Corinne shook her head, remaining seated. “It probably isn’t true. For all we know, Elizabeth killed Steven.”
“She said she didn’t,” Aster piped up, but then her eyes slid to the right. “But she did say she was happy Steven was dead.”
“See? There you go,” Corinne said, a story unfurling in her mind. “What if Elizabeth just told you that, expecting you’d go to the cops with the story? Remember, Poppy took Steven’s job—deep down, Elizabeth could still be bitter. Maybe she blames Poppy for Steven’s death—if he’d been promoted instead of Poppy, perhaps he wouldn’t have drunk so much that night and fallen off the boat. But she tells you Poppy actually killed him in hopes of tarnishing her reputation. The cops would leak it to the media, our whole family would be embarrassed, and Poppy would be a disgrace.”
Aster tilted her head. “Could you imagine the field day the press would have with this? Poppy, a secret murderer all these years.”
“I’m with Aster,” Corinne said. “We’re not dragging Poppy’s name through the mud.”
“But what if this is a serious lead?” Natasha cried. “What if Steven did know a secret that Poppy needed to keep quiet?”
Rowan narrowed her eyes. “You seem awfully sure about this theory. Is there something you haven’t told us?”
Natasha glanced away fast. “Why would I know anything?”
Aster stood too, and placed her hands on her hips. “If you’re keeping something from us, Natasha, now is the time to tell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Natasha growled impatiently. “It’s just that everyone is so Pollyannaish about Poppy. She wasn’t perfect. She was human. Look at what James said—she was cheating. Maybe she was lying about other things too.”
Corinne bristled. Natasha was only there because of Poppy. “What did you have against her?” she asked. “She was so nice to you, although I don’t really know why.”
Natasha straightened her spine. “I’m just trying to get you people to take off your blinders. You’re all like sheep. You go where you’re supposed to go. You think what you’re supposed to think. But you know what? Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”
Rowan slapped her arms to her sides. “What the hell happened, Natasha? Why do you hate us so much? We used to be close, and as far as I can see, none of us did anything to you. Maybe you can enlighten me, because I’m pretty confused right now.”
Natasha blinked. Her mouth hung open for a long beat. Then she lowered her eyes.
“There isn’t anything, is there?” Aster demanded. “Did you cut yourself off for attention? Was this just your way of getting more press for yourself? You never could stand being out of the limelight.”
A fierce look flashed in Natasha’s eyes. All at once, Corinne couldn’t handle it anymore. “We’re ending this conversation right now!” she said loudly.
Aster and Rowan stopped and stared at her. “We are?”
“Yes,” Corinne said shakily, feeling tears come to her eyes. All these horrible confessions . . . it was just too much. “And we’re not saying anything to anyone,” she added. “Not until we know something real.”
Natasha sighed. “All right,” she mumbled, trudging back to the center of the room and yanking her wineglass from the coffee table. “But I think you’re making a big mistake.”
Outside, seagulls screeched. Corinne tried to think of a way to change the subject, but what was there to talk about now? They’d already said too much. All at once, she couldn’t believe what she’d admitted to them. She couldn’t believe they knew about Will now. In two weeks, they would stand behind her at the altar, and they would know she was a fake. I can’t believe she’s going through with this, they’d think. Poor Dixon. Already she could feel their judging eyes on her back. She stood and gathered all the empty wineglasses. “You know what? I don’t think this is the right weekend for a bachelorette party at all.”
“What do you mean?” Aster asked.
“I mean I want to leave.” Corinne marched to the kitchen and placed the wineglasses in the sink. Then she walked into the foyer and picked up the old worn monogrammed tote she always brought to Meriweather. “I think we should all leave.”
“Corinne.” Aster followed her to the door. “We just got here.”
But Corinne was resolute. “We’re going,” she said, grabbing the keys and opening the door. “This is not how I want to celebrate my wedding.”
She stepped out on the porch, sucking in the warm, humid air. A storm was rolling in, and the trees cut dark shapes against the cloudy sky. Branches scraped across the bricks, as high-pitched as wails. For a split second, Corinne thought she saw a shadow.
But then the door opened again, and her sister, Rowan, and Natasha walked onto the porch too. By the time Corinne glanced to that section of trees again, the branches had gone still. Or maybe they’d never been moving at all.
14
Aster hefted her bag on her shoulder and followed her sister down the freshly combed gravel path. Corinne walked with purpose toward the Navigator they kept on the island. “Corinne, please,” Aster called out. “We should stay. We can still have a good time.”
Corinne turned to look at her with red-rimmed, downturned eyes. “I just want to go,” she said, her voice small.
Aster felt like Alice when she’d stepped through the looking glass and the world was suddenly upside down and backward. Poppy might be a killer, Rowan was sleeping with Poppy’s husband, and perfect Corinne had cheated on Dixon. Aster couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been for her sister to admit aloud. Not long ago, she would’ve felt satisfied that Corinne had finally cracked. Now she just felt bad for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were not enough.
“It’s not your fault.” Corinne paused to straighten out her roller bag, which she was pulling behind her.
“No. I’m sorry about . . . me. I haven’t been there for you very much.”
Corinne stopped and looked at Aster, a surprised smile on her face. She opened her mouth a few times, but no words came out. “Thank you,” she finally said. “But I still want to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Aster said. “But the minute we get back to the city, we’re getting disco fries.” When they were little, Mason used to buy the two girls greasy diner fries, smothered in gravy and four kinds of cheese.
“As long as we can get them delivered.”
“Done.” Aster reached for her sister’s hand, and Corinne squeezed in response, managing a feeble smile. They turned for the car, walking in step. Just as Corinne hit the unlock button, Natasha caught up to them. “I can drive,” she offered to Corinne. “Please. You just sit in the back and rest.”
Corinne looked at Natasha warily, then shrugged and handed over the keys. Natasha pocketed them and sauntered to the car. There was a ping, and she opened her phone to answer an incoming text, her fingers flying across the screen.
Aster stiffened. After all that had just happened, all they’d just confessed and argued over, Natasha was texting? “Who are you talking to?” she snapped.
Natasha stopped typing. “A client. Since we’re leaving, I figured I could fit in a few private sessions tomorrow. Is that okay?”
Aster shot daggers at Natasha’s back. After Corinne had been nice enough to invite her, she’d caused so much trouble that now they were leaving. And even worse, all of them had unburdened themselves . . . and yet Natasha had just sat there, Buddha-like, absorbing all of it, not revealing a thing.
Aster settled into the backseat with Corinne next to her, while Rowan climbed into the front. Aster looked longingly at the property as they pulled away. She hadn’t even gotten to go upstairs and visit her old bedroom. Her gaze drifted to the caretakers’ house across the lawn. It looked vacant, all the windows dark. She wondered if Danielle’s dad still lived there; Danielle’s mom, Julia, had moved away the summer Aster spent in Europe. Aster had always wondered if it was because she’d discov
ered Danielle and Mason’s affair, or because her marriage had just finally ended.
The SUV rolled down the long driveway, which circled the shore, passed the tennis courts, and, finally, offered a view of the family’s private dock. The Edith Marie, the family’s sailboat, was the only vessel bobbing on the water, its masts bare and a large canvas tarp covering the hull. The rest of the dock was empty, the water lapping despondently at the shore. Aster stared at that strip of sand. She knew the others were too. It was where Steven Barnett’s body had been discovered five years ago.
Natasha stopped the car for a moment. She didn’t say a word, and neither did the other cousins, but it was clear what they were thinking. After a few beats, she faced forward again and drove on.
The only way to the main island was over the steel bridge that spanned the narrow sound. The bridge was empty as Natasha neared it. The sky seemed to grow even darker. The tall grasses on either side of the road swayed back and forth. Mist rolled in off the water, shrouding the car in wispy clouds.
“Turn on the lights,” Aster called out uneasily.
Natasha found the switch for the lights and pulled onto the bridge. “Listen, I wasn’t entirely truthful in there,” she started to say, her voice strangely high and breathy. “There’s something you need to know.”
Aha! Aster thought, triumphant. “What is it?”
Natasha’s throat bobbed. The car engine chugged. “It’s about Poppy. And it’s about—”
“Watch out!” Corinne yelled urgently, pointing at something in the windshield.
Headlights shone in front of them, suddenly very close. A car was driving right for them from the other direction, taking up the whole bridge. Aster’s vision went white as the oncoming car careened closer. Before she knew what was happening, Natasha had yanked the steering wheel to the right, slamming on the brakes and laying on the horn.
Their car skidded, then fishtailed. There was a crash as something hit them, and then a crunch. Aster felt her body hurtling forward; her cheek slammed against the back of Natasha’s seat. Someone screamed. Aster felt momentarily and unexpectedly weightless, and all at once, there was a loud boom and she jolted backward. Finally the car stopped, and everything was eerily quiet.
ASTER CAME TO on the floor of the backseat, her legs splayed above her. The interior of the car was dark. When she looked out the window, Aster saw . . . bubbles. She shot up, horrified.
They were in the water, and sinking fast.
“Hey!” she yelled. It was so dim inside the car that all she could see were gray shadows. “Is everyone okay?”
No one answered. When Aster reached out, she felt something wet. Blood? Her heart hammered fast, but she tried not to panic. “Rowan?” she cried. “Corinne?”
There was rustling in the front seat. “What happened?” came Rowan’s voice.
“Oh my God,” Corinne said, next to Aster. And then, more sharply, “Oh my God!”
“Where’s Natasha?” Aster screamed, fumbling around in the darkness.
Leather squeaked as Rowan moved over. “She’s right here,” Rowan called from the front seat. “Natasha?” she yelled. “Natasha!”
No answer.
“Is she . . .” Corinne trailed off shakily.
Aster groped around more, then found the hard, flat glass of the windows. She pounded on them, but they didn’t give. She felt water pooling around her feet. The car was filling up, water seeping through a break in the floor.
“Shit!” Corinne screamed.
Aster tried the door handles, but they didn’t budge. She spun around—or at least what she thought was around—climbed over the backseat, and scrambled for the cargo area, her fingers searching blindly along the carpet. Finally she touched something hard, metal, and heavy. A tire iron.
“Everyone get back here!” she called out. “We need to break this window.”
There were thuds from the front as her sister and cousin climbed over the seats. Rowan grunted loudly, dragging Natasha with her. Even in the dim light, Aster could see that Natasha’s head hung back on her neck, limp.
Once everyone was in the back, Aster wordlessly handed the tire iron to Rowan, who was the strongest. Rowan heaved the thing over her head and thrust it at the back cargo door. It cracked against the glass. She took a deep breath, and struck the glass again. This time it broke.
Ice-cold water flooded into the car, forcing them heavily back. Aster gritted her teeth and strained against the flood, struggling to get through that window and out into the sound.
“Come on!” she screamed at her cousins, reaching to pull them with her toward the hole.
Together, they grabbed Natasha’s limp form under their arms and clumsily hefted her into the dark water. Aster held tight to her cousin’s calf with one hand and paddled furiously with the other. Her lungs instantly begged for air. She tried to open her eyes underwater, but all she saw was darkness. She felt Natasha slip from her grasp and grabbed her as tightly as she could around her waist. Rowan and Corinne were kicking below her, each of them holding one of Natasha’s arms.
Finally, her lungs burning, Aster burst to the surface with a sputtering gasp.
The air was warm on her face. Waves lapped around them. Coughing, Aster looked up through the moonlit night at the bridge above. There was a large gash where the car had broken through the side rails. The bridge was empty.
Rowan popped up a moment later, Natasha deadweight in her arms. The three of them struggled to drag their cousin to shore and lay her down in the sand. She flopped on her back, her arms outstretched. There was an eerie gray pallor to her skin, and her lips were blue. “Is she alive?” Corinne asked hysterically.
Rowan straddled Natasha’s body and listened to her chest. “I think so.” Her eyes were full of fear. “But we need an ambulance.”
Corinne patted her pockets. “My phone’s still in . . . there.” She pointed at the bubbles rising on the surface of the water. The SUV was probably at the bottom of the sound by then.
“Mine is too,” Aster whispered.
“Same here.” Rowan looked like she was going to burst into tears. “Natasha!” she shouted at her. “Natasha, please wake up!”
“Natasha.” Tears were streaming down Aster’s cheeks. “Natasha, please.” The last moments with Natasha swarmed back to her. How she’d started to tell them something about Poppy.
“Please wake up,” Aster whispered.
But no matter how loudly they yelled, their cousin’s eyes remained tightly shut.
15
When Rowan opened her eyes, she was sitting on an orange vinyl chair. A rerun of Friends played on a television hanging on the wall across the room. Next to it a clock read 11:30—p.m., presumably, as it was dark outside. Her cousins leaned against each other on a couch, wearing scrubs that read “Property of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.”
Then she noticed a woman in a hospital bed a few feet away, with tubes up her nose and a breathing apparatus over her mouth. Her eyes were shut, her hands lay peacefully at her sides, and a monitor recorded her steady heartbeat.
Natasha.
Rowan swallowed hard. After they’d climbed ashore, another car had finally passed on the bridge, and they’d flagged it down and called for an ambulance. All of their clothes were soaked, so the EMTs had lent them scrubs.
Corinne rubbed her eyes and reached for a water bottle. “Did anything happen?” she said groggily, glancing at Natasha. “Is she . . .”
“No. She’s still unconscious,” Rowan told her robotically, peering at her unmoving cousin. She looked peaceful, almost as though she was just asleep. Still, Rowan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong here. What were the odds that the moment Natasha said she had something to confess, a car hit them? Had there even been a car? It had all happened so fast, Rowan wasn’t quite sure. She thought she’d seen headlights. She was pretty sure she’d heard a horn. Only, was it their horn?
The door swung open, and Katherine Foley rushed
toward them, dressed in a gray FBI T-shirt and khaki pants. Rowan shot up and shoved the phone one of the nurses was kind enough to loan her for family calls in her pocket.
“I came as soon as I heard.” Foley stopped in the doorway. “Your car went over a bridge?”
Rowan glanced at her cousins. “That’s right.”
Foley glanced at Natasha and winced. “Was she the driver?”
“Yes.” Corinne nodded.
“What happened?”
Rowan stared at the tiles on the floor. “I think another car was in our lane. Natasha tried to turn, but she lost control.”
“What happened to the other driver?”
Rowan looked at the others. “We have no idea,” Aster said.
“Did you recognize the vehicle?”
“It’s all kind of a blur,” Rowan admitted, realizing how pathetic that sounded.
Foley looked conflicted. Her gaze traveled back to Natasha. Aster cleared her throat. “Do you know where she was the morning of Poppy’s death?”
Foley shoved her hands in her pockets. “I don’t, actually. And now . . .” She broke off and curled her hands over the rails on Natasha’s bed. “Well, I wish she had cleared that up.”
Rowan’s stomach churned at Foley’s implication.
Foley looked at the cousins. “Where were you heading tonight?”
Rowan stood, careful not to get tangled in the wires that snaked from Natasha’s body into the machines. “To the airport. We were at the house for Corinne’s bachelorette party, but then we decided to go back to the city.”
“Why did you cut the party short?”
There was a pregnant pause. “We don’t—” Corinne started.
“I’m not—” Aster said at the same time.
All at once, Rowan couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What do you know about Steven Barnett?”
Foley flinched as a machine started to noisily beep. A small heart icon indicated that Natasha’s heart rate had dipped below sixty beats per minute. After a moment, it regulated and quieted down.