I thought about Beth, the woman whose screams we’d heard. Audie’s birth mother. She was my second cousin. Given that our grandmothers were identical twins, genetically, she might as well have been a first cousin.
“Your sister had six kids,” I told Lillian. “She has six kids. Did you know that?”
Did any of them go hungry so that their siblings could eat?
“I did what I could for Ellen’s family, Sawyer. I wish to God she’d let me do more.”
“There must have been a way,” I argued.
“My sister found a way.” Lillian’s voice was flat now. Her face had lost its perfunctory, performative smile. “There was some violence in Two Arrows, years back. It left some gaps in the local…ecosystem.”
Because that wasn’t vague or anything.
“Ellie—Ellen, she filled the gaps. Anything bought or sold in that town, she has a hand in it, and she gets a piece of it.”
Anything, I thought. Like drugs. Or sex. I thought of Beth again. Or babies…
“Believe me when I say you do not want to get mixed up in my sister’s business,” Lillian told me. “Now, this is neither the time nor the place…” She trailed off. I was getting ready to remind her that she was the one who’d cornered me when I realized why she’d trailed off.
Ana Sofía Gutierrez had arrived.
Victoria’s father had told me that he knew why tonight’s party was being thrown. Did that mean that he knew Victoria was looking for the baby, or that he knew Ana was going to be here?
More importantly, how did he intend to respond?
Beside me, it took my grandmother a moment to recover her poise but not more than that. “At least she doesn’t have that man with her.”
There was little question in my mind that that man was meant to be translated to that bastard. All things considered, it was a good thing that, this time, J.D. had decided to stay away.
Across the open floor plan, Victoria began weaving her way through the crowd to greet Ana. A petite woman with dark hair and a figure only partially camouflaged by her A-line dress joined them at the bottom of the stairs. I recognized her from the Arcadia fund-raiser.
That’s Victoria’s mother. And that’s Ana, talking to Victoria and Victoria’s mother.
I didn’t realize I was walking toward them until I felt Lillian’s fingers digging into my arms.
“Don’t you dare, Sawyer Ann,” she said, her for-show smile back in place. “I put in an appearance tonight because your aunt asked me to. Public appearances matter. The situation needed smoothing over. You going over there?”
“Not smooth?” I suggested. “Or discreet?”
I restrained myself from pointing out that Lillian attending a Gutierrez party hardly seemed like enough of a statement to quell gossip about the affair.
“I was told that certain parties would not be in attendance,” my grandmother continued. She refused to give a single outward sign that she’d taken any note of Ana or the way that Victoria and her mother were leading her through the crowd.
If Victoria can get her father to talk to Ana, Ana might talk to us. I watched Victoria’s mother place a kiss on her husband’s cheek and pull him from someone who might have been a business contact, an acquaintance, or a friend.
“Far be it from me to suggest that you’re staring,” Lillian told me. “But…”
But Victor Gutierrez just saw Ana. She said something to him. He’s staring at her now. He’s taking a step forward. He’s smiling.
This was going surprisingly well—right up until the moment when Victoria’s eighty-something-year-old father placed a loving hand on Ana’s cheek and keeled over.
Dead.
awyer? Sadie-Grace? Are you guys out there? Can anyone hear me?”
“Oh my God…Campbell, over here!”
“Sawyer?”
“Watch out for the hole.”
“What…why are you in a hole? And where’s Sadie-Grace?”
“I told her to run. She ran.”
“From what?”
“Not from what, Campbell. From whom.”
till no word from the almighty Victoria?” Campbell readjusted her position on our dock, stretching out in the sun. “Or the White Gloves?”
Campbell had invited herself over and brought Sadie-Grace along. Lily still had enough hostess in her that she hadn’t turned either of them away. She wasn’t saying much, though. Her birthday had passed the week before with only minimal—by Taft family standards, at least—fanfare. Lily hadn’t wanted a party. Now she sat at the end of the dock, facing the lake, silent. Despite the heat, she wore a long-sleeved shirt.
“Victoria’s daddy died, Campbell,” Sadie-Grace said emphatically.
“Not entirely unreasonable that some things would be put on hold,” I added. Like White Glove initiations—or our search for Ana’s baby.
Campbell caught my gaze—and my drift. Sadie-Grace, who was standing between the two of us and Lily, gave a little twirl.
“You’re going to pirouette right off this dock,” Campbell told her.
“No, she’s not,” Lily said, without even looking back.
Campbell glanced at Lily. “Will Lily freak out if I ask if y’all have heard the news about Ana?” she asked me.
“Lily doesn’t freak out,” Sadie-Grace said loyally.
“The bob says otherwise,” Campbell replied.
Sadie-Grace put her hands on her hips. “If the bob could speak, it would speak French.”
“What about Ana?” Lily interjected, still facing the water.
“She was in Mr. Gutierrez’s will,” Campbell reported. “In a big way. There’s a trust for the other grandchildren, but he left Ana half of her father’s share of the inheritance. Directly.”
I thought back to the night on King’s Island when we’d buried and burned and shared our secrets. “Victoria said she wasn’t in her father’s will.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Campbell replied lightly, “she wasn’t. And neither was her mother. Mr. Gutierrez’s sons are supposedly charged with taking care of them both, but…”
But we’ll see how that goes.
“So Ana is set for life now.” Lily stood, her hands disappearing inside the long sleeves. She had to be burning up out here but didn’t show it. “Maybe she can pay back all of that money my father gave to her.”
I searched for some hint of emotion in her tone and came up blank.
“I talked to my grandfather,” Campbell said suddenly. “About Ana’s baby.”
“We don’t have to talk about this,” I told Lily, unsure if she was in a place to handle any more talk about Ana.
Lily turned back to look at me. “I don’t mind.”
Part of me was glad that she had gotten to the point where the mention of Ana’s name didn’t hurt her. The other part couldn’t help thinking that pain was the body’s warning system. Things hurt because they were supposed to.
That’s how you know you’re too involved.
“What did your grandfather say?” I asked Campbell, keeping an eye on Lily and my mind in the moment—and not on Nick, who’d never told me why he’d stood me up at the Gutierrez party that night.
“The great Davis Ames told me the same story he told you,” Campbell replied. “He paid Ana. She disappeared. He has no idea what happened to the baby.”
“Maybe he or she was adopted by a very nice family,” Sadie-Grace suggested, stretching one leg up until it nearly touched her ear. “With a very flexible older sister!”
She was obviously thinking of herself and baby Audie, but my mind went to a different place—and to a different older sister. Hope.
“Funny you should mention that,” I told Sadie-Grace. “My perusal of the White Gloves dossiers did yield a possibility….”
I told them about Summer—about her blond hair and brown eyes, the cancer, her date of birth.
“Was that the only possibility that jumped out at you?” Campbell asked me in a tone that suggested that she was probabl
y going to make me pay for not mentioning any of this until now.
“No,” I said, but I couldn’t bring myself to elaborate on Victoria’s other theory.
As luck would have it, I didn’t have to.
“It could be me,” Campbell stated, finally earning Lily’s complete and undiluted attention. “It’s not like my grandfather would admit it if it was.”
“You?” Sadie-Grace was almost comically wide-eyed.
“Walker was always Daddy’s favorite,” Campbell said, looking at Lily, even though it was Sadie-Grace she was responding to. “I was supposed to be Mama’s.”
“His and hers,” I said, because she’d told me that once. “Like towels.”
“And yet…” Campbell dragged out the words. “Mama and I have always been like oil and water, gotten along like a house on fire, insert conflict-laden cliché of your choice here. She adores Walker. She’s never adored me. My birthday’s almost here, and she hasn’t said a word.”
“Do you think your mama forgot your birthday?” Sadie-Grace asked, wide-eyed.
“I’m not really wondering about Mama and my birthday,” Campbell said, her voice flat.
“You’re wondering if you’re really hers.” I cut straight to the thick of it.
“Maybe I’m not,” Campbell tossed out. “Maybe I’m just my father’s daughter. It would explain some things, not least among them why Walker and I are so close in age.”
“And why your mama…” Sadie-Grace started that sentence but didn’t finish it.
“Doesn’t find me to her taste?” Campbell suggested. “I always just figured she fell head over heels in love with Walker the day he was born, and I came so soon afterward there just wasn’t any more oxytocin bonding hormone left over for me.”
“What about Boone?” Sadie-Grace asked suddenly. “He’s the right age, too. Your dad and his mom are twins. And he’s so much more injury-prone than the rest of you.”
I so did not want to know how Sadie-Grace had injured Boone now.
“I’m going to change the subject,” Campbell told Sadie-Grace, “before you take a shortcut to TMI.” She pivoted. “In case any of you were wondering, I’m planning an epic birthday party, but it is so epic that it will require months of planning and will thus be held on my half birthday, once this summer and all of its drama is just a blip in the mirror.” Campbell didn’t give any of us the chance to reply before she changed the subject a second time. “Now, who wants to hear my update on the Lady of the Lake?”
I saw Lily shiver, even though she couldn’t have possibly been cold. It was a hundred degrees out, and the rest of us were sweltering in swimsuits.
“What update?” Lily said quietly.
“My ‘friend’ at the deputy’s office says they’re bringing in a forensic sculptor.” Campbell awaited our response.
Sadie-Grace raised her hand. “Do I want to know what a forensic sculptor is?”
“That depends,” Campbell replied coyly. “Do you want a play-by-play on how someone can reconstruct a face from a skull?”
ast one in pays the price.” Liv shot a playful look at Sterling. “That would be you. Or…” She stretched the word. “Would it be her?”
All of them were in the water now. Sterling and the local girl had come down together.
I can’t be the one who says it, Charlotte thought.
For once, she was glad that Julia seemed able to sense exactly what she was thinking. “My brother hit the water a second before she did.” She glanced at the new girl. “That makes you last, sweetie.” Julia flipped onto her back to float. “You were the first off the ledge, Liv. What are the rules—and what’s the price?”
“The rest of us head back up,” Liv decided, pushing off J.D. and swimming for the shore. “And, new girl, let’s see you tread water.”
’m worried about Lily.”
Nick and I were lying on the front of his boat, our limbs entangled, my hair damp from the lake. I could see beads of sweat on his chest and feel them running down my own.
He traced his fingers lightly down my stomach. “More worried than usual?”
“After Campbell and Sadie-Grace left this morning, Lily put in her earbuds.”
He moved his hand to the small of my back, which was the only thing that allowed me to continue.
“She’s just listening to the recordings of her parents, over and over again.”
“And you’re here,” Nick commented. “With me.”
I’d been spending more time here. With him. The reminder was less welcome than his touch. I rolled over on top of him, both hands on his chest. “I’ll stop talking.”
He caught his thumb under the strap of my swimsuit. “I didn’t ask you to.”
He never did. He just let me talk. At this point, I was fairly certain I could tell him that I’d discovered that several key members of high society were actually tigers wearing people suits, and he would have just muttered, “It figures.”
“What if Lily’s parents knew the Lady of the Lake?” I asked Nick. “What if they had something to do with her death?”
It was easier, somehow, to ask him than it would have been to think it myself.
Nick considered my questions, then came back with one of his own. “And if they did?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t know.”
He stared at me, in that way that made me feel like he was memorizing something about my face.
I tried to focus on the conversation, not on the way he looked, looking at me. “Lily…it’s like she’s barely inhabiting her own body anymore. She just shut down. But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to happen, and she’s going to snap.”
“Okay,” Nick replied evenly. “Say Lily snaps. She loses it. She lashes out. What does that look like? Is it really the end of the world?”
I don’t know.
“I’m done talking now,” I told him.
Nick didn’t argue. He never did. Instead, he pulled me nine-tenths of the way into a kiss and waited for me to close the distance. I probably should have pulled back. I probably should have left.
Instead, I lost myself in the kiss and in him.
At some point, we fell asleep. We woke up to a girl standing over us.
“Is this what you meant when you said you had to work?” she asked Nick.
Who the hell is that? My brain was already supplying answers—horrible ones about why another girl might come looking for Nick—when I scrambled to my feet. I flashed back to the text he’d sent me the night of the Gutierrez party.
Something came up.
If it had just been physical, if I hadn’t just been talking to him, confiding in him, this wouldn’t have been a problem.
You knew better, Sawyer. You damn well knew better.
“What the hell?” Nick jumped to his feet.
I am so stupid, I thought, looking at the girl. It was just supposed to be me, repaying what I owed. It was just supposed to be for show.
It was just supposed to be physical.
It was just supposed to be talking.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt.
“Jessi!” Nick’s aggrieved tone barely managed to penetrate the cacophony of reprimands my brain was launching in my direction.
People can only hurt you if you let them.
I grabbed my keys and shoes and was already halfway past him when I processed the name he’d said and the particular shade of annoyance in his tone when he’d said it.
I recognized them both.
“Jessi,” I repeated, turning back to face him. “Your little sister?”
“And you must be the girlfriend.” Jessi grinned. Now that she was no longer backlit by the sun, I could see a resemblance—and just how young she looked.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Nick told her.
That shouldn’t have hit me hard. It shouldn’t have hit me at all. He’s right. I’m not his girlfriend. I’m really, really not.
“Sawyer…” Nick started, t
hen backtracked. “Wait for me at my car, Jess.”
Nick’s sister looked at the two of us, then shrugged and issued a parting shot. “Whatever you say, big brother. I’ve always admired your ‘work’ ethic.”
“Smart-ass,” he grumbled as she turned and flitted away.
“I should go,” I said once she was gone. I didn’t give him a chance to reply. I was halfway to the edge of the boat when his voice stopped me.
“You never asked me why I stood you up at that party.”
I quelled the impulse to turn around and face him again. “I don’t care,” I said.
“That’s strange,” he replied. I could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “Because you definitely cared when Jessi showed up, before you realized she was my sister.”
He sounded just satisfied enough about that, I had to turn around. “Asshole.”
Nick took that as a compliment. “That night, I canceled on you because there was a problem with Colt.”
His brother. “Is he—” I started to ask.
“He’s fine,” Nick told me. “Still comatose. Still not here when he should be, and I still think of that sometimes when I look at you.”
I hadn’t had anything to do with putting Colt in that coma. I hadn’t helped cover it up. But I was who I was, and the Ames family and mine were intertwined, going back generations.
“And then,” Nick said, “I think that if Colt were here, he’d tell me I was an idiot.”
I swallowed. “For being with a girl like me?”
“There are no girls like you,” Nick said. “You’re not like other people, Miss Taft.”
He only called me that when he wanted to piss me off, so why did I feel like this time was different? Why couldn’t I shake a single thing he’d said?
“I should go.”
“Should you?” Nick countered, stepping closer to me. “Tell me one thing first, Sawyer. Why is it that you feel everything else so deeply, that you love everyone else in your life—from your grandmother and Lily to godforsaken Campbell Ames—so loyally and so fiercely, but you can’t even admit to a moment of jealousy when it comes to me?”
My mouth felt dry all of a sudden. My skin was humming. “It wasn’t jealousy,” I said.
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