Chapter 17: Two Women on a Dock

The lock turned again at three in the morning.

I was sitting on the floor with my back against the bed and a lamp base in my lap.

The deputy from the dock stood in the doorway with his hat on.

"Shoes," he said. "Quickly."

"Is Wesley awake?"

"He's asleep in his father's study, with the door shut. The old man's drinking."

"The guards?"

"Three at the front, one at the garage. Nobody on the sea stairs."

He held up a brass key.

"I was told to look at the roof tonight. I can look at it for twenty minutes."

"Who told you?"

"A woman in a gray sweater."

I knew who.

Whitney waited at the foot of the servants' stair in a dark coat with a pair of canvas shoes in her hands.

She had washed her face.

Without the makeup she looked twenty again, thin and scared.

I hated how much she looked like the girl who had once held my hair.

"Put these on," she said. "They're yours. I took them out of the hall closet."

"I don't want anything from you."

"You don't have to want it. You just have to wear it."

I put on the shoes.

The three of us went down the stone steps to the sea, with the deputy ahead of us.

A bitter wind came off the water.

At the bottom, I knelt by the old boat ramp and reached into the gap.

The camera case was there.

I felt along the dinghy's oar and unscrewed the rowlock cap, and the memory card slid out into my palm.

"You hid it in a boat," Whitney said.

"I hid it where you'd never look."

"I wouldn't have taken it."

"You waved at me."

She flinched.

The deputy stood a little way off, with his back to us, studying the horizon.

"I'll say you slipped past me," he said. "It might even work."

"Thank you," I said.

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