Nantucket Nights

Karla

As they drove off Great Point, Lindsey asked Kayla to take her to the airport.

“I’ve seen enough,” Lindsey said.

Kayla was relieved; more than anything, she wanted Lindsey out of her car. No, not more than anything. More than anything, Kayla wanted to travel back in time. She wanted Antoinette safe; she wanted Theo erased from the picture. Theo, her own child, involved with Antoinette. Not Raoul at all, but Theo. Her baby, her first baby, having his own baby with her best friend. So this was Antoinette’s confession. Kayla wanted to vomit, scream, spitfire. She thought of Raoul smoothing the dirt in Antoinette’s driveway. Clearing Theo’s tracks. Because he knew! Kayla was ready to kill someone, but she settled for getting Lindsey Allerton out of her car. Kayla drove to the airport silently, avoiding all thought, the layers of hurt and betrayal that she would eventually have to peel back and examine.

Things at the airport had quieted. Kayla pulled right up in front of die terminal, and only when she retrieved Lindsey’s bag from the back did she see the black Jaguar squeeze in behind her. When she turned to hand Lindsey her bag, she saw John Gluckstern get out of his car. He was still wearing his shirt and tie, and a pair of dark suit pants. Val once told Kayla that the man didn’t own a single pair of jeans.“A character flaw, right?” Val said. “He can’t relax.” There was no way that John’s presence here was a coincidence. He must have followed them.

Kayla’s instinct was to get out of there as soon as she could. “Lindsey, I’m sorry,” Kayla said. The words clinked cheaply; they meant nothing in the face of all that had happened. Kayla wondered if she should offer to call Lindsey when she had news. Would she want to know if her mother was alive? Dead? Kayla couldn’t bring herself to exchange phone numbers for this purpose. If Lindsey wanted information, she would find a way to get it.

Before Lindsey could respond, John Gluckstern was upon them. He took Lindsey’s elbow. “Can I have a word with you before you go?” he said.

“What do you want to tell her, John?” Kayla asked.

“None of your business.”

“How can you say that?”

“Antoinette is my client, Kayla. This woman is Antoinette’s daughter. There are some things she ought to know.”

“Like what?”

John smirked. “Once again… ” he said. Then to Lindsey, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Lindsey looked from Kayla to John. “I just want to get home.”

“Let the girl go home, John,” Kayla said. “She’s been through enough.”

“I’ll walk you to your plane,” John said.

“God, John, give it up.”

John led Lindsey toward the terminal. “If I were you, Kayla; I’d get myself a lawyer.”

Kayla stood by the side of her car and watched them walk away. From the back, especially, Lindsey looked like Antoinette, and Kayla was glad that Theo was asleep and did not see.

On her way home from the airport, Kayla listened to Theo’s soft snoring. She drove home through the state forest-thick blue-green pine trees on both sides of the road. She passed Barbara Diedrich from her quilting class, who waved. Kayla waved back automatically. She was on her island, on streets she’d driven hundreds of times, but now she felt like her surroundings had transformed. Theo and Antoinette together. The image struck her as so horribly wrong that the whole world seemed out of whack. And running into John Gluckstern didn’t make her feel any better; God only knew what kind of trouble he could drum up. For a minute Kayla wished that she lived in Kansas, or Nebraska, where it would be possible to drive along indefinitely-the car a kind of womb where she could keep Theo safe.

He was eighteen, though. An adult, technically. Old enough to vote, old enough to go to war, old enough to have sex and father a child. Since his ugly behavior started, Kayla had been reminiscing about Theo when he was little. The year he got mono he was eight years old. Jennifer was four and Cassidy B. eighteen months, and when Theo got sick, Kayla enrolled them in a play group three days a week so she would have time to care for Theo. They played endless games of Crazy Eights and Battleship- Theo in his pajamas in bed, his eyes glazed over, his face pink with fever. He slept for hours at a time, and Kayla checked on him every fifteen minutes. She read to him from Hardy Boys mysteries; she helped him with the math homework his teachers sent home. Long division. It was the math, though, that held Theo back. Three months of school missed due to mononucleosis, and Theo couldn’t make up the math. His teachers recommended that he repeat third grade. Theo screamed and said all the kids would call him a dummy, a retard. He didn’t want to be separated from his friends, he didn’t want anybody to think he’d “flunked.” What to do? In the end, Kayla and Raoul sided with his teachers-boys needed more time to mature, anyway; Theo could only benefit from another year-and he repeated third grade.

The idea of the Midwest intrigued Kayla. Maybe this island was the problem. Nantucket had always seemed like a refuge, but if she lived in a place that had a mall, a cineplex, an arcade, would this have happened? Maybe she was to blame for cloistering Theo away on this gray island where there was nothing to do but cruise the cobblestone streets.

How did parents survive their children? It was all so painful. Far, far more painful than growing up herself, Kayla thought, watching her children grow up.

When Kayla got home, Raoul’s red truck was in the driveway, and next to it, a blue-and-white Bronco: Jacob Anderson. Cassidy B. and Luke were in the side yard throwing a Frisbee, the picture of normality. Kayla forced herself to check the backseat. Theo was curled up in the fetal position, sound asleep among the beach towels. The poor kid. But now things were starting to make sense: Theo’s behavior of the last few weeks was due to this mess.

Kayla put down the windows and shut off the engine. She would let Theo sleep.

She stood in the yard watching Cassidy B. and Luke toss the Frisbee. They knew she was watching, and so they tried extra hard. Luke furrowed his brow and concentrated on holding the Frisbee just so before he sent it sailing through the air with a slight wobble. Cassidy B. caught it flat between her palms, a trick. Two children, as Theo had once been a child. And so, Luke and Cassidy B., too, would have to face adulthood and all its dirty surprises. That made Kayla sadder than anything else. She had no power to protect them, just as she’d had no power to protect Theo from Antoinette.

What were you doing, Antoinette? Kayla thought. Sleeping with Theo. Pregnant with his baby.

Kayla couldn’t think of a better reason to disappear.

…

Inside, Raoul, Jacob Anderson, and Val were at the dining table eating nacho chips and drinking Coronas with limes. They stopped talking when Kayla came in. Kayla just stared. She hated them.

“Does anyone know where Theo is?” she asked.

Raoul remained cool, but Val’s face fell. Kayla’s mind flashed back to: Antoinette, why don’t you tell us about your sex life these days? What’s been going on with you? Raoul and Val talking in the front seat of Raoul’s truck. They all knew. Even Jacob Anderson knew, when Kayla saw him at the Tings’, when he almost kissed her. They all knew that her best friend was fucking her son and no one had told her.

“He’s at work, isn’t he?” Raoul said.

“He’s asleep in the Trooper,” Kayla said. “I found him up at Great Point. What do you suppose he was doing there?”

“Kayla-” Raoul stood up.

“Stay away from me!” she said. “You lied to me, Raoul.”

“I didn’t lie,” he said. “It was better that you didn’t know.”

“We didn’t want to hurt you,” Val said.

“You!” Kayla said, pointing at Val. She looked gorgeous, radiant with her adultery, in a sundress of red, crinkled cotton. Her gold chains glinted at her neck. “You lied, too. And what’s worse, Val, is that you’re a woman. You are my female friend. You, I should be able to trust.”

“Kayla, calm down,” Raoul said.

Kayla pulled the pregnancy test out of her purse. “Did you know Antoinette is pregnant?” she said. “Pregnant!”

“I didn’t know until last night,” Raoul said. “Val told me on the way to Antoinette’s house.”

“And who told you?” Kayla asked Val.

Val bowed her head; under the table, she and Jacob Anderson were holding hands. “Antoinette.”

“Antoinette told you? When did she tell you?”

Val shrugged. “Last week. Remember when I told you that we had lunch? Well, it was more than just lunch. Antoinette came into the office to take care of some business. We talked about things, and she told me about Theo, she told me she was pregnant. She signed a new will.”

“She signed a will?” Kayla said. This seemed like important information, something Val might have mentioned the night before. “What did it say?”

“It’s confidential,” Val said.

“I don’t care. I want to know. Did she leave everything to Theo?”

“No,” Val said. “She put everything into a trust.”

“You set up the trust?”

Val twirled her beer bottle by the neck. “I’m the attorney.”

Jacob munched a chip.

“Was she going to keep the baby?” Kayla asked. “Was the trust for the baby?”

“She said she had an appointment for an abortion,” Val said.

“What about the vandalism?” Kayla said. “It was Theo?”

Raoul led Kayla to the table. He opened a beer for her and squeezed a tiny wedge of lime into the top. “Probably,” he said. “You need to try to relax. We’re going to sort through this.”

“We just called the fire department,” Val said. “The divers didn’t find anything.”

The sliding door opened, and Kayla heard a shriek. “Mommy!”

They all turned around. Jennifer was standing in the kitchen, her face bright red.

Kayla did a mother’s scan: no bleeding, no obvious injury to her daughter’s person. Her thoughts zipped to Cassidy and Luke outside, to Theo in the car.

“What’s wrong?” Kayla said. How long had it been since Jennifer had called her Mommy? Three, four years? “Jennifer?”

“A phone call came to the Ogilvys,” Jennifer said, “while I was baby-sitting.”

Ed Ogilvy was the publisher of the Inquirer and Mirror, the island newspaper. More than once, Jennifer had come home with a story before it broke because she had heard it at the Ogilvys’ house.

“What kind of phone call?” Kayla asked, though she feared she knew.

“Someone saying Aunt Antoinette is dead. Someone saying you and Aunt Val killed her.”

“Who said that?” Raoul asked. “Did you get a name?”

Jennifer shook her head so that her long ponytail swayed. “Anonymous.”

“Did Ed Ogilvy hear the message?” Kayla asked.

“Is Aunt Antoinette dead?” Jennifer demanded. “Did you kill her?”

“Jennifer!” Raoul said. “What kind of question is that?”

“The caller said it happened at Great Point last night,” Jennifer said. “He said you made it look like an accident, you and Aunt Val. He said you and Aunt Val were after her money.”

Val snatched her hand from Jacob’s. “Don’t worry,” Val said. “It was my husband who called. And I guarantee you he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Is Aunt Antoinette dead?” Jennifer asked.

“We don’t know, sweetie,” Kayla said. “She got lost in the water, and they haven’t been able to find her.”

“She’s dead,” a voice said. Luke walked into the kitchen behind Jennifer. Cassidy B. followed him. “Aunt Antoinette is dead.”

“Luke? What makes you say that?” Kayla asked.

“She just is. I know it.” His voice was calm and serious. “Aunt Antoinette drowned.”

Cassidy B. started to cry. Jennifer said, “Mom, what happened up there, exactly?”

Luke said, “I’m telling you…” Suddenly, all three of them were making a commotion-until the sliding glass door opened and Theo walked in. Or a boy who resembled Theo, except this boy was bloodless, lifeless. He’d lost his tan, it seemed, overnight; his hair had lost its color. When Theo stepped into the kitchen, the other kids got quiet. They were still afraid of him.

“Mom?” he said. “Tin going to bed.”

“Okay,” Kayla said.

His brother and sisters cleared the way for him, and he headed past them toward the stairs.

“The poor kid,” Val whispered.

Money, Kayla thought. It couldn’t mend a broken heart. Theo’s or hers.

The phone rang. Jennifer ran to answer it, and in her very adult voice, she said, “May I tell her who’s calling?” A beat passed and she handed Kayla the phone, mouthing, The police.

“Kayla?” It was Paul Henry. “Can you and Valerie come down to the station, please? We have some questions for you.”

“Have you found her?” Kayla asked.

“No,” he said. “We checked at the airport and the Steamship first thing this morning. No one saw Ms. Riley leaving the island.”

“Well, then, what kind of questions do you have?” Kayla said. “Can’t you ask them over the phone? My family…” Jennifer, Cassidy B. and Luke were huddled together like orphaned immigrants, all three of them staring at her with Raoul’s wide brown eyes. “My family needs me at home right now.”

“And we need you at the station,” Paul said. “I suggest you and Valerie cooperate. It’ll be easier for all involved.”

Kayla’s eyelids drooped; she was exhausted. She wasn’t sure she could make herself get back in the car and drive into town to the police station, but what choice did she have?

Kayla hung up and turned to the table. “They want us to answer more questions,” she said to Val. “Let’s go.

Let’s get this over with.”

When they got in the car, Kayla said, “You’d better tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You know plenty,” Kayla said. “You know much more than you told me last night.”

“John is angry,” Val said.

“About Jacob?”

“Yes, about Jacob.” She fluttered her hand in such a way that made Kayla notice she had removed her huge diamond ring and her wedding band. “I’m leaving him. I told him this morning. He said if I left, he’d go to the police, and I guess he has.” Val twisted her gold chains so fiercely, Kayla was amazed they didn’t break.

“I saw John at the airport,” Kayla said. “About half an hour ago.”

“What was he doing at the airport?” Val said. “God, let’s hope he was leaving.”

“The question is, what was I doing at the airport? The answer is, I was dropping off Lindsey Allerton, Antoinette’s daughter.”

“That’s right. Raoul told us you spent the day with the daughter. What’s she like?”

“She’s like Antoinette.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning… ” Kayla looked out the window at a young blond woman pushing a jog stroller. Kayla saw the same woman jogging with her baby every single day and every single day the woman made Kayla feel fat and unmotivated. “Meaning she’s thin, beautiful, and articulate. She’s as confused as the rest of us.”

“I bet,” Val said.

Kayla took a deep breath and looked at her friend. “So you’ve known about Theo and Antoinette since last week. You knew about the baby. And you didn’t tell me.”

“It was told to me under the strictest confidence, Kayla. Not only as Antoinette’s friend, but as her lawyer. Please don’t get sensitive about it.”

“If I didn’t get sensitive about this, I’d be cold-blooded.”

“Antoinette was dead set against your knowing about Theo or the baby. She said she was going to break it off with Theo before school started, she was going to get an abortion and hope the whole thing blew over.”

“How considerate of her,” Kayla said. “Breaking it off before school began so that Theo could have a normal senior year. I mean, what was she thinking?”

“It was about sex,” Val said.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Kayla said. She wasn’t ready to imagine one of her children as a lover-and yet now she was forced to. “Why did Antoinette let herself get pregnant?”

“Yeah,” Val said. “You’d think she’d know better.”

“Did she disappear on purpose?” Kayla asked. “Did she pull a Houdini?”

“I don’t know, Kayla,” Val said.

“Why did she want a new will? Do you think she was planning on killing herself? Think back, Val, think back to the beginning. That first Night Swimmers. She was suicidal then.”

“She told me she wanted to protect her assets. Which, with her daughter showing up, wasn’t a bad idea. Obviously, if I knew more than that, I would tell you.”

“Obviously you’ve kept a lot from me already,” Kayla said. “And now we have your husband after us.”

“John’s also angry because I advised Antoinette to pull her money.”

“What do you mean “pull her money’?”

“Pull it out of his account. His care. I suggested that she transfer her assets to another broker. Now John wants to make it look like I killed her for her money because I’m the only one who knows where she put it. Except he has no evidence. And nobody likes him, especially not the guys at the police station.”

The streets were crowded, and Kayla sat at the corner of India and Centre waiting for traffic to pass. “Where did Antoinette put her money?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Val, please.”

“Abroad somewhere. That’s really all I can say.”

“Abroad, like Switzerland?”

“Oh, God,” Val said, lurching forward. “There’s his car.”

Kayla looked where Val was pointing. John Gluckstem’s black Jaguar cruised by with Lindsey Allerton in the passenger seat. Of course.

“Shit,” Kayla said. “Do you know who that is in his car, Val? That’s Antoinette’s daughter.”

“Where?”

“In the front seat of his fucking car!” Kayla said. Fear passed through her like a cold wind. “He must have convinced her to go to the police after all. Shit. She knows about Theo because she was with me when I found him at Great Point and he said some things. So you can bet John knows now about Theo and the baby. Let’s ditch Paul Henry, Val. Let’s catch the fast boat to Hyannis and have dinner at Chili’s instead.”

Val craned her neck. “I want to see the daughter! Follow them, Kayla. There they go. They’re taking a right onto Federal.”

“I’m serious, Val. Maybe we should leave the island.”

“I can’t believe I missed her,” Val said.

Kayla turned onto Chestnut Street. Miraculously, there was a parking spot across from the police station.

“What do you think they told the police?” Kayla said. “Do you think they told them everything?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Val said.

Kayla had lived on Nantucket for nearly twenty years, and she was still discovering things. For example, the police station had a holding cell and an interrogation room. She’d heard about the holding cell years ago-one of Raoul’s drunk friends spent the night there-but she’d forgotten about its existence. The interrogation room was a complete surprise to her. After Kayla and Val walked into the station and announced their arrival to the officer sitting behind glass, Paul Henry materialized from behind a heavy door.

“We’re going to question you one at a time,” Paul Henry said. “Valerie, why not you first? Follow me to the interrogation room.”

Kayla watched Val step through the door and disappear down a dark hallway.

“You can have a seat, ma’am,” the officer behind glass said to Kayla.

There was a metal couch with mustard yellow vinyl cushions and a small table that had three magazines on it: Reader’s Digest. Kayla came into the police station exactly once a year to get a beach sticker for her car, and never once had she noticed how ugly it was.

Kayla plopped onto the sofa and leaned her head back against the wall. At least it was air-conditioned. She closed her eyes, opened them, pitched forward and scanned the front of the Reader’s Digests. Then she leaned back again. She searched through her purse for her Ativan, but she couldn’t find them. In the car. She considered going out and looking for them-she liked the calm they brought her, and if she was going to sit in the interrogation room, she wanted to be calm. But then her fingers found the keys to Theo’s Jeep, and next, the sandwich bag that held the pregnancy test. Kayla dropped her purse, closed her eyes. She was exhausted.

She woke up drooling. The officer behind glass paid her no attention; he was typing, and when a voice broke the static of the police scanner, he held his head alert but still, like a cat stalking a bird, and when the call proved to be uninteresting, he resumed his typing. Kayla checked the clock: Val had been in there forty minutes. Paul Henry must have been giving her a hard time. Antoinette disappearing was a bad development for Val-with a new will and a soon-to-be ex-husband out to nail her. Who knew what the police would think?

Kayla tapped on the glass of the reception window. The same cat-and-bird reaction; the typing stopped.

“Yes?”

“How long do you think they’ll be?” she asked. “I have a husband and four children at home waiting for me to feed them.”

The officer scowled. Kayla thought of Officer Johnny Love, a kid not much older than Theo, playing policeman. She longed for him.

“I have no idea, ma’am.”

“May I please use your-” Her question was cut off when the heavy door opened and out came Val, Paul Henry, and the offensive detective. Val was staring resolutely at the floor, her arms crossed in front of her.

“Are you okay?” Kayla said. “What happened in there?”

“We’re ready for you, Kayla,” Paul Henry said.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for you,” she responded.

Val raised her eyes. “You might want to get a lawyer.”

“You are my lawyer.”

“Not anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Val headed for the door. “I’ll see you later, Kayla,” she said.

Kayla trailed Paul Henry down the dim hallway past the holding cell, which looked like any jail cell-bars, cot, sink-and a couple of offices with desks and filing cabinets. And then, the interrogation room. A sign on the door said PRIVATE. Inside was a wooden table, four folding chairs, a water cooler, and perhaps to remind them that they were on Nantucket Island, one of the most charming locations in all the world, there was a poster of a Beetle Cat with a green sail breezing around Brant Point lighthouse. Kayla was thinking of Val. She felt bruised somehow by what Val had said. Val wasn’t her lawyer anymore? Why not? And Val had left the station. How was she getting home? Taxi? Kayla wasn’t even sure where Val considered home. Now that Val had left John, was she living with Jacob? Kayla wanted to run out onto the street after her friend, but there was little hope of that now that she was in the interrogation room. Kayla wondered if the door was locked.

Detective Simpson sat at the table with a yellow legal pad that was covered with scribblings. “Sit down,” he said. Paul Henry paced around by Kayla’s right, in the area near the door, as though waiting for a chance to escape. She couldn’t blame him.

“We’ve taken three statements so far,” the detective said. “One from Valerie Gluckstern, one from John Gluckstern and one from Lindsey Allerton, birth daughter of Antoinette Riley.”

Kayla shook her head. “John Gluckstern and Lindsey Allerton have nothing to do with this. I don’t see how statements from them would have any relevance.”

“They have relevance,” the detective said. “Because what we’re interested in here is motive.”

“Motive?” Kayla said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She had known Paul Henry for years, and his idiosyncrasies-his crew cut, his cardigans, his quiet intensity-were accepted by all Nantucketers. He and Raoul were in Rotary together; he gave school assemblies on common-sense safety. Kayla didn’t exactly like him, but she cared about him. This new guy, the detective, was a stranger, and his arrogance pissed Kayla off. He was just a kid they imported from the mainland and gave a title: detective. Now here he was throwing around words like motive. “I don’t feel like playing games. My children are at home waiting for dinner. Why don’t you tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know and then I’ll go home and you two can get back to the business of finding Antoinette?”

The detective sniffed. “Your children are at home?”

“Yes.”

“Your son Theo. He’s at home?”

Kayla paused. So they knew. Okay, what did she expect? They knew about the affair, and maybe they thought he was the one who ransacked Antoinette’s cottage.

“He was at home when I left.”

The detective flipped a sheet on his yellow pad. Kayla saw him write her name and underline it. Then he looked at her with an annoyingly casual expression, as though he was surprised to find her sitting there.

“And you’re aware, I assume, that your son Theo was having a sexual relationship with Ms. Riley.”

Kayla nodded.

“And you’re aware that Ms. Riley is pregnant by your son?”

Kayla glanced at Paul Henry, her mind swirling with the furious tornado of the Nantucket rumor mill and how it damaged lives. Theo would be starting his senior year in three days, and every single kid would know.

“Can you prove she was pregnant by my son?” she said. “I mean, if she’s missing…”

“We know you found a positive pregnancy test in Antoinette’s house last night,” Paul Henry said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t find a pregnancy test in Ms. Riley’s house last night?” the detective asked.

“No.”

“Kayla,” Paul Henry said. “We know you took it. The woman’s daughter told us you showed her the pregnancy test.”

“You removed a positive pregnancy test from Ms. Riley’s house last night,” the detective said. “Even after we ordered you not to touch anything.”

Kayla pointed at the detective. “You have no right to talk to me like that.”

“So you’re going on record saying that you did not remove evidence from a crime scene?”

Kayla nudged her purse with her foot and then she pulled out the sandwich bag. She waved it in the detective’s face-the pregnancy test jiggled inside- and set it down on the table. He snatched it up.

“Do I need a lawyer?” she said.

“We believe it was your son who ransacked Ms. Riley’s cottage,” the detective said. “We could charge him with B and E right now. What you need is to start telling us the truth.”

“Paul?” she said.

“Would you like to call a lawyer?” Paul asked. “It might not be a bad idea.”

Kayla dropped her face in her hands. “Val is my lawyer.”

“Well, in that case you’re going to want to get another lawyer,” the detective said. “I guarantee it.”

The interrogation room was air-conditioned, and Kayla was chilly in her sundress. She rubbed her arms. Val was in trouble, then, and that was why she’d acted so strangely. “You have the pregnancy test,” Kayla said. “Are there any other questions?”

“Let’s get back to the events of last night,” Paul said. “Tell us again about Night Swimmers. What kind of group is this, exactly?”

“It’s not a group,” Kayla said. “It’s just three women. Myself, Val, and Antoinette. It’s a tradition we have, swimming at Great Point on the Friday of Labor Day weekend.”

“You drink champagne and swim in the nude,” the detective said. “You understand that’s a bit unusual? Why not wear bathing suits like other people? Does this… Night Swimmers group include any rituals of a sexual nature? Perhaps you’re more than just old friends?”

Paul Henry cleared his throat and turned away. Kayla sneered at the detective, although she wasn’t surprised. Men would always think what they wanted about what women did when they were alone.

“We drink a little champagne, we eat lobsters, and we swim. That’s all there is to it. And last night, at some point, Antoinette went into the water and didn’t surface. I called the police from the Wauwinet gatehouse, and you responded. That’s the whole story.”

“Let’s talk about when you called the police,” Paul Henry said. “You reached the pay phone and you called 911 right away? First thing?”

“Yes.” As soon as Kayla said this she remembered that she’d called Raoul first. Before she could correct herself, the detective stood up.

“You’re lying again,” he said. “We checked that pay phone this morning. There were three phone calls placed successively to your house before you called 911.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I called my house first.”

“You called three times,” the detective said.

“I wanted to reach my husband.”

“You wanted to reach your husband even though your best friend was drowning?” the detective said. “Why not call 911 first and then call your husband? That’s the order that makes sense to me.”

“I was scared. I panicked. I wanted to talk to Raoul.”

“Those minutes you wasted could have cost Ms. Riley her life.”

“It wasn’t very long,” Kayla said.

The detective shuffled through his papers. “Four minutes. Might not seem like a lot of time to you, but I assure you it was a long time for Ms. Riley.”

“I’m sorry,” Kayla said. “I was under a lot of stress, I’d been drinking, and I did what I did. I don’t know what else I can tell you. My intention was to get help for Antoinette.”

Both Paul Henry and the detective were quiet. The detective sat back down.

“At what point did you throw the champagne glasses into the water?” he asked.

“Oh, God,” Kayla said. “I see where this is headed-”

“Where is it headed, Ms. Montero?” the detective said.

“Why are you badgering me?” Kayla said. “Why are you making it seem like I am somehow to blame? What did John Gluckstern tell you? He has it in for us, you know. He’s angry at his wife and so whatever he told you has a very unfair slant. But why would you believe him? He wasn’t even there. If I were you, I’d forget everything John Gluckstern told you. It was all lies.”

“What John told us is none of your business,” Paul said. “It’s our business, which we will check out in due course.”

“Ms. Riley was sleeping with your son,” the detective said. “I would guess that upset you pretty badly.”

“It would have upset me had I known. But I didn’t find out about Antoinette and Theo until today.”

“Kayla, please,” Paul Henry said.

“What?”

“You’re going on record saying that you had no idea-no hint or clue-that your son was having a relationship with Ms. Riley until today,” the detective said.

“That’s right.”

“And today, when you found out, who told you?”

“Theo told me.”

“Your son Theo told you?”

“Yes, he did.”

“When did he tell you?”

“This afternoon, at about two o’clock.”

“And that was the first you’d heard of it?”

“Yes.”

The detective removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “At what point did you throw the champagne glasses into the water?”

“When I got back from using the phone.”

“And why did you throw them in the water?”

“I already said I was scared. I panicked.”

“Is it true that when Ms. Gluckstern asked why you threw the glasses you said you were “destroying the evidence’?”

“I can’t remember what I said.”

“Ms. Gluckstern told us that you said you were “destroying the evidence.’ I wonder what you meant by that.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I was nervous that we’d been drinking.”

“Yes,” the detective said. “Judging from that bottle of champagne, it would seem the three of you drank quite a lot. How much would you say Ms. Riley had before she went swimming?”

“Two glasses.”

“Two glasses? A huge bottle like that, and she only had two glasses?”

“That’s right.”

“Ms. Gluckstern suggested that it might have been more like four or five glasses.”

“Well, maybe. I wasn’t counting.”

“Who poured the champagne?”

Kayla shifted in her seat. She hated the interrogation room. The atmosphere was stifling, and she couldn’t think. There was nothing to focus on except for the poster of the Beetle Cat, and the water cooler, which had those cone-shaped paper cups that looked like little dunce caps.

“May I have some water?” she said.

Paul Henry nodded; the detective huffed with impatience. Kayla filled one cup, drank it down, filled it again and drank it more slowly while she stared at the poster of the Beetle Cat. Who had poured the champagne? She tried to jump a step ahead of them. Why were they asking? Her eyelids felt heavy. By now Raoul would have done something about dinner, ordered a pizza or something. She wondered if he would wake Theo. She wondered if Theo would ever be able to sit and eat dinner with their family again. She crumpled the cup and returned to her seat.

“Val and I poured the champagne,” she said. “Antoinette may have poured some for herself, I guess. We all poured it. And there was a lot of spillage, too. I mean, we didn’t come close to consuming that whole bottle. We’re only three people.”

The detective looked at her. “So you poured Ms. Riley’s champagne?”

“Some of it.”

The detective scribbled something down on his legal pad and ended his sentence with two exclamation points, which he wrote with a flourish-dash, dot, dash, dot. Then he stood up.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. He left the interrogation room, closing the door behind him.

Kayla leaned back in the folding chair. “Paul, what’s going on?”

Paul Henry pinched his lips together and shook his head. Then he drew a breath as if he were going to explain all the secrets of the world to her, but he let the breath go and said, “You need to do a better job picking your friends, Kayla.”

It was a strange thing to say. Stranger still because what Kayla couldn’t possibly explain to Paul Henry was that she had never picked Val and Antoinette as friends; rather, they’d been brought together in the house on Hooper Farm Road by some larger force- God, fate, the powers that ruled. And Kayla knew from the very first Night Swimmers that she and Val and Antoinette would be lifelong friends. She knew it the way some people knew about love. “I’m furious at Antoinette, Paul, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance. And neither did Val. I feel like this clown-” she nodded at the door “-wants to hold us responsible.”

“John Gluckstern…” he said.

“I can’t believe you’re listening to John Gluckstern,” Kayla said. “He’s waging a vendetta against his wife. But that’s between John and Val. It has nothing to do with me.”

“We’ve received conflicting information,” Paul said.

“Because John is lying,” Kayla said.

Before Paul could respond, the door swung open and the detective was back. He looked between Paul Henry and Kayla, frowning. Then he chuckled under his breath like a frat boy about to pull a prank. Kayla wanted to slap him. He sat back down across from her, and with the slow, deliberate movements of a magician, he produced a brown pill bottle from his shirt pocket. Kayla thought immediately of the pills in Antoinette’s medicine cabinet until he said, “Tell me, do these belong to you?” He pushed the bottle toward her. Her Ativan.

“Where did you get these?” she said. She looked down at her feet where her purse lay. The pregnancy test had been in there, and so, she assumed, was the Ativan. Or in her car. Had he gone out to her car?

“Ms. Gluckstern gave them to us. She said she found them on the beach up at Great Point last night. Your prescription for Ativan, a heavy-duty sedative.” The detective put his hands on the back of his folding chair and leaned toward her. “Ms. Gluckstern gave us reason to believe that you slipped one of the sedatives into Ms. Riley’s champagne. She said you were pouring the champagne. She said you threw the glasses in the water to destroy the evidence. She also told us that you mentioned fleeing the island this evening instead of coming to talk to us. And she pointed out that you have a strong motive-your son’s relationship with Ms. Riley. I don’t know how much more plainly I can put it, Mrs. Montero. We suspect foul play on your part.”

“Foul play on my part?” Kayla tried to get her mind around what this wicked man was telling her. Val had given her pills to the police? She’d twisted the facts so that Kayla looked like a suspect?

“Let’s not forget that you put off calling 911,” the detective said. “Why not allow a few extra minutes to be sure that Ms. Riley was swept out to sea?”

Kayla couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Kayla?” Paul Henry said.

Kayla closed her eyes. You need to do a better job picking your friends. First Antoinette, and now Val.

“Val lied to you,” Kayla said. “She knows I only found out about my son and Antoinette today.”

“She said you made a comment just before Ms. Riley entered the water. Accusing Ms. Riley of an affair. And Lindsey Allerton’s statement corroborated this. She said you told her that you’d accused her mother of an affair.”

Kayla wasn’t sure how to proceed. Half of her wanted to deny everything. But this was so unfair, so twisted, that she wanted to set the record straight. “I accused Antoinette of having an affair with my husband, not my son.”

“You accused her of sleeping with Raoul?” Paul asked.

“Accuse is a strong word,” Kayla said.

“So now we have a husband and a son sleeping with the same woman,” the detective said. “This is better than I thought.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective,” Kayla said venomously. “But there’s nothing going on between Raoul and Antoinette.”

“Then why did you accuse her?” Paul asked.

“I was drinking,” Kayla said. She could have gone on to explain that she sensed something wrong when she’d looked at Antoinette. But she’d said Raoul’s name-well, because that was what came to mind. Not Theo. Never Theo. She drilled her finger into the table. “I had nothing to do with Antoinette disappearing. Val is trying to deflect blame off herself because she’s afraid you’ll believe whatever her husband told you. She’s lying.”

“Now everyone’s lying,” the detective said. “You already lied to us about the pregnancy test and the phone calls. There’s no reason for me to believe you over Ms. Gluckstern. She was very up front with us. Cooperative.”

“Cooperative about framing me,” Kayla said. “I can’t believe this. Am I under arrest?”

“Did you put a sedative in Ms. Riley’s champagne?” the detective said.

“No,” she said. “I had them out because I needed one. I took one. I must have left them lying around.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“I don’t care if you believe me,” Kayla said. “It’s the truth. I had nothing to do with Antoinette disappearing.” An anger grew in her that was so vile and so dangerous that she felt capable of killing Antoinette, Valerie, and the detective. “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” Paul Henry said. “We’re not sure what to think. The detective believes Ms. Riley is in that water, although I’m not convinced. But we have to consider every possibility.”

The detective rapped the bottle of Ativan on the table. “And one possibility is that you took advantage of this yearly nude champagne-drinking, lobster-eating adventure of yours to make your friend disappear. After all, she was sleeping with your son! You knew Ms. Riley would be drinking, you knew she would be swimming in risky waters in the dark. You knew everyone would believe that she simply got swept away. But some of us are on to you, Mrs. Montero. Your friend Ms. Gluckstern is on to you, and I am on to you.” He smiled. “If we do find Ms. Riley’s body in that water, we’ll come after you first. And since she was pregnant, well, then there’s that life to consider as well.”

That life. The baby’s life.

Paul Henry guided Kayla down the dim hallway by the arm, and Kayla thought for a minute that he was going to throw her into the holding cell, but instead, he led her to the waiting room, which glowed like a laboratory under the fluorescent lights. Kayla was dizzy with the accusations; her vision was splotchy. She had to go to the bathroom.

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she said.

They stood in the waiting room. The officer behind glass pecked away at his typewriter, and Paul lowered his voice. “We’ll call you if we find her,” he said.

“Can’t you do anything else?” Kayla asked. “Check her bank account or something? Because for all we know, Antoinette could have disappeared of her own volition. She had reasons, Paul. Her daughter arriving today, the pregnancy. Can’t you make an effort to look for her?”

“She hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours,” Paul said. “We’re not conducting a missing persons yet; we’re conducting a recovery mission. We have to check with die coast guard, and the fire department, see what they think.”

“What does it matter? You said yourself that you don’t think she’s in the water.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Paul Henry said, and Kayla saw he was telling the truth. Furthermore, she agreed with him. She didn’t know what to think, either.

“What about Theo?” Kayla said. “He’s supposed to start school on Tuesday.”

“He should go to school,” Paul said. “Unless we find reason to tell you otherwise.” Paul ran a hand across the top of his crew cut. “I’m sorry about Detective Simpson. He’s new here.”

“He’s appalling. I hate him. He’s accusing me of terrible things.”

“But you have to admit, Kayla, it doesn’t look good.”

“This is ridiculous, Paul. Val lied to you. She set me up. Please tell me you see through this. First, John comes in here accusing Val, then Val comes in accusing me.”

“Val was very convincing.” Paul said. “She had physical evidence. Being an attorney didn’t hurt, either.”

“Attorneys lie all the time,” Kayla said.

“And the girl,” Paul said. “What the girl said didn’t help your case.”

“Lindsey set foot on Nantucket for the first time this morning,” Kayla said. “She doesn’t know her ass from Altar Rock.”

Paul patted Kayla on the back. “Just go home,” he said. “Get your kids their dinner.”

Outside, the Labor Day crowds filled the streets. A line was forming at the Dreamland Theater. Kayla stumbled up Chestnut to Visitor Services, where she used the public rest room. She splashed water on her face and dried off with a paper towel. She stared in the smudged mirror, blind, deaf, dumb with the news: Antoinette and Val had both betrayed her. And Kayla had loved them without reserve or exception, like sisters.

So now what? Go home, like Paul Henry said? Get the kids their dinner?

No. Find Val.

There was no way Val had returned to Kayla’s house-Jacob or no Jacob-and so Kayla drove out Pleasant Street toward Val’s house. She slowed down as she approached because the last person she wanted to see was John Gluckstern, especially if he had Lindsey Allerton with him. But thankfully the only car in the driveway was Val’s BMW-with the trunk flipped open. Kayla pulled into the driveway.

Val rushed out of the house carrying clothes on hangers-her expensive blouses, her linen pants. When she saw the Trooper, she hugged the clothes to her body. Kayla watched her lips clamp shut, her jaw lock. Val laid the clothes over the suitcases in the trunk. Without a word, Kayla walked past her into the house.

Val’s house was designer perfect; it was the kind of house featured in magazines, a house no one actually lived in. In the brick entryway was a pine table with a lightship basket meant for mail and keys- empty. A gilt-framed mirror hung over the table. In the mirror, Kayla watched Val enter the house behind her.

Val stepped around Kayla and headed down the hallway into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet door and brought down some cookbooks.

“I have to get out of here,” Val said. “Before John gets home.”

“You know why I came?” Kayla asked.

“Actually, I have no idea. This isn’t a good time.”

Kayla peered into the living room-white sofa and love seat, a glass coffee table with a glass vase of pink peonies and Robert Gambee’s book of Nantucket photographs. White furniture-what Kayla wouldn’t give to be able to have even one piece of white furniture in her house. But this white furniture gave the room a cold, sterile feel, like a hospital. Val and John owned good, valuable Nantucket art-a glorious Illya Kagan hung over the sofa-the view from Monomoy, from the exact spot where Raoul was building the Ting house.

“We’ve known each other twenty years,” Kayla said. “That’s a long time to be friends.”

“Kayla?”

Kayla turned to look at Val, loaded down with cookbooks-Martha Stewart, Sarah Leah Chase.

“What?”

“You have to leave. I’m leaving. I told you this, remember? Moving out? Now isn’t a good time.”

“Right,” Kayla said. She reached for Val’s load. “Let me help you with those.”

Val seemed relieved. “Thank you.”

Kayla threw the books to the floor. They made a tremendous crashing noise; the gilt-framed mirror shimmied on the wall. “You gave the police my sedatives,” Kayla said. “You made them think I drugged Antoinette.”

Val knelt and stacked the books primly, like a librarian. “The police have their own ideas about things.”

“An idea you put into their heads,” Kayla said. “You gave them my pills. Why did you do that?”

“I had no choice,” Val said. Avoiding Kayla’s eyes, she left the house. She threw the books into the trunk. That was it. Val opened the car door. She was going to leave.

Kayla raced outside. “What do you mean you had no choice? That’s outlandish! Of course you had a choice. A choice between telling the truth and lying.”

“I didn’t lie.” Val pointed a finger in Kayla’s face. “I did not, technically, lie.”

“You told them I accused Antoinette of sleeping with Theo.”

“I told them you accused Antoinette of an affair. Those were my words.”

“But I didn’t know about Antoinette and Theo,” Kayla said. “They’re using that as my motive.”

“I know,” Val said.

Kayla threw her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this. You turned me in to the police.”

“I did what I had to do, Kayla, okay? John made this whole huge case about how I murdered Antoinette for her money.”

“But he doesn’t have any evidence,” Kayla said.

“That’s right,” Val said. “As I was sitting there, I realized that none of the evidence points to me. It all points to you. But that’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for that.”

“You gave them my pills.” Kayla closed her eyes. She felt an old sense of hurt-the kind of hurt she hadn’t felt since the playground. “Why would you do that to me?”

“Because you can handle it, Kayla,” Val said. “It seems pretty bad today, but you know as well as I do that you can survive these accusations. They’ll roll off you like water off a duck. But I don’t have a loving husband and children to fall back on. As you may have noticed, I’m all alone. All I have is my career, my reputation. I’m an attorney, Kayla. If my name is even whispered in connection with this, I’ll lose all my business.”

“What about my reputation?” Kayla said. “What about my life?”

“You’re a housewife, Kayla,” Val said. “I don’t mean that as an insult. But let’s face it, if you get blamed for this, no one will even notice.”

“That may be,” Kayla said. “But I had nothing more to do with Antoinette disappearing than you did.”

“You upset her,” Val said. “What you said about Raoul upset her.”

“I didn’t put a sedative in her drink,” Kayla said. “I didn’t know about her and Theo.”

“But you can’t prove it,” Val said. “Unfortunately.”

“So that’s it, then? You screwed me over because I’m a dinky unimportant housewife.”

Val shook her head. “I knew you would blow this out of proportion.”

“Out of proportion? They suspect me of murder because of what you said.”

“You’re being very dramatic.”

Again, dramatic. Kayla felt like she was going to cry, but she didn’t want Val to have the satisfaction. Dramatic Kayla. Sensitive Kayla. Housewife Kayla. All these years she’d stood up for Val, protected Val from her real reputation as a bitch, a viper, someone other women talked about in the most unflattering ways. Now Kayla felt like telling her about every petty insult ever directed at her. But Val wouldn’t believe it. Val thought she was beyond reproach. “How do I know you didn’t poison Antoinette yourself? To get control of her money? Maybe John is right.”

“The police don’t seem to think so.”

“Why would you do something like this to me? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends.”

“Friends don’t treat each other this way,” Kayla said.

“Of course they do, Kayla,” Val said. She put one of her gold chains into her mouth and sucked on it like a child would. “Friends disappoint and fall short of expectations every day. Now, maybe you have a different idea of friendship. Maybe your idea of friendship is what we do up at Great Point-hold hands, walk in a circle, bare our souls. Do you ever wonder why we only get together like that once a year? Because that’s all we can handle. If we shared and gave and loved that much every day, we’d be exhausted, drained, and sick of each other. That’s why Night Swimmers is only one day of the year. The rest of the days we have to live our own lives and protect our own interests. That’s real life. This, Kayla, this is real life.” Val held out her arms to indicate her house, her perfectly trimmed shrubs, her green lawn. Polished on the outside, rotten on the inside, Kayla thought. Then in a series of quick, clean movements, like someone folding up a penknife, Val tucked herself into the car, clicked the door shut, and whooshed out onto the street. Drove away.

Kayla stood in the driveway. It was starting to get dark; between the trees across the street, the sky was streaked pink and purple. Did friends betray each other every day? Did they turn each other in to the police? Did they sleep with each other’s sons? Did they shatter dreams, destroy happiness? Her friends, yes. Kayla touched her cheek as if she’d been slapped.

At home, Kayla found Raoul and Jacob still at the dining table. They hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights; they were two shadowy figures, drinking vodka now. The room smelled of peanuts.

“How did it go?” Raoul said.

“Where are the kids?”

“Theo’s still asleep. I gave Jennifer money, and she walked with Cass and Luke to the Clam Shack.”

Kayla felt feverish. She looked at Jacob. “You’re still here.”

“Val was planning on hashing things out with her hubby,” Jacob said. “Not a scene I wanted to walk in on.”

“Kayla, what happened with the police?” Raoul asked. His diction was thick and deliberate; it sounded like he’d had too much to drink.

Kayla looked out the sliding glass doors. Theo’s Jeep was gone-still up at Great Point. She listened to die ice clink in Raoul’s and Jacob’s glasses, she listened to their molars grind up peanuts. She turned on the kitchen light and this startled them both. Raoul looked at her quizzically with his golden brown eyes. Eyes that, it had always seemed to Kayla, were flooded with sunlight. He was supposed to be her ally, her last resort, her safe place. And yet he’d betrayed her, too. He’d never said a word.

“Jacob?” Kayla said. “Are you on your way home?”

Jacob emptied his drink into his mouth, crunched the ice cubes, and stood up. “Actually, yeah. I was just going.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can you give me a ride up to Great Point? I have to get Theo’s Jeep. We left it there. God knows what the police will do if they find it.”

“It can wait until morning,” Raoul said.

“No, Raoul,” Kayla said “It can’t.”

“I’ll take you,” Jacob said, “It’s no problem.”

“But it’s dark,” Raoul said. “You’re not going up to Great Point in the dark. Not after last night.”

“I’m getting the Jeep,” she said.

“Okay, fine, then I’ll take you,” Raoul said.

“You’ve been drinking,” Kayla said.

“So has Jacob.”

“It’s on Jacob’s way home,” Kayla said, although Great Point was so out of the way that this could barely be counted as true.

“Relax, man,” Jacob said. “It’s no problem.”

Raoul stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Kayla’s heart ached with how much she loved him, and with how sorely he’d disappointed her. The luckiest man she’d ever known, until tonight.

Her third trip to Great Point in twenty-four hours was with Jacob Anderson in his 1991 Bronco that smelled of marijuana. Kayla hadn’t smoked dope since Theo and Jennifer were small children, but she thought of smoking now with longing, especially since her Ativan was gone, especially since she was steeping in her anger.

Her semi-oldies station was on the radio, continuing with the countdown (“Uncle Albert,” “Baba O’Reilly”) and Jacob whistled along. He wasn’t into conversation, and that was fine with her. There weren’t any safe topics tonight, anyway.

When he turned onto Polpis Road, Kayla said, “Do you have a joint?”

He glanced at her. The moon was full, and trees cast shadows on the road.

“Sure.” He flipped open the ashtray and produced a fresh joint. “I didn’t know you smoked. Raoul, he’s so straight…”

“We have four children,” Kayla said. “That’s why he’s straight.”

“Yeah. But you?”

“Ask Val sometime about my wilder days.”

Jacob pressed the cigarette lighter to the tip of the joint. The paper hissed and crinkled as it caught. He inhaled deeply and after he let the smoke go, he held the joint out to her and said, “I always knew there was a wild woman in you somewhere, Kayla.”

She smoked the joint down without responding. What did he mean by that? She concentrated on the dope, the fresh green smell, the promise of it in her lungs. Immediately her head felt lighter, like a balloon. Luke’s purple balloon. She laughed, and it felt wonderful.

They passed the turn for Antoinette’s driveway, but Jacob didn’t slow down or look. Antoinette’s disappearance meant nothing to him except a day off work, a little excitement, his straight boss’s family involved in a small-time scandal. Kayla peered into the dark woods surrounding Antoinette’s driveway and she wondered if they had posted a policeman there for the night. Did the town have that kind of extra staffing? That much money? Did anyone at the police station care except for Detective Simpson? No, she guessed that Officer Johnny Love had gone home at the end of his shift with no one to replace him, and now Antoinette’s house was dark and unprotected.

“Turn around,” Kayla said.

“I thought you wanted to go to Great Point,” Jacob said.

“I do,” she said. “But I want to take a detour. Is that okay with you?”

The air in the car was sweet with smoke. Jacob pulled a U-turn on the spot; the road was completely deserted.

“Where to?” he said.

Kayla directed him to Antoinette’s driveway. The house was still bound up with police tape, but it was unattended, as expected.

“I worked on this house,” Jacob said.

“That’s right,” Kayla said. The front door was closed. Kayla took down the police tape and tried the knob. Locked.

“Shit,” she said.

“You know,” Jacob said, “I remember this woman.” He eyed the front of the house as if Antoinette’s image were projected there. “She is one beautiful lady.”

Kayla sighed, pressed her hand against the wooden panel of the door. “I can’t believe they locked it. How could they lock it without a key? Do you think they found her keys? God, it would be just like the Nantucket police to lock themselves out.”

“I can get in,” Jacob said. He raced back to the Bronco and returned brandishing a T-square. “Looks like a simple measuring device-but wait and see!”

Jacob wedged the ruler into the crack. Kayla was so close to him that she could feel the muscles in his forearm tense. He was a typical man, intent on solving a physical problem. Jacob grunted and voilà-the door popped open.

“You see?” Jacob said.

“Well done,” Kayla said.

Jacob held his arm out. “After you.”

Kayla stepped into the house. Everything had been left as it was-the Norfolk pine lay on its side, dirt spilling from it like blood.

“Antoinette?” Kayla called out. “Antoinette, are you home?”

A clock ticked, moonlight polished the wood floors. Kayla tiptoed down the hall toward the bedroom; broken glass crunched under her feet. The Waterford goblets, smashed.

“Antoinette?”

Antoinette’s bed was mounded with enough black clothing for a month of funerals. The drawers of the dresser had been emptied; the Tiffany lamp on top of the dresser had a crack in its milky glass. It was Theo, Kayla reminded herself. Theo had done this.

As she stepped into the bathroom, someone grabbed her. Kayla screamed. Then she felt Jacob’s face against the back of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up. Kayla screamed again. As she struggled to free herself of Jacob’s grip, he lost his balance and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Kayla conked her head on the foot of the bed.

“Ouch!” she said. She started laughing. “You clown!”

Jacob held her around the waist. “Why did we come here?” he asked. “You don’t think Antoinette is here?”

“No,” Kayla said. “I just wanted to look around. I thought maybe if I looked around, things would start to make sense.”

“Some things don’t make any sense.” Jacob said this in the most off-handed way; it was a sentence without any thought behind it, but it rang true in Kayla’s head. Some things didn’t make any sense. Her child having sex with her best friend. Val turning Kayla in to the police. Antoinette dancing into the water.

Jacob rested his hand on the curve just above her hip. Kayla felt heat rise off her body; she was simmering, a cauldron of water ready to boil. She couldn’t find a place inside her to contain her anger-it was too wild, too chaotic. Jacob lay behind her, he growled in her ear. To be funny-but Kayla was overcome with a desire to upset the system. She recalled Val’s words from early that morning. I’d like to do something drastic, something dangerous.

“Jacob?” she said.

He squeezed her in response.

“We should go.”

They smoked the rest of the joint, and by the time they reached the Wauwinet gatehouse, Kayla was hopelessly stoned. She saw the pay phone she had used to call Raoul, then the police, and she giggled. She thought of Detective Simpson and the way his thin, bloodless lips said the words, “Foul play,” and she giggled. Jacob had a dreamy smile on his face. She wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking. She was thinking about his hand on her waist.

“You should let your tires down,” she said.

He kept driving: past the gatehouse, over the speed bumps, and out onto the path that led to the beach. “We’ll be okay,” he said. “I come out here all the time. On Sundays? Just me and my pole.” He pointed a finger at her. “My fishing pole, that is.”

They lumbered over the dunes to the ocean, and Jacob hit the gas. They flew up the beach, sand spraying from the tires. Because it was Labor Day weekend Kayla figured they might see people barbecuing or enjoying the full moon, but the beach was deserted. Maybe word had spread that someone had drowned. Kayla gazed out at the silver water, the gentle waves. It looked just as it had the night before.

“I can’t believe Antoinette is out there,” she said. “Can you believe it?”

Jacob shook his head. “Man.”

“Does Val ever talk about me, Jacob?” she asked.

“About you? What do you mean?”

“Does she ever say she thinks I’m a good friend or that she likes me, or that I’m someone she can trust?”

“She brings up your name sometimes,” Jacob said. “I mean, I know you two are friends. I knew you were friends when I started seeing her. But I can’t remember anything she’s said, like, specifically.”

Kayla popped the cigarette lighter and lit the roach, smoked it until it was nothing but a tiny piece of charred paper. She flicked it out her window.

“I think Val hates me,” she said. “She might not even realize it, but she does.”

Now it was Jacob giggling. “I don’t understand women.”

“No,” Kayla said. “Me, neither.” Because only one day earlier Kayla had ridden up this beach with her two dear friends, friends of twenty years- friends who it turned out were her enemies. She pointed at Theo’s Jeep in the distance. “There it is. Up there. Good, nothing happened to it.”

As Jacob approached Theo’s Jeep, the sand got softer, deeper. He downshifted and eased the Bronco alongside the Jeep.

“Door-to-door service,” he said.

“Thanks,” Kayla said. “I appreciate the ride, and the smoke. I needed it.”

“My pleasure, madam,” he said. He smiled at her, an incredibly gorgeous smile, and Kayla hesitated. The idea of her and Jacob together was powerful, tempting, and because of all that had happened, maybe even reasonable. Kayla had never intentionally hurt anyone in her life; the feelings she had now were so foreign she didn’t know what to make of them. The best thing, she thought, was to go home and sleep.

“Good night,” she said. She got out of the Bronco and fished Theo’s keys from her purse. She climbed into the Jeep. There was a hatchet on the passenger seat. What had Theo been doing with a hatchet?

In her rearview mirror, Kayla watched Jacob swing the Bronco in a circle. She started the Jeep and lurched forward. When she checked her mirror a moment later, Jacob had stopped. She hit her brakes; he flashed his lights. Are you okay? she thought. Then she saw his tires spin, they bit into the sand. Jacob got out of the Bronco and ran toward her.

Kayla pulled the parking brake, put down her window. “Don’t tell me.”

He grinned. “I’m stuck.”

Kayla slogged through the sand toward the Bronco. Jacob knelt by his front left tire to let out air. She started on the back tire with the key to the Jeep. The air coming out made a sharp, satisfying hiss and smelled of rubber.

Kayla closed her eyes and listened to the waves and the hiss of the air. A cool breeze swept off the water, and Kayla felt rooted to her place in the sand, like she was a heavy, old piece of driftwood. She couldn’t even think about Night Swimmers without feeling hurt and foolish-she believed in the rituals, in the magic of it. But she had believed alone, like the last kid to find out about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, the last one to realize that the adult world didn’t contain magic of any kind.

Jacob walked over to check on her progress. Kayla tugged on the leg of his jeans.

“Hey,” she said.

“How’s it coming?”

“Sit here with me a minute,” she said. A slow fear spread through her as she spoke the words. She pictured the detective pulling the bottle of Ativan from his shirt pocket. And then Paul Henry: You need to do a better job picking your friends.

Jacob plunked onto the sand next to her, and they watched the waves roll onto the beach.

“Sorry I got stuck,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Actually, it’s kind of nice out here tonight.” She took a deep breath. “So… Val’s moving in with you, then?”

Jacob rested his arms on his knees, the tire gauge dangled from his fingers. “Looks like it.”

“That’s good. You two are serious.”

“Val’s serious,” he said. “I can’t believe she left her husband.”

“John’s an asshole,” Kayla said. “He deserves to be left.”

“I guess,” Jacob said. “I mean, I was content to let things be, but Val, you know, she wanted to make the whole thing legitimate. Because she’s a lawyer and she doesn’t want to damage her reputation.” Jacob turned to her. He hadn’t shaved, and dark stubble was growing in on his chin. “I’m just a dope-smoking carpenter,” he said. “And I’m still pretty young. Do you think she expects me to marry her?”

“She might,” Kayla said.

He clenched the tire gauge in his fist. He was scared; Kayla could see it. She thought of Val giving the police her pills, letting them stack the clues against her: Ativan, champagne glasses, phone calls. And then pretending like it was no big deal, like it happened every day. Kayla thought of Raoul getting up each morning to work at the Ting house with the knowledge that Theo was sleeping with Antoinette. Her own husband knew and didn’t tell her. Kayla thought of Antoinette holding her arms in a wide circle before she pirouetted into the water. It was clear now what the circle meant-she had been telling Kayla that she was pregnant. Which of these betrayals was the worst? Kayla couldn’t decide. What was clear was that all three people knew how to deceive her.

Kayla looked at Jacob sitting inches from her. She raised her hand to touch the back of his head, but she was too afraid, and she dropped her hand into the sand. Raoul. Oh, God, Raoul. Kayla started to cry.

Jacob turned to her, his green eyes growing wide with surprise. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, Kayla, don’t cry.”

But she had been waiting to cry all day, waiting to surrender to her sadness. She sobbed into Jacob’s shoulder, and somehow Jacob’s shoulder became Jacob’s mouth, hot and searching against her own. His lips, his tongue. They kissed like a couple of hungry teenagers, Kayla’s heat rising to the surface of her skin, an aching between her thighs. Jacob reached into the front of Kayla’s sundress, and she moaned. A man other than her husband touching her breasts, fingering her, tonguing her nipples. It felt amazing. Was this why people broke the rules, turned the world upside down-because it felt this good, this electric, because it made them feel this alive?

Kayla fumbled with the buttons of Jacob’s jeans. She tore her mouth away from his so that she could see what she was doing. His erection strained through his jeans, long and hard and perfect, and although Kayla wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything that was bad for her-more than a cold beer at the end of the day, more than a cigarette when she was drunk with her girlfriends in a smoky bar, more than hot, liquid butter on her popcorn- although she wanted this thing to happen, she stopped. Rolled away from him.

Raoul. No, thinking about Raoul wasn’t good enough. Her children: Theo, Jennifer, Cassidy B., Luke. She thought about her children.

“I can’t,” she said.

She noticed that he’d torn one of the spaghetti straps of her sundress, and she fruitlessly tried to secure it back into place. Jacob stared at her, confused. Then, slowly, he removed his T-shirt.

“I have wanted you for so long,” he said. “You know that, right?”

Kayla nodded, mute with terror over what she’d set in motion. She thought of him touching her lip the day before at the Tings’.

“Just let me kiss you again,” Jacob said. “I will die if I don’t kiss you one more time.”

It flashed through Kayla’s mind that Jacob knew just how to trick her, too. Because who could turn in the face of those words? Who could resist Jacob, bare-chested, leaning over her for just one more kiss? His curly head blocked the moon as he came toward her. The moon was her only witness. They started kissing again with even more heat, and Kayla surrendered. She undid Jacob’s jeans and guided him inside her.

As they made love, Kayla’s world became nothing more than strokes and skin and lips and tongues. She was nobody’s wife, nobody’s mother, nobody’s friend. Kayla closed her eyes and listened to the water surge and recede, surge and recede. The endless repetition of waves that had carried Antoinette away was now carrying Kayla away.

So this, Kayla thought, this was drowning.