Page 22 of Saltwater

“She’ll be at the party tonight,” Stan said. He sounded equal parts excited and apologetic. “Maybe I could introduce you. For future things?”

“Thank you, Stan,” Sarah said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She hung up the phone, and as soon as she did, she could hear their voices. They were arguing at the pool. Marcus saying, “You married a woman who makes things up for a living. Who stages fictional occurrences. What did you think was going to happen? That the fiction was always going to be to your liking? That it would always be appropriate?”

“This isn’t my fault,” Richard said.

Renata sneaked a glance at Sarah, and Sarah flushed. It was embarrassing. To be spoken about like you weren’t there. Like Renata wasn’t there.Both of us,Sarah thought,are so invisible to them.

“If you need a place—” Renata started to say. But Marcus’s voice interrupted her.

“You handled it wrong,” he said. “And you know it. You should have talked to me first.”

“I don’t get involved in your marital spats.” Richard’s voice was stony. “So stay the fuck out of mine.”

Renata turned around and leaned against the sink. Sarah could feel her eyes on the side of her face. But the housekeeper stayed silent, as if she didn’t want to risk saying too much or, worse, too little.

“It wasn’t a marital spat.” Marcus’s voice was loud enough now that Sarah was sure the neighboring villa could hear. “It was an issue for the family. Instead, you took it upon yourself to handle it. And you did a shit job.”

Sarah had avoided meeting Renata’s eyes, but when she heard Richard say, “What else was I supposed to do? She could have ruined us!” she found her vision jerking in the direction of Renata’s face.

“Don’t let them,” Renata whispered, “don’t let them pull you under.”

Lorna

Hours before Lorna’s disappearance:17

Helen, Freddy, and I arelying on yellow sun beds arranged beneath blue umbrellas on a slab of concrete that’s wedged between the Faraglioni rocks and the cliffs at the end of the Belvedere di Tragara. Capri, it turns out, is largely without beaches. Just cliffs. Sheer cliffs that crash into the Mediterranean. Decades ago, enterprising operators recognized the flaw of an island without sand and smoothed over a few rock isthmuses with concrete instead. Which is where we are now, a private beach club tucked between two of the island’s most popular attractions.

There’s something romantic about the way Capri seems to be constantly falling into the sea. And perhaps something a little threatening about it, too. The ground always shifting.

It’s still early. Early enough that the concrete of the beach club is cool, a cool that will be replaced in a few hours by blistering heat, at which point I will join the Italians who lie facing the sun, in the hopes that I can burn away the nerves that skitter across my skin.

“Isn’t that the house?” Freddy asks after we order drinks, settle in.

He points, and he’s right. You can see it through a gap in the rocks. The top of it, at least, the Moorish parapet almost obscured by stone pines and a spray of palms. It’s like a sentry, that house, standing guard at the edge of the Marina Piccola.

But Helen doesn’t respond. She’s hunched over her phone, fingers paused midtap. Neither Richard nor Marcus has mentioned theenvelope that accompanied the necklace, and so Helen and I haven’t either. Despite the fact we both know what it contains, how it will shape the days, the hours, ahead of us. Will they mention it? We told ourselves back in Los Angeles that they would have to. It would be a crisis. An unraveling.

The not knowing makes me antsy. And I can’t help but feel like Helen is avoiding the details. The whens, the whys, the whos. She hasn’t talked about the necklace, waiting back at the villa. Or the fact it hasn’t yet kicked the week off its axis, like we intended.

Instead, she’s texting.

I want to knowwhoshe’s texting.

We’re not supposed to be keeping secrets from each other. I’ve convinced myself that I’m only keeping secrets from her for her own good. I like to think she’d do the same for me, but Helen is still a Lingate. Will always be a Lingate. And I’ve seen, up close, how the rich behave. How they always pick their own.

“I really think we could have stayed at the house,” Freddy says just as I’m leaning in Helen’s direction, trying to read what’s on the screen. “Had drinks by the pool.”

“I like to swim,” Helen says, finally throwing her phone into her bag and stripping off her cover-up.

I look instinctively for my phone, but it’s at the house. I didn’t want to read any more emails about refunds or see a banner with Stan’s name flick across. Juggling it all is getting harder. I nearly reach for Helen’s phone. Just to check the time. To see if there is a name on the lock screen. But then Helen says to me:

“Are you coming?”

I’m not quick enough and the moment passes.

“Sure,” I say, throwing my towel onto the sun bed and pulling off what few clothes I have on. But I want to stay, to snoop. I wonder if Freddy would tell her that I did. Helen leaves us and makes her way to the edge of the water in a few quick steps, folding her wavy blond bob into a topknot.

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