She Tried to Poison Me novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Soft Voice

I took out my phone and photographed the beneficiary page while he watched.

"Emme," said Nolan. "That's a routine policy."

"Two million dollars is routine?"

"The agent recommended it after the lodge refinanced. It protects both of us."

"Then why is Kit on it?"

He didn't blink.

"She's family," he said. "She's been family since the wedding. You can ask her yourself."

I took a second photograph of the cover page, the date, and the signature line.

The deputy shifted in the doorway.

"Sir," he said to Nolan, "she's allowed to take photos of documents with her name on them."

For the first time that morning, Nolan stopped smiling at me.

He stopped smiling at the deputy too.

I put the folder back exactly where I'd found it.

Then I picked up my laptop and my badge and walked down the stairs past Kit, who was still wearing my robe, and out into the noon light.

The neighbor had stopped watering the flowerpot.

She was looking at me.

She didn't.

That evening a car came down the gravel road to the boathouse.

It wasn't Fern's.

It was a white sedan with a lodge parking sticker in the window.

Seth stood up from the workbench, and Bishop got up with him.

"Let him in," I said.

"Emme."

"I want to hear what he says."

"He'll say something sweet."

"I know." I put down my tea, which I had made myself from a sealed bottle of water. "That's why I want to hear it."

Nolan knocked once and came in with a bunch of the white lilies I liked, wrapped in brown paper.

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