Chapter 20: The Dock

Two days later the lake was flat and white with early frost.

I sat on my grandmother's dock with a blanket round my knees.

Tempest House was full of guards and ledgers, and I couldn't breathe in it.

Ambrose had agreed to the cottage on one condition.

Two court guards sat in a car at the end of the road, and Sybilla slept in the room under the eaves.

He had gone into town to meet the sheriff and buy the diner's doughnuts.

He would be twenty minutes.

The planks creaked behind me.

I didn't turn.

I thought it was June, back from her shift.

"Good morning, child," Ottoline said.

My whole body went cold.

She was standing at the foot of the dock in a long grey coat, her silver hair pinned flat, her pearls on.

She looked like she was going to church.

In her right hand, held low against her skirt, was a syringe.

I stood up.

"The guards," I said.

"Are asleep. I'm told the tea in their thermos was excellent."

She came forward one step at a time.

"I have been two days in your boathouse, Linnea. Your grandmother kept a very comfortable cot."

"There are forty people in this town who will hear me scream."

"It is six in the morning," Ottoline said. "The lake is a very large place."

She lifted the syringe to the light.

"Do you know what this is? You do. You were a nurse."

She turned it in the light.

"Silver, in a proper dose, through a proper vein. It will stop three small hearts and leave yours quite undisturbed."

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