Chapter 18: The House on the Water

The guard at the gate looked at Stanley's car and then at me in the passenger seat.

It was the same man who had asked me who I was on the worst night of my life.

"Contractor," Stanley said. "Measuring for the east wall."

"Yes, sir."

He didn't look at me twice.

The gate rolled back, and we went up the drive between the oaks where the white lights had hung.

I had not seen the house in nineteen days.

It stood exactly as I had left it, gray stone against gray water, with the lawn raked flat and every window clean.

Lydia's car was gone.

"Her fitting runs till four," Stanley said. "We have an hour."

Inside, the front hall smelled of her perfume.

Her coats hung on the hooks where mine had been.

I walked through to the kitchen and stopped.

The kettle was on the stove, where I had left it, with the dent in the spout from the year I dropped it.

Nobody had moved it.

I put my hand on the cold handle and held on.

"The safe's in the study," Stanley said gently. "Come with me, or stay."

"I'm coming."

The study was dark wood and old leather.

He knelt at the safe behind the desk and spun the dial, and I stood in the doorway and looked at the mantel.

Lydia on the boat.

Lydia at the Christmas party.

Lydia on the courthouse steps in my place.

"I'm sorry," he said, without turning around.

"Stop apologizing and open it."

The door swung back.

He took out a small gray drive no bigger than a thumb and held it in his fist.

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