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“If he tells that cop there was a dead man, and we have to tell them we found him, pulled him out of the water, covered him, then went to bed and woke to find him missing, we’re really in trouble.”

“Do you wonder who killed him?” I asked. “Or why they’re after us? I’m so scared I can hardly think.”

“I try to think about things I have control over,” Emily said.

“You’re not curious? Or worried about why they’re threatening us?”

“Of course I’m worried. But I don’t think any cop will figure it out. Most of the time, they rely on witnesses or people who know things. That’s why they’ll absolutely grill us until we’re completely confused and worn out.”

My eyes stung, and tears blurred my vision. It might have been the onion, it might have been the feeling she no longer liked Patrick very much. It might have been everything else. That was most likely it—everything, since the moment I walked outside to go for a nighttime swim.

Taking her at her suggestion that I keep an eye, and maybe an ear, on Patrick, I stopped fluttering around Emily as if I were contributing anything to her salsa. I went out to the front porch and stood beside Patrick. I put my hand on his forearm, feeling the hard muscle as he gripped the porch railing. In a soft, almost meek voice, wildly different from my usual tone, I told Patrick what Emily had just said.

The muscle in his forearm twitched, but he didn’t move. He didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard me.

After several agonizing minutes, I said, “You won’t say anything about it, will you?”

He let go of the railing, turned away from me, and walked down the stairs. I watched as he moved purposefully toward the narrow street. He positioned himself so he was facing in the direction of the main road. Was he going to stand there like a sentinel for an hour?

It hurt and angered me that he hadn’t acknowledged what I’d said. What would happen to us if he no longer wanted to hear my thoughts, much less have a conversation? His unspoken message couldn’t have been clearer—I don’t care what Emily said. I don’t care what you think.

Maybe the last part was overly dramatic, and possibly made up in my own head, but it was how I felt. I hurried down the steps and along the driveway.

“Patrick. Please don’t shut me out. Even if we disagree, even if you don’t understand how I feel, we need to talk about it.”

“We’ve said everything we need to on this topic.”

“You won’t mention that we found him, that his body went missing, will you?” I wanted to pummel his chest when he didn’t immediately respond. As my hands twitched, craving a reaction from him, I took a deep, slow breath.

Finally, he spoke. “We’ll see how it unfolds.”

SIXTEEN

SAMANTHA

I didn’t like Patrick’s answer at all. He could not start a conversation with a police officer and wait to see how things unfolded. He had to be prepared. He had to keep his attention one hundred percent focused on reporting the vandalism. He had to shove the thought of the body in our swimming pool completely out of his head. Otherwise, he might slip.

My thoughts raced back to the moment I’d stepped onto the back deck and seen him floating just below the surface of the water. The horror I felt. That overwhelming, almost indescribable fear. The questions that pummeled my heart and mind, questions I could hardly articulate with anything more than a silent cry of pain—Why?!

It felt like I was living inside someone else’s skin. Even though I’d experienced a shocking death before, and even though that death had burrowed into the dark corners of my heart where it remained for a decade and a half, this felt different. Yes, seeing him floating there, empty of life, brought those memories rushing back to me, filling my mind with so much noise and confusion and pain I could hardly think.

Now, I continued to fight a numb, disconnected feeling. I was frustrated with myself for not being able to think clearly. All I knew was that note telling us one or all of us were next, meant none of us were safe. Why that man had been killed was an absolute mystery. As a result, it was impossible to know why we were being threatened.

Why wasn’t Patrick afraid that he might be next, that I might be? He assumed my fear was overblown. He assumed I was allowing past trauma to twist my mind into irrational thoughts.

Had he even taken that note seriously? It seemed like he hadn’t absorbed the fact that someone was planning to kill one of us.

“You can’t just let it unfold,” I said, again. “They might ask a question that will catch you off-guard. If they ask if anything else has happened, you could easily⁠—”

“I know how to handle myself in an interview.”

“I know you do.” I put my hand on his arm, but he shook it off. “I’m not questioning that. I just… Keith said they can be sneaky.”

He laughed. “That’s ridiculous. They have no reason to be sneaky. I’m reporting an act of vandalism. I’m not a suspect.” He snickered. “Keith is overreacting to one upsetting experience when he was a kid. That incident doesn’t have anything to do with this situation. The only reason I haven’t reported it is because I do agree that the fact he’s gone missing will make things more difficult.”

“You don’t care about those threatening notes?”

“I don’t think the first one was directed at us.”