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Lydia nodded as well, agreeing with the woman who appeared to be her wife if the rings on their fingers and the way they held hands were any indication.

“We need to dig up your pool,” Felicity said then. “But we’ll pay for it, and it shouldn’t take more than a few days. We can call the same company Rosie used to put it in. They were pretty good, right?” She turned to Rosie.

“Yes, they were good. I have their number in my phone right now. I just need them to find something for me.”

“Something under the pool?” Violet asked.

“Yes. I buried something there a while ago. Then, I forgot all about it… and built the pool on top of it.”

“Wouldn’t they have found it for you when they dug for the pool?” Violet asked, trying to see what else she could get them to volunteer before she admitted to having the device stowed in her garage.

“It was pretty deep,” Rosie said. “So, they didn’t find it.”

“You buried something that deep? The pool is five feet deep at one end, so they would’ve gone deeper than that to put it in.”

“Is it a body?” Rachel asked. “Did you kill someone and bury them in our backyard?”

Violet looked at her and tilted her head, in the way Rachel normally did, to indicate that she should probably avoid asking questionslike that because they’d just invited these women into their home.

“No,” Felicity spoke. “We’re not killers.” She laughed a little nervously. “We just need what my wife buried out there.”

“Well, we’re not letting you tear up the backyard. That pool is Rachel’s favorite thing about this house.”

“Besides my wife and our dogs,” Rachel corrected. “They’re out back; both German Shepherds who are very protective of their moms. So, if I call them in here and tell them that we’re not happy with this strange invasion, they might decide–”

“My God!” Eliza stood abruptly. “This is stupid. It’s a case. It’s a case that has something inside it. That something isn’t a dead body, gold, jewels, or anything else of value. We dropped the damn thing into the ocean, thinking no one would ever find it, and had no idea that these two would be out there hunting for shipwrecks. They’d not only found it but brought it up, and then…” Eliza faded out. “Anyway… We just need to dig up the pool and take the thing. We’re not here to hurt anyone or cause any problems. Like Rosie and Felicity said, we’ll pay for the damages. We just need it. I’ll call the company and pay them extra to get it out of there today.”

“You dropped it in the ocean?” Rachel asked.

“You hunt shipwrecks?” Violet asked.

“We’re marine archaeologists. I found it on an expedition years ago, brought it up because it clearly didn’t belong there, and before I put the pool in the backyard, I buried it.” Rosie pointed to the backyard. “So, can we please just dig it up and get out of your hair?”

Violet turned to Rachel and silently asked her a question. Rachel understood her and nodded.

“What did you see?” Violet asked the four women then.

“In the backyard?” Rosie asked.

“No, with the machine. The device. What did you see?”

All four women looked shocked. They turned to one another before turning to Violet and Rachel, who sat still on the sofa.

“You know?” Felicity asked, seemingly the brave one in the bunch.

“I was putting the fence around the pool, and they discovered an issue out there. They dug it up, and I brought the case inside. I opened it and saw what was inside.”

“You obviously used it if you know we saw something,” Eliza noted before she sat back down next to Lydia. “What didyousee?”

“My future,” Violet said. “Well,ourfuture. It was years ago now.About a year after I bought this place.”

“You saw the future?” Lydia asked.

“Yes.”

“I saw the past,” Eliza revealed.

“The past?” Rachel asked as she leaned forward.