16. Chiara #3
She’s faster than I expect. She shifts the oar to one hand, and her free hand catches my shoulder and shoves. The force sends me sideways, and then there’s nothing beneath my feet but air.
The cold hits like a fist. I go under, the water closing over my head, and for a terrible second all I can think is that I’m going to die here, in this lake, because she has decided my life should have been hers.
No.
I kick toward the surface, fighting the drag of my coat and boots. My head breaks through and I gasp, coughing. I force my arms to move and turn toward the bank. The shore is maybe fifteen feet away. If I can just reach it before she can stop me.
The oar blade slams into the water in front of my face.
Livia has moved along the dock beside me. She drops to her knees and thrusts the oar across my path to the bank. I grab for the blade with both hands, my fingers closing on the wet wood, and I pull.
She doesn’t let go. I yank harder, using the strength I’ve built digging drainage channels and hauling compost, and I feel her weight shift. She tries to brace herself against the dock but the angle is wrong, and then she’s falling, the oar still between us as she hits the water.
The splash sends a wave over my head. I surface coughing and kick toward the bank again, but she’s already recovered, grabbing for me as I try to pass. Her hand closes on the back of my coat and drags me backward. The oar drifts away, forgotten.
I twist, trying to break free, but the wet wool gives her too much to hold. She gets both hands on my shoulders and pushes down.
My head goes under.
I thrash against her grip, kicking at her legs, driving my elbow back into whatever part of her I can reach. The water is dark and my lungs are burning and I can hear shouting, someone on the shore, a voice I know.
Lorenzo.
I catch a glimpse of him as I surge upward for air. He flings his coat onto the bank and wades in, two guards running down behind him. Then Livia’s hands are on my head again and everything goes dark.
I kick wherever my boots connect and claw at her wrists. I don’t care what I have to break to get her off me. Her grip loosens, and I twist toward the surface.
Then someone else is there. Hands under my arms, pulling me up, and I break the surface gasping and choking and Lorenzo is holding me.
“I’ve got you.” His arm braces me against his side while I grab his forearm. “I’ve got you. Can you move your legs?”
I can. I don’t know how, but I can. I kick toward the shore while he supports my weight, and behind us I can hear the guards dragging Livia through the water toward the dock.
My feet touch bottom and I nearly collapse, but Lorenzo keeps me upright, keeps me moving until we’re stumbling onto solid ground.
I drop to my knees on the cold bank, coughing up water, shaking so hard I can’t control it. Lorenzo crouches beside me, his hands on my shoulders, steadying me while I try to remember how to breathe.
One of the guards runs past us toward the estate vehicle parked on the track. The other hauls Livia onto the bank and holds her there. The man at the vehicle has a phone at his ear; I catch the words ambulance and police as he hurries back.
The first guard returns with a blanket, thick and dry. Lorenzo takes it from him and wraps it around my shoulders, tucking it tight, and I realize he’s soaked through too, his shirt plastered to his chest, his hair dripping.
“Can you get this arm out?” Lorenzo loosens the blanket to help me out of my soaked coat. I push my hand through the sleeve, then the other one, and he wraps the dry wool around me again. “They’re sending help. You’re going to the hospital.”
I let him draw me against him. A few minutes ago I was wondering if he’d brought strawberries. Now I can’t get my teeth to stop knocking together long enough to say his name. I grip his sleeve instead, hard enough that I would apologize any other time. His hand closes over mine.
“How?” I reach for his arm, needing something to hold onto. “How did you know?”
“Rosalia called when you didn’t answer her.” He keeps my shaking hand between both of his. “She said you were at the lake waiting for me. I hadn’t asked you to come.”
“The note.” I pull at his sleeve, determined to get this much out before another cough stops me. “In my car. She forged it.”
“I passed your car. We’ll keep the note.” He pulls the blanket higher around my shoulders. “I saw her holding you under, Chiara. I saw what she did.”
I try to answer, but another cough folds me forward. He supports me until it passes. For once I don’t have to find words to make him understand what she did to me.
The guards are bringing Livia up from the water’s edge. She’s soaked and shivering, her careful composure completely gone, and she’s fighting them. Not to escape. To get to Lorenzo. Her eyes are fixed on his face as they drag her past us toward the track, to wait for the police.
“Lorenzo.” She digs her heels into the bank, trying to make him look at her before the guards take her farther away. “I did this for us. For us.”
Lorenzo keeps his arm around me, his eyes on my face as he pulls the slipping blanket back over my shoulder. “Get her out of my sight.”