Page 29 of The Summer Guests

“Oh look,” said Declan, pointing up at a tree. “There’s a pileated woodpecker.”

Ingrid’s binoculars whipped upward to focus on the magnificent bird hammering away on a dying oak. Lloyd raised his binoculars as well, and even Ben stirred from his heat-induced stupor to squint up at the bird. What was it about growing older that turned you into a bird-watcher and made you invest in expensive optical equipment? In their earlier lives, they’d trained their attention on dangerous members of their own species; now they focused on species with beaks and feathers, observing them with the same fierce concentration, and a great deal more pleasure.

“Oh, and here comes the mate!” said Lloyd.

Now all of them had their binoculars trained on the second woodpecker as it swooped in, its head a brilliant scarlet against the tree trunk. Their surveillance mission had been hijacked by a pair of birds.

Enough. Time to get back to business,thought Maggie, and she redirected her attention to the pond. If this were August, there would be kayaks and swimmers and a motorboat or two on the water, but today, the only boat she saw belonged to the Maine Warden Service, towing a side-scan sonar unit as if trolling for fish. The wardens had begun their grid search an hour ago, starting at the boat ramp, the downwind end of the pond, where an object in the water would be most likely to drift. Since then, the boat had slowly worked its way upwind, zigzagging back and forth as it scanned the bottom for anomalies. This was the first time Maggie had observed such an operation, and she’d already lost interest. All there was to see was a twenty-four-foot dive boat puttering back and forth across the surface. A good thing they had brought a picnic—they might be here for a while, but at least they would not go hungry.

The search had clearly lost its appeal to the general public as well. This morning, when the dive boat first put in to the water, people were standing along the shoreline on both sides of the pond, waiting for something exciting to happen. For the town of Purity, this was a real-life crime show, like the ones they watched on television, and it was playing out in their own backyard. But real life was not like television, and searches didn’t conclude with a jump cut to a dead body. This was painstaking work, and most of the spectators had drifted away, back to their cars. Susan and Ethan Conover, however, still remained at the water’s edge. Through binoculars, Maggie could see the couple, their arms around each other, their attention fixed on the dive boat. The rest of the Conover family was nowhere in sight.

The engine suddenly roared in reverse and throttled down.

Maggie whipped her binoculars across the water and focused on the dive boat, which had come to a stop a few dozen yards offshore, opposite Moonview.

“They’re dropping anchor,” said Ben.

Now all five of them had their binoculars focused on the pond, the pileated woodpeckers forgotten. Aboard the boat, the wardens huddled over their equipment. With their motor now silent, the only sound was the chirp of birds, the rapping of the woodpeckers against the oak tree. A drop of sweat slid down Maggie’s back, but she no longer felt the heat or the dulling effect of the wine she’d drunk. She was fully alert now, watching and waiting for what happened next.

Two of the wardens began donning scuba gear.

They’d found something.

Chapter 15

Susan

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Susan felt the ground sway beneath her, and she reached out to grasp Ethan’s hand. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Jo Thibodeau walking toward them, radio in hand, her face somber. Jo approached quietly, as if not to spook them.

“It may be nothing,” said Jo.

“Why are the divers going down?” said Ethan. “What did they find?”

“There’s an irregularity, on the lake bed. They’re just going down to take a look. Why don’t you both go into the house? This could take a while. I think you’d be more comfortable inside.”

“No,” said Susan.

“Please, Mrs. Conover.”

“No!” The word came out so shrill that Susan scarcely recognized it as her own voice. What frightened her most was the dead calmness of Jo Thibodeau’s words. As if she already knew what the boat had found. As if she was preparing Susan for the worst.

Susan looked at the pond, where the second diver had just splashed in. “What does that mean, an ‘irregularity’? What did they see?”

“Go inside. I promise, I’ll tell you as soon as I know more.”

How could the woman sound so cool, so collected? The sheer ordinariness of this day enraged Susan. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping in the trees, while her own world was about to collapse around her.

“Susan,” Ethan said quietly, “let’s go inside.” He took her arm. “Please.”

She let him walk her back up the path, let him lead her up the deck steps into the house. The rest of the family was in the dining room, where lunch was spread out on the table. Cold cuts and fruit salad and potato chips, which Kit was devouring with noisy crunches. How could they sit there, gorging, while outside, on the water ...

Elizabeth saw Ethan’s face and immediately asked: “What’s happened? Did they find something?”

“We’re not sure,” said Ethan. “The divers have just gone down.”

“Oh, no.” Elizabeth stood up and went to the living room window.

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