Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
Ian
The minute I haul Dad’s body up the ladder and onto the dock, using every single ounce of strength I can muster, I know he’s dead.
He’s not breathing, but it’s more than that.
His face is blue, and his body bloated in a way that tells me he was in the water for a while.
Still, I press my fingers to his wrist hoping I’ll find a faint pulse—and when I don’t, I lean over his chest and start compressions.
“Come on, Dad,” I murmur, using my body weight to press down and then up, down and then up in the same rhythm they taught us during team CPR training at the sailing club. But he doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t open his eyes, slap me on the back, and call me “son.”
I pause to take a gasping breath and glance up at the house.
I called 911 the minute I saw him floating in the water, but who knows how long it will take them to arrive?
I go back to my compressions, down, up, down, up, over and over.
I’m gasping, crying now, my tears falling into the puddle Dad’s wet lifeless body is leaving on the dock.
After what seems like hours but is probably only a few minutes, I sit back on my heels and stare at the face of my father.
He’s dead. My dad is dead.
I press my hands to my face. He wasn’t perfect, but I loved him.
How did this happen?
I scramble to my feet and survey the gazebo, the dock, Dad’s body.
There’s a cut on his head, but the ocean water washed away the blood.
My gaze slides to the cocktails on the coffee table.
Did he drink too much and slip on the dock?
Hit his head on a piling? I always worried about Mom drinking and falling, I even found her at the bottom of the steps once.
She’d twisted her ankle but still managed to hold her glass so the wine wouldn’t slosh out.
But Dad only drank socially—at business meetings or when he was entertaining a client.
Or entertaining a woman.
I zero in on the other glass on the table. Was she here—Dad’s latest side piece, whoever she is—when it happened? Or had she left already?
If she was here, why didn’t she call 911?
I freeze. Could something sinister have happened? Could the woman he was sleeping with have killed him? I quickly shake off that thought. Dad was a cheater, but he wasn’t someone you’d want to murder. His money and property will go to Mom and me, so that wouldn’t be a motive.
No, he must have fallen when he was alone or with some woman who didn’t want her name attached to a scandal like this.
Dad’s conquests were usually wealthy younger women, many of whom were meeting with him about building monstrous beach houses for them and their equally wealthy husbands.
They wouldn’t want to be found cheating with Dad or get caught up in anything that could go public.
If a woman was willing to have an affair with a married man in his own home, she was probably the kind of person who would take off the minute it threatened her reputation and marriage.
And with that, my heart constricts, and I glance up at the house.
The paramedics are going to be here any minute.
I have to tell Mom what happened. She’s going to fall apart.
She loves Dad so much, she’s dedicated her entire life to him, even though he didn’t deserve it.
How is she going to react when she finds out he’s dead?
My gaze skates back to the coffee table.
When the police arrive, they’ll tell her about the second glass and the necklace.
They’ll ask her if Dad had a mistress. If his death will devastate her, I’m afraid what will happen if she finds out his last moments were with some other woman who she never knew about.
When he was alive, I wanted to tell her about the affairs so she could finally stand up and leave him.
But now that he’s gone, will telling her only tarnish her happy memories? Will it make her second-guess everything good in her life? Is there any point to it now?
After all, Dad can’t cheat ever again.
I glance at his body and the contents of my stomach threaten to come up.
I quickly look away. Seeing him like this will be terrible enough for her.
She doesn’t need to know he was unfaithful, too.
She can move on thinking he loved her, that he cared for her until the very end.
And who knows? Maybe that will give her the strength she needs to get herself together.
I stride across the dock to the gazebo. In the distance, I hear the high-pitched whine of a siren, followed by a second one blasting in a faster beat. They’re coming. The paramedics, the police. They’re coming to take Dad away. Any minute Mom is going to know everything.
I need to go up there to the house. To find her. To protect her.
And with that thought, I pick up the necklace and one of the cocktail glasses. The sirens grow louder. The emergency workers are in the driveway on the other side of the house now. I have only seconds to decide.
I hurry over to the edge of the dock, to the spot where Dad likely fell in.
There’s a piling with a smudge of blood on it.
The wood on the dock is damp. It was probably wet, and Dad slipped.
I hear voices now; the paramedics will come around the corner of the house and down the path in less than a minute.
Mom must hear them, too. She’ll come running.
I swing my arm back, and with all my strength, I throw the glass out into the ocean. It hits the water with a splash and disappears. I don’t stop to think now, just wind up and throw the necklace after it. It slips beneath the surface, gone, where nobody will ever find it.