Page 30 of The Summer Guests

“The police want us to stay inside the house,” said Ethan.

“Why?”

“To keep us out of their way, I guess.”

“We’re not prisoners,” said Colin. He stood up and joined Elizabeth at the window. The rest of the family migrated there as well, all of them looking out at the pond, where the anchored dive boat was gently bobbing.

“It could be nothing,” said Brooke.

Ethan nodded. “That’s what the policewoman said. An ‘irregularity,’ on the lake bed. That could mean a tree branch, a rock. We should all just sit down.”

But no one moved. They remained at the window, staring at the water. Jo Thibodeau had told Susan the pond was only forty-two feet at its deepest, but that was deep enough to swallow a body, to hide any number of tragedies. She thought of lying at the bottom of that pond, sunlight filtering through the water above. She thought of swimmers splashing on the surface, never realizing what lay beneath them. Shesagged against the window, her hand pressed on the glass, and wondered how long she could take this without screaming.

“The divers are back up,” said Colin.

Two heads had just bobbed to the surface. One of the divers reached up to pass a line to the helmsman aboard the boat, and the helmsman began pulling on the rope, hand over hand. Something surfaced from the water, something that was a bright, alarming yellow, in the shape of ...

A body bag.

No,thought Susan.No, no, no.

She bolted out of the house. She heard Ethan yelling her name, heard the screen door slap shut and footsteps pounding down the deck stairs. Jo Thibodeau swooped in, seemingly out of nowhere, and caught Susan’s arm just as she reached the water’s edge.

“Mrs. Conover! Susan!”

“Is it her? Is it my baby?”

The two divers had clambered back on board. The engine kicked to life, and the boat started motoring toward the ramp.

Jo ordered Ethan: “Take your wife back to the house.”

Ethan took Susan’s arm. “Come on, darling.”

Susan yanked away and began to run up the driveway, toward the road. Through the trees, she could hear the growl of the motor, the sound reflecting off the water and up the hillside. She was racing that boat, desperate to get to the ramp first. She kept running and running, along the same road that Zoe would have walked on the day she vanished, the same road that should have brought her home.

The boat engine throttled down.

She sprinted around the final curve, toward the ramp. Reached the parking lot just as the warden service boat slid ashore. The two divers jumped out, splashing into knee-deep water. They looked up, startled, as Susan sprinted toward them.

“Is it her? Tell me!” Susan cried.

“Ma’am,” one of them said. “You need to stay back—”

She shoved past him and splashed into the water. Grabbing the dive ladder, she hauled herself up, onto the boat.

“Whoa!” the helmsman yelled. “You can’t come aboard!”

But she would not be stopped. Even as she heard Jo Thibodeau shouting at her from the parking lot, even as the warden tried to block her.My baby. My baby is in there.

She dropped down beside the yellow body bag. Water was still trickling through the mesh, and brown puddles had collected beneath it. With shaking hands, she yanked on the zipper pull and peeled open the bag. She stared in shock at what lay inside.

“Finn, get her out of the boat!” Jo yelled.

Hands hauled Susan backward, but even as she was dragged away, her eyes were fixed on the contents of that bag. On the human skull, its sockets empty and staring.

Bones. There were only bones inside.

It was not her daughter.

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