The chair across from you is empty now. Petrie stands at the window, his back to you. You know that he is recalling the day you have just described, the two of you on the banks of Dolphin Pond, talking quietly as the divers do their work, watching as they lift themselves over the gunwale of the boat and sink into the water, remembering, as you remembered the day you returned to the pond, that the boat had been near the center of the lake, where the water abruptly deepened, how far it was before this happened, and thus how far Jason would have had to walk before it reached his waist, then his shoulders.

“Shallow,” you say quietly.

You watch as Petrie’s shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly, as if in response to a tiny pinch of pain.

“So you realized what Diana had meant,” he says. “In the courtroom that day.”

“Shallow,” you say again, quoting Diana. “She said it twice.”

Petrie continues to peer out the window. “But at the time, what did you think she meant?”

“I had no idea at the time,” you answer. “But I suppose I would have thought that she meant the proceedings, or maybe the final decision. That it was all … shallow.”

Petrie’s shoulders lift with a long breath.

You know that he feels this new current in the story’s flow. He is like a skater on a familiar lake, one whose familiarity begins to fade even as he skates, a tree over there, and in the distance a small shed, neither in their old positions, a shift in the landscape.

“A very long way,” Petrie says, a clear reference to the distance between the edge of the pond and where Jason’s body had been found. You know what he is thinking. That Dolphin Pond is a placid lake. Without currents. A body would not have drifted.

“Why would he have walked so far out?” you ask. “I think that was Diana’s question. Because he’d never been taken into the water.”

“Why not?” Petrie asks.

“Because he was afraid of the water.” You see Jason’s eyes, how easily they jumped at sudden movements, sudden sounds. “Jason lived in fear.”

Petrie turns to face you. “Is that what you were thinking when you left the pond?” he asks. “That this was evidence?”

“Not exactly, no.”

Petrie is clearly surprised by your answer. “What then?”

“How easy it was.”

Petrie looks at you quizzically. “Easy?”

You remember the games. So many of them. Find Me. Treasure chest. Was it a house of games, Victor Hugo Street? Chess, not checkers, with the Old Man as king, Diana his knight, you, forever, a lowly, lowly pawn?

“What was easy, Mr. Sears?”

You are standing by the pond again. You turn back toward the house, thinking, So isolated. Then you face the pond again, peer out over the still water; thinking, Shallow, shallow.

“To be drawn in to Diana’s … way of thinking,” you answer. Patty’s voice sounds in your mind, Diana says I’m very imaginative. “How easy it is to be seduced.” You feel a wave of pain pass over you and marvel at how physical it is, as physical as heat or intense pressure. “Diana,” you whisper, and at the mention of her name you see the little red ball move from hand to hand, the dark sparkle in her eyes, feel the touch of her hand as she takes yours, then leads you down the stairs.

“Diana,” you begin again, then stop, unable to go on.

You shake your head. “Shifting,” you murmur finally. “Entangled.” Petrie gazes at you intently, with a deep scrutiny that seems natural, unlearned, no longer a textbook inquisitiveness. “Everything is shifting,” you tell him.

Petrie’s eyes glitter with small disturbances. “All right, Mr. Sears,” he says cautiously, returning you to solid ground. “What did you do when you left the pond?”

You know he is drawing you back to the case.

You follow willingly, and feel again the sweet pull of gravity, the familiar earth. “After I left the pond …”