Today's Reading
PROLOGUE
Burlington, Vermont
July 2001
The wooded trail ended at the lip of the cliff. It was a near-ninety-degree descent to the pebbled beach where we'd stash our flip phones before wading into the water, scaling a rock, and jumping into the cold, black abyss. Down, then up, then down again. My stomach flip-flopped as we stripped off our clothes. I had my back to the others, conscious of my breasts and bare midriff. Suze peeled her tank top from her torso in slow motion, her dark, waist-length hair aglitter in the moon's hoary light.
'Jump out, not down,' Doug told us in a stony voice. 'There are about a dozen different ways this could go tits up and, Shay? I really don't want to tell Mom and Dad you died tonight.'
I blinked at my brother, nodding in stunned silence, and followed the others into the lake. Eight long strides between triangular boulders veined with pearly quartz to where the lakebed dropped off, and then we were on our bellies, doggy-paddling toward the base of Lone Rock. The climb up twenty feet of slick, craggy stone was never easy, and I struggled to gain purchase, my fingers slippery and uncertain. In the distance, the lake was quicksilver, the storybook Vermont mountains beyond a wavy black line.
The wind was up. I hadn't realized it before, but perched atop the island, it buffeted my hair and body both. I folded my arms across my chest and willed myself to stay steady. Behind my ribs, my breath juddered.
A yelp, bright and affected. There was a splash, and just like that Suze was gone, sucked down into the water. All I saw when she surfaced was a flash of bone-white teeth. My skin exploded in goosebumps. 'I'll wait for you!' she called from below, still laughing.
'You're up,' said Doug's friend, his hand hot and moist at the small of my back. Below me the lake rippled and snapped, but I didn't hesitate. If Suze could do it, so could I. I inhaled so fast I choked as the earth fell out from under me, air rushing up from the water while I plummeted toward it. The lake closed up over my head like a sealed bag. Like a fist around my lungs.
Boggy darkness. No sign of Suze. No light from the surface either.
I'd grown up on Lake Champlain, but I wasn't a swimmer. The dark water was disorienting, and I summersaulted in desperation, searching for air, an escape. I knew I was starting to panic, and also what that meant, but I couldn't settle the chanting in my mind.
I don't want to tell Mom and Dad you died tonight.
When I tried to scream, my mouth flooded with water, my larynx spasming like a beached fish. Every futile kick speeding me to disaster as I spiraled into the deep.
CHAPTER ONE
Alexandria Bay, New York
September
It all started with two innocuous words.
She's here.
Tim's voice, hollow in the spartan room, reached me where I stood by the window. This view was what I loved most about our house, more even than the antique built-in china hutch. The river outside was a creased sheet of midnight-blue silk, Boldt Castle with its backlit towers and spires a black fortress more at home in Romania than on an island in the St Lawrence River. I let the curtain fall back and turned to face Tim just in time to see him open the door. Already the house's cool, comfortable silence was starting to fizz like a pot over flame.
Henrietta Della Merchant arrived in A-Bay carrying a duffle as long as a body bag and wearing headphones smaller than dimes. Gone was the Dora the Explorer bob and soft middle I'd known when she was little. Hen was nearly as tall as me now with hips, lean muscles, a narrow waist. The kid was practically a woman.
I didn't know her at all.
We'd been in Canada, tasting wedding cakes at Sheriff Mac's favorite bakery, when Doug put out the SOS. It was only recently that I'd stopped being surprised when my brother's name popped up on my phone screen. Our estrangement had lasted months, and from time to time a familiar feeling of loss swelled like the river outside. I'd wasted no time answering his call. 'Velvet isn't a flavor. Tell me I'm right,' I'd said by way of greeting, because Tim and I had just eaten our weight in frosting and still couldn't see eye to eye.
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