore.
A buzzing on the nightstand pops my eyes open on a gasp, and I snatch my phone up and silence the ringer, even though I needn’t have bothered. Paul’s already gone. His side of the bed is cool, the goose down comforter flattened like a rumpled snowdrift. I roll onto my back, my hair fanning prettily on the pillow—silk, a gift from Diana. For your hair, dear. So the blowouts will last longer. The time on the screen says 8:47. The text was from Paul, an FYI he’s on the way to the doctor for the cut on his brow.
I lie in the flickering morning light, processing that Paul left without waking me for part two of our conversation. I picture him slipping out of the bed silently, carefully, so as not to wake me. I see him dragging clothes up his battered body in the closet, cringing at the noise of the zippers and snaps, tiptoeing across the carpet, and I’m caught between anger and amazement.
My stomach lurches, its daily morning protest propelling me to my feet. I make it to the toilet just in time, dropping to my knees on the cold tile as the bile surges up my throat.
It’s not like I haven’t dragged the internet enough to know that I’m one of the lucky ones. My morning sickness is mostly confined to the morning, and once I choke down a cracker or slice of dry toast, my stomach typically settles. Mama used to brag about how she puked for nine months straight when she was pregnant with me, so sick she begged the doctors to induce her at six months—though that was also around the time people started giving her dirty looks in the bar, so her motivation wasn’t entirely pure. Still, as much as she hated being pregnant, I’m pretty sure she hated being a mother even more.
I sit on my heels and flush with a shaky hand, my throat burning. If only I could flush my thoughts of my mother, too, watch them swirl like last night’s steak dinner down the drain. I hate the way this pregnancy has cleared new space for her in my brain, allowed thoughts of her to bubble up more and more often.
Sunning in a banged-up folding chair in the yard, her skin slick with baby oil. Smoking cigarette after cigarette while Chet and I run wild, pelting us with the butts she’d fling into the yard. Every time I spot a cigarette stub smeared with lipstick on the ground, I think of her.
But also, memories of her French-braiding my hair, her fingernails tickling my scalp. Of clomping around the trailer in her favorite boots, the hot thrill when she’d gloss my lips or spritz me with her perfume. There, she’d say when she was done. Now you’re prettier than me. In the space between her words, I understood: pretty can get you a man. Pretty can snag you a better provider than your father.
Stop.
Maybe it’s the hormones, but the memories suddenly sting more than they used to, a hot poker pang that throbs for hours. I banish the woman from my thoughts and step into the shower.
Paul’s return last night conjured up more questions, especially after my middle-of-the-night peek into the safe. More than once, I considered marching into the bedroom, shaking him awake and demanding some answers. Why Pitts Cove? What happened with Jax, really? I try to think about it logically, to shove aside my feelings for Paul and examine everything with clinical detachment, but I can’t. I’m too emotionally entangled.
In the kitchen, I stand for a moment at the window, looking out at the lake. In the few months I’ve lived here, it’s become a morning ritual, watching the sun climb up the trees, golden flashes that light up like a sea of stars. Most of the snow is gone now, only an occasional white patch in the shaded spots—down by the dock, under the trees, a big smudge on the opposite shore.
No, not snow. A boat.
Micah and his crew, I think, except…
I lean into the glass and squint. Pointy bow, beefy hull, deadrise sharper than usual—a boat made for water sports. Even from here, even in the dim morning light, I can see there’s no one at the helm or hanging over the sides.
It’s Paul’s boat. Unmanned and adrift—or at least it was, until its draft got caught in the rocky shore. It’s sitting all wrong in the water, pitched at a sharp angle.
“Shit.”
I think back to yesterday, when I slid the boat up to Micah’s dock. By the time I climbed out, Chet had already tied two lines, but since I didn’t know how long the boat would be there, I made him tie up two more. The spring lines were good and tight, the slipknots solid. I checked. There’s no way that boat could have gotten loose, not without someone helping it.
Shit shit shit.
I grab the keys from the mudroom hook and run down the stairs, flipping on lights as I go. “Chet? Chet, wake up.” I rap a knuckle on the guest room door, open it a crack. “Somebody untied the boat and set it adrift.”
His groan comes from the larger room behind me, from a lump on the far end of the couch. “Go away. It’s not morning.”
“Did you hear me? I said the boat’s loose. It’s caught in the rocks on the other side of the lake.”
The lump moves, and he lifts his head. “For real?”
“For real. Get dressed. I need you to hike around the lake and bring it back.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now.” I toss him a sweatshirt hanging inside out over the back of the couch. “And hurry, before it gets really stuck.”
His grumbling is muffled as he pulls the hoodie over his face. “You do know it’s not actually my boat, right? If anything, you’re the one who should be traipsing through a freezing lake to bring it back, not me. I’m just the houseguest.” He shoves his feet in his jeans and hauls himself off the couch. He steps into his boots with a sigh. “You owe me for this.”
I hand him the keys, disarm the system and shove him out the door. “I love you. I’ll make it up to you. Now go.”
I head up the stairs, ticking off the incidents in my mind. The opossum. The boat. The snapped branches and planted footprints Paul told me about last night. None are exactly life-threatening, unless you happen to be an opossum. Still, it was a targeted threat, and Micah agreed. If he peeks out his back window and sees the boat, I already know what he’ll say: Batty Jax, at it again.
In the kitchen, I tune the television to a local channel, dropping the last bagel in the toaster on my way to the fridge. Not much there other than yesterday’s leftovers stacked in clear Tupperware containers. I’m working on a grocery list on the back of an envelope I dig from the drawer when the chief’s mountain twang, thick as paste, fills the air. My fingers freeze on the pen.
“…update on the investigation up to this point. Early Wednesday morning, November 20, at sometime before 7:00 a.m., a Lake Crosby citizen discovered the body of an adult female, floating in the waters of Lake Crosby. The police were called to the scene, as was a unit of underwater crime investigators from Asheville, divers trained in both body and evidence recovery. The body was removed, then transferred to the medical examiner at Harris Regional for autopsy and processing.”
Oof. No mention of Micah and the Lake Hunters by name, an intentional slight. I think about Micah watching on the big TV in his kitchen, and I can just about hear his fist punching through the wall.
“The ME has determined the official cause of death to be drowning, but also informed us that the victim had a contusion to the head that preceded her death. This contusion would have rendered her unconscious, and we’re working under the assumption that it was not an accident. To be clear, folks, this is a murder investigation.”
He pauses as a murmur works its way through the crowd.
“Though I appreciate the public’s need for information, I am not prepared to discuss the details of this investigation at this time. The only thing I can tell you is that we’ve identified the victim as Sienna Anne Sterling, age twenty-nine, from Westerville, Ohio. Her family has been notified, and they ask you to please give them space and privacy during this difficult time. Thank you.”
The chief gathers up his papers to a barrage of shouted questions from somewhere off camera. He tosses an annoyed look past the cameras, but he doesn’t lumber off the dais. One of the voices, high and female, rises to the top like cream.
“Chief Hunt, do you have any suspects?”
The chief rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
“Can you give us their names?”
“Nope. Next question.” He points at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
“Do you have any indication as to the murder weapon, and has any other evidence been recovered?”
“Yes and yes, but that’s all you’re getting out of me on that subject. Anybody else?”
A jumble of voices, then another feminine tone pushing through: “Sir, it’s been reported that the Lake Crosby home where Ms. Sterling’s body was found is the same home where, four years ago, another woman, the homeowner at the time, drowned under mysterious circumstances. Any chance the two deaths are connected?”
The pen falls from my hand and onto the floor, rolling under the refrigerator. Katherine’s name was on the deed? I’m living in her home, not Paul’s?
I stare at the screen, and I recognize the emotion that flashes across Chief Hunt’s expression, the way it crumples his forehead and drags the corners of his mouth toward the floor. I saw it just last night after Paul returned, on the face of the chief’s son.
He leans onto the podium with both forearms, the papers clutched in a fist. “Young lady, who do you work for?”
“WXPT, Channel 19, from Kingsport, Tennessee.”
“Did y’all hear that? This lady here from WXPT in Kingsport is going about, making reckless suggestions on live television, planting rumors that are guaranteed to take on a life of their own. Everybody listen up, because I’m about to nip this one in the bud. We are investigating the murder of Sienna Sterling and only Sienna Sterling. The Katherine Keller case is closed. Anyone who implies anything otherwise is guilty of spreading fake news.”
And with that he stalks off screen. Press conference over.
The cameraman scrambles, and the shot shimmies into a pretty blonde behind a news desk. She rattles off a quick recap of everything we’ve just heard, then follows it up with a longer list of all the things we don’t know, things like suspect and motive and evidence. She doesn’t mention Katherine’s death again, but it’s there, throbbing between the lines, filling up the empty pauses.
Chief Hunt was wrong about nipping things in the bud; that seed has been planted and watered now. It’s already sprouting roots that are twisting around the truth, strangling it like kudzu. I peek around the wall to the front of the house, where people are milling around up at the mailbox. Reporters, staked out at the top of the drive.
I return to the kitchen, fishing the pen from under the fridge and adding to the list. Katherine. Sienna. Pitts Cove. Micah and Jax and Paul. Lies. So many lies. I look at the words, and my whole body tingles with the feeling the universe is laying something out for me. Giving me important pieces to the puzzle, spreading them out on a table for me to see, but there are too many to sort through. The more pieces I get, the more I can’t tell the edges from the middle. Nothing fits together, nothing makes sense.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text—Paul, telling me he’s picked up his car and will be spending the day visiting build sites. I toss it onto the counter, breathing through a wave of anger. An early doctor’s appointment is one thing. Following it up with more appointments means he’s avoiding me.
The tightness in my chest doesn’t loosen as I stare out over the lake. The sun is good and high now, the sky a cloudless dusty blue, bright against the still-shaded water. Lake to the back, wall of reporters to the front, trapping me in this place. I spot movement down the shoreline, a flash at the far end of the cove. I recognize the lazy gait, those long legs and broad shoulders. Chet, right before he disappears into the pines.
My baby brother was so easy to fall in love with, velvety pink and squirming in that grubby blanket, blinking up at me with those pretty eyes. The first time my mother shoved him in my arms, my heart squeezed and soared at the same time. I remember thinking it strange that love could come in such a tiny bundle.
When it happened again with Paul, falling in love felt as easy as slipping into a warm bath. I gave him my heart, and I saw it as a sign. See? I remember thinking. You are not your mama. Your heart has room for more. I thought loving him made me a decent person. I thought it made me better than her.
I never stopped to think about what turned her love ugly. I never wondered about all the things that could make love flip over to show its underbelly, cold and dark and dangerous. I never considered how easy it might be, or how once love slips away, if it’s possible to ever get it back.
But as I stare out the window at the glittering lake, these are the things I’m thinking about now.
“Helloooo.” Diana’s voice echoes off the foyer walls, slicing through the weatherman’s chatter on the TV. I hit Mute as the front door closes with a thud. “Anybody home?” Her heels click on the hardwoods.
I’ve lived here long enough to know that she does this, lets herself into her son’s home, treats it like it’s her own. Who knew a big house surrounded by woods could come with zero privacy because Diana could walk in any minute? I shove a smile up my cheeks as she comes around the corner, her arms holding a giant white basket wrapped in cellophane.
She sets it on the counter and moves closer, peeling off her sunglasses and inspecting my face. “You’ve got your color back, I see. Feeling better, are you?” She smells like gardenia and vanilla.
“Much better, thank you. Paul’s not here.”
I didn’t mean for it to come across like that, like I know she’s only here for him, but there it is.
I needn’t have worried. Diana doesn’t seem the least bit offended. “I know. I just got off the phone with him. Dr. Harrison says it’s too late for stitches, but he cleaned up Paul’s brow and gave him a shot in the butt. I told him on a handsome face like his, scars add character. Just look at Harrison Ford, for example, or that guy who played Waterman.”
“Aquaman.”
“Whatever.” She reaches for the basket, drags it across the island by the cellophane. “I picked you up a little something.”
Whatever it is, it’s not little. I take in the size of the basket, the thick layer of tissue paper bouquets concealing whatever’s underneath. A normal person shells out a couple of extra bucks for a gift bag from Walmart, but not Diana. Diana shops at the kind of stores where the wrapping is as extravagant as the gift.
“I… You didn’t have to do that.” An unpleasant tightness gathers in my chest at her thoughtfulness.
“I know, but I couldn’t resist.” She grins, claps her hands three rapid-fire times, and her enthusiasm is like a saw against my skin. “Go ahead. Open it.”
I tug on the canary yellow ribbon wound around the top of the cellophane, and the plastic opens up like a flower, the filmy petals floating to the countertop with a soft crinkle. I remove the tissue paper, pretty pastel bouquets arranged in a tight layer to conceal what’s underneath. A rubber giraffe smothered in polka dots. A chenille bath towel with floppy elephant ears hanging from the hood. Pacifiers and rattles and blankets and clothes, a mountain of miniature sweaters and footed pants and onesies as soft as butter. I pull out a knitted hood shaped like a miniature strawberry, tiny enough to fit on my fist, and set it on the marble with the others.
“I know it’s early still,” Diana says, admiring a sweater with a teddy bear embroidered across the front, “but I went in that baby store just to take a little peek, and before I knew it, I’m standing at the cash register with a mountain of stuff. We didn’t have all this when Paul was born. The cribs and the rugs and the changing tables and— Oh my God, the mobiles! So precious. I would have bought you one of those, too, but I couldn’t decide. Have you thought about colors yet? Do you have a theme for the nursery?”
When Chet was born, our mother wrapped him in an old T-shirt and put him in a box on the floor. If he cried in the middle of the night, she’d shove him, box and all, into my room. Of course I don’t have a theme for the nursery. I didn’t know I was supposed to.
“Diana, this is all…”
“Too much?” I look up in surprise, and she laughs. “Go ahead—you can say it. It won’t be the first time I’ve been accused of being too much. I know I have the tendency to go overboard, especially when it comes to my family.”
I smile. “I guess I can’t fault you for that. But it is a lot. Does a baby really need all this stuff?”
“Well, no. Of course not. A baby doesn’t need any of this, but that’s the whole point.” She picks up a stuffed lamb, holding it by its fuzzy neck. One eye is shut in a saucy wink, its lashes stitched to the fabric with shiny black thread. “Grandmothers are supposed to spoil their grandchildren, especially the first one. I’m supposed to spend a ridiculous amount of money on stuff they’ll grow out of within a year. That’s part of the bargain.”
She says it without an ounce of malice, and I tell myself it’s not a dig of some kind, not a subtle swipe at my penniless, motherless existence. My mother will not be dropping by with expensive gifts. I will not have to tell her to back off. She can’t be bothered to love her own children, much less a grandchild.
Diana shakes her head. “You know, I had actually given up on the idea that Paul would ever have kids. I’d resigned myself to the fact I’d have to live the rest of my life without knowing what it was like to be a grandmother. If he’d married someone his own age, that window would be closing up about now.” She pauses, looks at me. “I guess I have you to thank, don’t I?”
It’s the closest she’s come to saying she approves of Paul’s choice of wife, and it’s like all those times when my mother told me I was pretty. I find myself liking Diana a little more for the compliment.
“You should know that Paul and I didn’t plan this. We weren’t looking to get pregnant this early on in our relationship, but I guess sometimes life has other ideas.”
“You do want this baby, though, don’t you?”
I pick up a silver teething ring tied with a tulle bow, and it really is beautiful, so beautiful I’d never even consider buying it myself. A blast of longing hits me hard, a physical tug in my chest—for this baby, for things with Paul to go back to the way they were before yet another dead woman’s body washed up in the lake. For Diana to like me, even if only because of my ability to give her a baby Keller.
“Yeah. I do. I want this baby with everything inside of me, and so does Paul.”
“Good, because now that I’ve gotten over the surprise of it all, I can’t tell you how excited I am.” Her gaze wanders to the items spread across the island, and she laughs. “Clearly I’m excited. Though I hope all these gifts didn’t scare you off, because when all of this—” she sweeps a hand in the general direction of the lake “—dies down, I’d really love to throw you a shower. At the club, maybe, or a restaurant in town. Up to you.”
I bristle a little at the this—murder is so darn inconvenient—but I’m not about to slap the hand extending an olive branch. I give her my brightest, happiest smile. “I’d love that, Diana. Thank you.”