swallow, my throat swelling. “I didn’t understand at the time, but she told me . . .”
Once more he’s silent. Air hisses through my throat; rain hisses on the asphalt.
“Who?”
I stay silent.
“Who?” He kicks me in the stomach. I suck in air, curl up, but already he’s seized me by the shirt, hauling me to my knees. I slump forward. He drives his hand into my throat, squeezes.
“What did she say?” he screams.
My fingers scrabble at my neck. He starts to lift me and I rise with him, my knees quaking, until we stand eye to eye.
He looks so young, his skin bathed smooth in the rain, his lips full, his hair slicked across his forehead. A very nice boy. Beyond him I see the spread of the park, the vast shadow of his house. And at my heels I feel the bulge of the skylight.
“Tell me!”
I try to speak, fail.
“Tell me.”
I gag.
He relaxes his grip on my throat. I flick my eyes down; the letter opener is still clasped in his fist.
“He was an architect,” I gasp.
He watches me. Rain falls around us, between us.
“He loved dark chocolate,” I say. “He called her ‘slugger.’” His hand has fallen from my neck.
“He liked movies. They both did. They liked—”
He frowns. “When did she tell you this?”
“The night she visited me. She said she loved him.”
“What happened to him? Where is he?”
I shut my eyes. “He died.”
“When?”
I shake my head. “A while ago. It doesn’t matter. He died and she fell apart.”
His hand grasps my throat again, and my eyes fly open. “Yes, it matters. When—”
“What matters is that he loved you,” I croak.
He freezes. He drops his hand from my neck.
“He loved you,” I repeat. “They both did.”
With Ethan glaring at me, with the letter opener gripped in his hand, I breathe deeply.
And I hug him.
He goes stiff, but then his body slackens. We stand there in the rain, my arms around him, his hands at his sides.
I sway, swoon, and he holds me as I twist around him. When I’m back on my feet, we’ve traded positions, my hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.
“They both did,” I murmur.
And then, with all my weight, I lean into him and push him onto the skylight.
98
He lands on his back. The skylight shudders.
He says nothing, just looks at me, confused, as though I’ve asked him a difficult question.
The letter opener has skidded to one side. He splays his hands against the glass, starts to push himself upright. My heart slows. Time slows.
And then the skylight disintegrates beneath him, soundless in the storm.
In an instant he drops out of sight. If he screams, I can’t hear it.
I stumble to the edge of where the skylight used to be, peer over it into the well of the house. Shreds of rain swirl in the void like sparks; on the landing below glitters a galaxy of broken glass. I can’t look any deeper—it’s too dark.
I stand there in the storm. I feel dazed. Water laps at my feet.
Then I step away. Move carefully around the skylight. Walk toward the trapdoor, still flung wide.
Down I go. Down, down, down. My fingers slip on the rungs.
I reach the floor, the runner soaked with water. Tread to the top of the stairs, passing beneath the gouge in the roof; rain showers onto me.
I reach Olivia’s bedroom. Stop. Look in.
My baby. My angel. I’m so sorry.
After a moment I turn, walk downstairs; the rattan is dry and rough now. At the landing I stop again, cross below the waterfall, and stand, dripping, in the doorway of my bedroom. I survey the bed, the curtains, the black specter of the Russell house beyond the park.
Once more through the shower, once more down the steps, and now I’m in the library—Ed’s library; my library—watching the rain gust across the window. The clock on his mantel chimes the hour. Two a.m.
I avert my eyes and leave the room.
From the landing I can already see the wreckage of his body, disarranged on the floor, a fallen angel. I descend the staircase.
A dark crown of blood flames from his head. One hand is folded over his heart. His eyes look at me.
I look back.
And then I step past him.
And I enter the kitchen.
And I plug in the landline so that I can call Detective Little.
Six Weeks Later
99
The last flakes sifted down an hour ago, and now the midday sun floats in an aching-blue sky—a sky “not to warm the flesh, but solely to