Page 59 of The House Beyond the Dunes

“Might jog the memory. Think of me as Kyle.”

Detective Becker is nothing like Kyle. He isn’t as tall, and his frame is broader. But if this little exercise will convince him to leave, I’ll play. “One hand was on his chest.”

“Was it your left, or right?”

Without thinking, I raise my right hand. “Right.”

“Good. Keep going.”

“I remember his heart thumping under my fingertips.”

He takes my hand, tugs me closer, and presses my palm against his chest. His heartbeat is slow, steady whereas Kyle’s had been rapid, as if he’d run five miles. “Like this?”

“Yes.” My voice is hoarse, barely a whisper.

I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it in place. “How long did the two of you stand here?”

“Seconds, maybe?”

He edges toward the lip of the stairs, pulling me along. His heels teeter on the edge. If he slips, there’s nothing to save him, and if he grabs me, we both fall. Pressure builds in my head. “Like this?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t take much to push a man here. Even if he’s stronger and faster, the element of surprise would have been a huge advantage,” he says softly.

My face is inches from his. “Why would I push Kyle? We cared about each other.”

“You were fighting.”

“I don’t remember that.” I try to pull my hand away again, but his fingers tighten.

“Do you have regular memory lapses, Lane?”

The stairs’ steep pitch looms close, and I’m fearful if I look at them, I’ll lose my balance. So, I keep looking at him. His blue eyes don’t waver from my face. He’s looking for a tell, a sign, that I’m lying. “No, of course not. I just have trouble with sleepwalking, and not even that much since I started taking the pills.”

This time when I pull against his grasp, he doesn’t resist. I take a step back. “Move away from the stairs.”

“They bother you?”

“Yes.”

He steps closer to me. “Better?”

“Yes.”

He cocks his head. “I can’t figure out if you’re protecting yourself or Kyle.”

“There’s nothing to protect. Kyle died in a terrible accident.”

As if I haven’t spoken, he says, “The man valued his reputation, so a woman who cared about him would want to protect his legacy.”

I shake my head. “I’m not protecting Kyle.”

“Sure? Maybe you fell for him hard in those three weeks. Good looking, well-to-do, attentive. That’s a powerful cocktail, Lane. You find out something. You freak out, you two argue at the top of the stairs, and as dumb luck would have it, the guy falls. That what happened, Lane?”

My name sounds intimate when he says it. “I didn’t discover anything about Kyle. I liked him.”

“See a future with him? Planning on buying a house with the white picket fence?”

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