She Tried to Poison Me novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: A Million to Vanish

Fern took her breakfast on the sun porch every morning at seven, alone, with the newspaper folded in quarters.

I walked in at five past.

She didn't look up.

"There's coffee," she said. "I'm sure you won't want any."

"No, thank you."

"Sit."

I sat across from her at the little wicker table with my sealed water bottle in front of me.

The lake lay flat and silver beyond the glass.

Fern turned a page of the paper and smoothed it.

"I assume you have something to say," she said.

"Kit told me to ask you who picked her."

Fern's hand stopped on the newspaper.

It was only for a heartbeat, and then she folded the page and set it aside.

"Kit," she said, "has always been a dramatic girl."

"She said you sent her to my school when we were twelve."

"The lodge ran a scholarship for the staff's families."

She took a sip of coffee.

"I didn't know your name then."

"You knew my grandmother's."

"Everyone on this lake knew your grandmother's name."

"And her land."

Fern set her cup down in its saucer without a sound.

She looked at me properly for the first time.

Her eyes were pale blue and perfectly steady.

"You've grown up," she said. "I didn't expect that. Nolan said you were soft."

"What do you want, Fern?"

"What I have always wanted. For my family to stay where it is."

She opened her handbag, which sat on the chair beside her, and drew out an envelope.

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