Even earlier today, when she’d leaned into his car window, Annie had never bothered to observe him. That gentle, little boy’s face, wide plane of pale cheek. He was deceptively kind-looking.
“Are you enjoying the party?” Colin tried again.
“Hardly,” Annie said. It came out weak. She cleared her throat. “You were expecting my daughter.”
“No,” he said. He balled up his hands in the sleeves of his seersucker jacket, hiked up his shoulders. “I just needed fresh air. Sometimes parties get too much.”
“She’s fourteen.”
He started smoothing his hair behind his ears quickly. “I really don’t know what you heard, Mrs. Perley.”
“Abe wrote a letter about you.”
“Abe Pagano?” Colin said. “You know that he’s a pathological liar, right?”
A leap of hope in her throat. Annie should have considered that.
“Maybe Laurel has a crush, but nothing has happened between us. Like we discussed, I’m an educator, Mrs. Perley. I respect boundaries.”
The darkness cast shadows over Colin’s face, but his voice was soft and earnest and she wanted so badly to believe him.
In her mind, facts shifted like images in a kaleidoscope: Jen’s face, Abe’s boxy scrawl. Their betrayal of Laurel.
She’d felt shut out all year, had been desperate to connect with anyone, and Annie knew how that could be exploited.
“Seriously, Mrs. Perley. You’ve got it completely wrong.” It was the light way Colin said it, like he was close to laughter.
The truth clamped on to Annie like shackles. “How long,” she whispered. “How long were you—”
For what felt like a minute, he didn’t speak. Finally, he shrugged and looked around as if in acknowledgment that no one else could hear.
“Long enough.” There was the hint of a drawl in his voice.
The rage returned in a lightning bolt. It ripped through Annie’s skin and shocked her bones, propelled her forward, arms extended in attack. He captured her right wrist with a rough grab and pulled her toward him.
His elbow hooked around her neck and his forearm pressed against her windpipe. They were alone out here, Annie realized. No one would even know where to look for her.
His breath dampened her ear. “I can’t let you tell.”
She couldn’t breathe. He was squeezing too tight. A gush of liquid cascaded down her nostril; she felt her body being jerked backward across the rock. Desperately, she scratched at the slippery fabric of his jacket.
I can’t breathe.
He loosened the headlock to allow Annie a desperate raggedy gasp of air before he spoke, matter-of-fact.
“It needs to look like an accident,” he said. “You’re going to have to fall.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Lena scanned the lawn for the flames of still-burning tea lights.
There was mud on the dance floor, trash around the lawn. A raccoon feasted on a kabob by the porta-potties, completely undeterred by Lena’s presence.
There was a giant hole in the yard that might make Rudy the landscaper cry, and Lena could not even begin to mourn the hyacinths.
As Alma would say, it was all the mark of a good party.
Lena had turned to go inside when she saw it in her peripheral vision—a ruffling of movement over by the woods.
Annie Perley hurried across the muddy lawn, passed the raccoon without seeing him. Lena had to reach out her arms to physically stop her.
“Annie?” Lena said. “Mike thought you went home. He must be worried.”
There was something wrong with Annie. Her mouth hung slack. Her right nostril was caked with blood. The caftan’s shoulder seam had been torn open.
“Annie?”
“We need to call the police,” she said. “I killed him.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
After hearing Annie’s story, Lena felt a tempest within her. “Are you sure he’s dead?”
“I stared at him for a while,” Annie said. “He was face down in the water. Aren’t you going to call the police?”
Lena understood the need to stop and think first, to coax Annie inside to her usual spot on the sofa, dab a wet washcloth to her face, fold a chenille throw over her lap and boil the water for a mug of tea, text Mike that, as it turned out, Annie had been here all along, helping clean, and might be a little while still.
“What do I tell the police?” Annie wondered aloud. “Do you think they’ll arrest me right away?”
“It sounds like self-defense,” Lena said. “But if they’re involved, Annie, the news of it will be everywhere, and out of your control, regardless of whether you’re around to protect Laurel from it.”