I clink his glass. “To the game.”
He takes a sip, makes a face. “I hate Mo?t.”
“Me, too.”
We eat at the dining table, him on one side, me on the other. As he eats, he tugs at his collar. He breaks a sweat. “I feel very . . . peculiar.” He coughs. “All of a sudden.” He pushes his plate away, takes another gulp of champagne.
“You’ve hardly touched your food.” I turn mine over on the plate.
“Yes.” He gags, pushes his chair from the table so it scrapes the floor. Coughs. “Did you”—cough—“poison my dinner?”
“Of course not.” I take a big scoop of potatoes. “I’m eating it, too.” I stuff it in my mouth.
He grabs his champagne but his hands are shaking. The glass drops, shatters on the floor.
“Can I get you another glass?”
Our eyes meet. “The Mo?t.” He fumbles in his pockets for his phone. On the other side of the table, I hold it up.
He smiles. Sweat is dripping down his face. He coughs. “I knew you were the woman of my dreams.” He starts across the house, toward the door, toward Margo’s house. He won’t make it. And even if he does, it’s empty, hollowed out, midrenovation. His knees are starting to buckle. I finish my glass and follow him out to the courtyard. The air is crisp and cold. “You’ll go to prison.” He collapses by the fountain, coughs blood into the water.
“You’re the only person who knows I’m not Demi.” Him and Lyla, but he doesn’t know that. And I trust her. We were victims of the same game.
I sit on the edge of the fountain as he pulls himself up, sits heavily beside me.
He tugs his collar so hard, a button pops off. “What did you poison me with?”
“Flowers. From your mother’s garden.”
“Shit. She loves poetic justice.” He coughs and blood spurts down his suit. “How long do I have?”
“Too long,” I snap.
Weak, he puts his head on my lap. “Can you tell me one of your stories?” Cough. “Make it a good one.” Choke. “A real struggle.”
It takes him forever to die. I keep thinking he might survive and sue. I tell him my stories and I pet his wet hair. He’s a good sport about it. I don’t think he was ever a great fan of living.
When he does finally die, its chilling how beautiful he looks. Even dead. It’s all really just so fucking unfair.
LYLA
There is blood in the fountain turning the water an eerie rust color. I call someone to drain it.
I lead him to the fountain, at the center of the stone floor. It gurgles, desperate, like a person drowning. I stand over it, see my gray cashmere tinged dark in my reflection. “I want you to drain the fountain.”
He steps forward, almost timid. His face wavers in the murky pool. “What is that?” He reaches with his hand, dips a finger so it undulates the surface, then brings it to his nose.
“How should I know?” I cross my arms. “I just want it out.”
“It smells like blood.” He shakes the water from his hand. His tool bag slips from his shoulders. It hits the ground with a crack. The tools rattle together. The sky is blue and glazed with clouds and there is blood in the fountain and I want it out.
“I don’t know what it is.”
“This is your house, isn’t it?” He unbuttons each sleeve, rolls them slowly past his elbows. “Got a wall around it.” He nudges his chin at the walls on all sides, high walls, the kind you can’t see past.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
He snorts.
“It’s not my house, as a point of fact. It’s my mother-in-law’s house. Margo. She lives above us, see? With the pointed roof.” I indicate the tower, whittled to a point like a thorn crown. You can see it from our house. You can see it from almost anywhere.
Margo is not there. She is on a self-designed religious pilgrimage. She is finding God, but make it picturesque. She has left the upper house exactly as it was. She has left everything exactly as it was. I think she believes that once she finds Him, she will pay Him to give everything back.
“You live here.”
I could go somewhere else, start over. I think about it sometimes. But this is good for now. A future is a valuable thing. I don’t want to spend it all at once. I want to invest, save it for later.
I shrug. “Just because I live here doesn’t mean I know every little thing that happens here. It was probably an animal. There are animals everywhere in the hills.”
He grasps around the pool, then grunts, removes his arm from the water, shakes it out. Little droplets sting my flesh.
“You really think that I’ve had someone murdered, don’t you?” I perch carefully on the edge of the fountain, close enough to smell his backwater scent. “And I’ve called you here, because I know you’ll never do anything about it. Because even if you can see it, even if you can say it, you can never believe that someone you know could kill another person.”
His skin crinkles as he tries to look at me but is blinded by the sun. “I don’t know you.”
“No.” I flick the water with my index finger. “You don’t.”
* * *
?THE PLUMBER FINISHES his work and I sit on the edge of the fountain, lost in the glow, when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Oh!”
I turn and see the new tenant standing at the top of the stairs. She has coltish legs, a neat gray shirt. Her hair is tangled and flecked with paint. “Sorry.” I stand, move away from the fountain. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”
She steps toward me gingerly. “Lyla, right?” I nod. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here? With everything that’s happened?”
“Of course.” I smile. “I’m happy to have you.”
We could be friends. We could be whatever we want.
What do we want?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book literally wouldn’t exist without my editor, Jen Monroe, who provides the perfect combination of trust and encouragement.
Thank you to my agent, Sarah Bedingfield, and the team at LGR, for unending support.
To the team at Berkley: Loren Jaggers, Stephanie Felty, Fareeda Bullert, Natalie Sellars, and Candice Coote.
And special thanks to the benefits system in England, for supporting my late husband and, consequently, me. These systems save lives and are desperately needed everywhere.