Chapter 2

The word pool sat in the garden.

Nobody picked it up.

Margot did not move.

Neither did Otis.

On the terrace, a caterer set down a silver tray very slowly, so it would not ring.

Willa's hands stayed on the fountain rim.

Her feet stayed in the water.

"Say that again," Margot said.

"She drowned," Otis said. "In the pool. Not on the stairs."

Margot laughed.

It was a quick, thin sound with nothing inside it.

"He's a child," she said, turning to the guests. "The boy's mother was ill when she left us."

"She wasn't ill," Otis said. "She was paid."

Then he said it lower,

"The week after it happened. A check with no name on it."

Margot's signet ring bit into her own palm.

"Get off my property," she said.

Otis did not stand.

His fingers closed on the cord at his throat.

He drew the key out and let it hang.

"She wrote it down," he said. "Every word. The date. What she saw."

"The pool house has stayed locked since the accident."

"There's a drawer in it," Otis said. "And a lock on the drawer."

Behind them, a chair scraped stone.

Roland Halloway came down the gravel in his mourning coat.

Two years had thinned him.

His face was gray the way fog is gray.

"What is this," he said.

"Your sister buried it," Otis said. "My mother left it in the drawer."

Roland looked at the pool house.

Then at the rusted padlock.

Then at the keys on his sister's waist.

"Give me the keys, Margot."

"You can't be serious."

"Give me the keys."

She didn't.

So he took them.

The ring came off her waist with one hard pull.

Margot made a small sound.

Roland walked the service path alone.

Otis followed with the brass key.

The padlock was stiff with salt and rust.

Roland tried two keys.

Then-

Crack.

The hasp fell open.

Inside, the pool house smelled of chlorine and old dust.

A writing desk stood against the wall.

One drawer. One small brass lock.

Otis fit his mother's key to it.

It turned like it had been waiting two years.

Inside lay a single folded page.

Roland unfolded it.

The hand was small and slanting.

He read it once to himself.

His mouth moved and no sound came.

Then he read it aloud.

"I was in the kitchen. I heard water."

"Mrs. Halloway screamed once."

"Miss Margot stood at the pool gate."

"The gate was locked. From the outside."

"I found Mrs. Halloway face down."

"Miss Margot told me to say she fell on the stairs."

"She paid me to go. She said the child saw everything."

The garden had no sound left.

The pool gate had been locked from the outside that night.

The doctor had been told about a fall.

The nurse had been paid and sent away.

And every guest on the bluff had been told the same small lie.

Roland's voice came out flat and far off.

"Elena was signing the company back to Willa."

"Margot would have lost the house. The books. All of it."

"Call the sheriff," Roland said.

A guest lifted her phone.

Margot said nothing at all.

That was the loudest thing in the garden.