Isla was the first to speak. ‘What do you mean?’
The panic felt like a cat in Felicity’s chest, shredding her heart with its claws. ‘Dom’s gone!’
‘It’s not a big house,’ Cole said. ‘I’ll help you look.’
‘I’m telling you, he’s not here!’ Felicity ran to the entryway and pushed the front door open. A cold wind slipped under the cuffs of her pyjama bottoms and crept up her legs. An owl hooted in the distance. She stumbled out into the front yard, scanning the darkness around her. The Tarago was still in the driveway. But no sign of her husband. ‘Dom!’ she screamed.
Nothing moved in the dense, forbidding bush. Her heart raced. She’d never felt this kind of fear. Not when she was on stage. Not when she was blindfolded in front of a target board, waiting for the knife thrower to take his shot. Not even when the police burst into James’s apartment with their guns. Her husband was everything to her. Where was he?
She hurried back into the kitchen. She opened the pantry and the broom cupboard. She knew she looked crazy, but she didn’t care. Where could he have gone?
‘Dom?’ Oscar yelled from the hall.
‘Dom!’ Isla shouted upstairs.
Clementine hadn’t moved from her position by the fire. What the hell is wrong with her? Felicity wondered. Already a clock was ticking in her head, measuring how long it was since she’d seen her husband and how far he could have gone in that time.
Her vision tunnelled. She watched her own hands as they opened the back door, then her feet as they ran out onto the deck. She grabbed the railing and peered out at the forest, but the moon was like a spotlight, glaring directly at her and leaving the rest of the world in darkness.
Someone else came out onto the deck behind her.
‘Oh, shit,’ Isla said.
‘Felicity,’ Oscar said, a warning note in his voice.
‘What?’ She tried to turn, but he grabbed her shoulder.
‘Don’t look, okay?’ he said. Urgent. Firm.
Splashing sounds. ‘Dom?’ Cole was saying. ‘Dom! Wake up, mate.’
Felicity squirmed out of Oscar’s grip and spun around. Isla and Cole were bent over the hot tub. Dom was sitting in the water, still wearing his suit, eyes rolled back. His hand rested on the edge, loosely curled around the stem of a champagne flute, like he didn’t know the party was over.
Cole grabbed Dom by the armpits and lifted him out. As his body flopped sideways, the moonlight revealed a dent above his temple, a spiderweb of blood filling the cracks.
‘How did he get out here?’ Felicity heard herself ask. ‘What is he doing out here?’
No one answered her question. The others were talking over the top of each other: ‘He’s not breathing.’ ‘Call an ambulance!’ ‘It’ll take them hours to get here.’ ‘My phone has no reception!’ ‘Does he have a pulse?’ ‘He must have hit his head on the side of the tub …’ ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’
Felicity realised she was falling. Oscar caught her. She found herself looking up into his loving face, and a deep chill swept through her body as he lowered her down, down, down, before the night embraced her.