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E mily stared at the note, transfixed by it, as it shook in her unsteady hand.

TELL JACK NOW OR I WILL TELL EVERYONE .

This time, there was no ambiguity. There was a name and a deadline. And proof the sender was here.

Not just in Sanctuary, but in this house.

Behind her, the lock in the bathroom clicked open. Grace reappeared, saying, ‘This place is cute, isn’t it? If it weren’t for, you know, the creepy town and construction site.’

The breakfast bar was a barrier between them, blocking Grace’s view of Emily from the waist down. She slipped the note down by her side and then did the only thing she could think of: she bent to open the dishwasher – never used, its stainless steel insides gleaming, an instruction booklet and a free sample of dishwasher tablets still in a plastic packet in the cutlery rack – and threw the note in there. She hoped Grace wouldn’t notice that the only soiled item in the entire kitchen, the wine glass she herself had just drained, remained on the counter.

‘I’d better get back,’ Grace said, taking her laptop from the counter and tucking it under her arm. ‘I have the transcribing to do.’

‘We talked about the fire today.’

‘Thanks for the wine. And the heads-up.’ Grace moved to leave.

‘Oh – just before you go, do you know if we can get onto the beach?’ Emily asked. ‘There’s a gate with a keypad on it. It was locked and my fob to get in here didn’t open it, so …’

She needed to call Alice to have a conversation that she couldn’t risk being overheard. That bang against the connecting door this morning; she was convinced that had been someone who’d been listening to her, accidentally revealing themselves.

Him self, she suspected.

And while she didn’t want to go full tinfoil-hat, Ben could have let himself in here at any time and left a listening device behind him. He could be a pervert and have left a camera too, for all she knew. No room in the main house was safe either, and anybody with good hearing and an open window could catch your conversation in the courtyard.

The last thing Emily wanted to do was leave here and go walk the streets of Sanctuary, so the only option was the beach. Wide open, in full view of everyone, with no place to hide. No one would be able to sneak up on her. She’d be safe and she could be sure her conversation would be private.

If she could just get onto it.

‘Yeah,’ Grace said, taking out her phone. ‘There’s a code, I have it somewhere …’ She tapped the screen a couple of times, then said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake. It’s two-oh-two-four.’

‘As in 2024? The current year?’

‘It’s the year the town was founded ,’ she said with an eye-roll. ‘And also a security risk, but I guess they didn’t think about that. They might as well have made it one-two-three-four.’ She turned to go. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Remember, starting at nine.’

‘Yeah. See ya.’

Emily waited at the door until she saw the top of Grace’s head appear from beneath the pergola as she started to cross the courtyard towards the main house.

Only then did she go and retrieve the note from the dishwasher.

TELL JACK NOW OR I WILL TELL EVERYONE .

The words blurred as the page shook.

The content was bad, but what was worse was the note itself. The physical presence of it. The method of delivery.

The emails could’ve been sent from anyone, anywhere. They could be the work of some teenage idiot halfway around the world, or sent by someone who wouldn’t even beep their car horn at you in the real world. A keyboard warrior. But now, there was no denying that they’d come from someone serious – and someone who was here .

The note had been slipped under the connecting doors.

By Ben, surely.

Emily got her phone and her keys, tucked the note into her jeans pocket, and stationed herself by the door of Bookmark, scanning the scene below. She moved to the front windows, checking one at a time, to make doubly sure.

Then she left, hurrying down the stairs and across to the archway and into the garage, keeping her head down and her pace fast.

She braced herself as she exited onto the street, but there was no one there.

She made it around the corner, then down the path to the gate. She punched in the code, got a whiney buzzing sound that told her she’d entered it wrong, and forced herself to calm down, take a deep breath and try again.

This time, it worked.

There was a different buzzing noise and a click as the gate swung open. She pushed through, ran up the marble steps and down the other side of them.

She rang Alice.

‘Hey! I was just about to call you.’

‘I’m in trouble here,’ Emily said.

‘What? What’s happening?’

‘Hang on, I just … Hang on one second.’

‘What’s going on?’ Alice asked. ‘Are you OK?’

She reached down to pull off her shoes, left them on the last step and then walked, barefoot, to the water’s edge. The sand was deep and soft. It was difficult to make your way across it quickly, with every step getting swallowed up by its shifting depth. When it became firm and moist beneath her bare feet, she stopped and turned and started walking parallel to the water, scanning for other people as she did.

As far as she could see, she was the only person on the beach.

‘Em? Are you there?’

‘He knows .’

‘Who does? Knows what?’

Quickly, she caught Alice up. On the third email and the hand-delivered note. Jack’s promising Morningstar a confession. On her suspicions that Ben had had something to do with the death of Kate Smyth. That Ben was here, watching her, following her around town and, she believed, slipping that note under the connecting doors.

‘You need to leave,’ Alice said. ‘Call a cab, take it to the airport. Right now. Which one is the nearest to you? I’ll book you the next flight out.’

‘Leaving isn’t really an option,’ Emily said.

‘Leaving is the only option.’

‘I can’t, Alice.’

A hard exhale. ‘OK, fine. I’ll indulge this absolutely insanity for thirty seconds. Why the fuck not?’

‘Because if I quit this job, then I’ll owe them the money.’

‘But you’ll be alive .’

‘I only have to get through one more day before it’s over anyway – wait, alive ? Alice, this is real life.’

‘That’s exactly my point.’

‘I’m not leaving. And if Ben didn’t kill Kate, that means Jack did, and you were perfectly fine with me being out here with him .’

‘That was before I knew about you getting followed and notes under connecting doors. You’re out in the middle of nowhere with what sounds to me like a bunch of lunatics. And you’re staying in one of their houses. Can’t you at least, I don’t know, move to a hotel? Won’t you just do that until we can figure this out?’

‘Jack and Grace and Ruth – that’s his sister – they’re OK, and they’re here too.’

‘To be clear,’ Alice said. ‘Your counter-argument is that everything’s fine because the guy who might have murdered his wife is there with his sister and a woman who works for him?’

‘Well, if Ben did it, he didn’t.’

‘Silver linings,’ Alice muttered. ‘Look, will I open this or not?’

‘What?’

‘The solicitor’s letter. That’s why I was going to ring you.’

With everything else that’d been going on, Emily had forgotten about it.

The crash of the waves faded away, replaced by a ringing in her ears as her entire body began to thrum with anxiety.

‘Open it,’ she said.

Her heart started beating so fast it made her dizzy, unsteady in her position on the sinking sand. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat and her mouth filled with the metallic taste of fear. She pushed the phone against her ear and heard a rustling, a ripping of paper, and then Alice saying—

‘It’s not her.’

—just as the crescendo of adrenaline peaked, almost drowning out Alice’s voice, and Emily had to ask her to repeat it.

‘It’s not her,’ Alice said again. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. It looks like …’ The whip of pages being flicked through at speed. ‘It’s a non-disclosure agreement – that you already signed? I think it’s … Yeah, it’s for this, Em. For Jack’s book. They’ve sent you a copy for your records.’

Emily briefly closed her eyes, awash with relief.

‘I don’t want to say I told you so,’ Alice added. ‘But I told you so.’

And then it hit her.

‘Oh God. I’m an idiot.’

‘Why? I mean, yeah, I know, but why specifically in this instance?’

‘The name of the firm,’ Emily said. ‘Roche and Reilly.’

‘Roche and O ’Reilly.’

‘Joe Roche is Jack’s solicitor. He’s that Roche. I should’ve known it was something to do with that.’

‘Well, you do now. One less problem to worry about.’

‘What do I do about the note?’

‘Leaving is still my advice and should be your preference.’

‘But if it isn’t?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Em.’ Alice exhaled hard, frustrated. ‘OK. Look. Assuming that this is about The Witness —’

‘It has to be.’

‘—why does this person want you to tell Jack?’

‘I suppose so he fires me,’ Emily said.

‘Because they don’t want this book to happen?’

‘Or maybe because they do . Maybe they think I’m not the kind of writer you want helping you tell a truth that’s already a struggle for people to believe. Maybe this is someone protecting him.’

‘But why don’t they just tell him themselves?’

‘Maybe for some reason they can’t reveal that they know. About the book. Or that they want me out.’

Alice was quiet.

Emily waited, knowing she was thinking things through.

‘You should tell him,’ Alice said then. ‘And I’m not saying that because then this insanity might be over and I think it already should be. I’m assuming you won’t listen and won’t leave. So, neutralize the threat. Take away this anonymous person’s leverage.’

‘Tell Jack ?’ Emily said. ‘Are you mad?’

‘It’s the easier option. And it’s sort of the only one, isn’t it? At this point? Look, if Jack were a journalist, I wouldn’t be suggesting this. Obviously. But he’s not going to have any interest in exposing you. I think he might have enough of his own problems? So tell him. If you trust him, you can trust him to keep this to himself. And while you’re at it, I think maybe you should consider telling Mark too.’

‘ Mark? Alice, what is this? Bad Advice Day?’

‘I think he suspects, Em. When I was over there he was asking me loads of questions about what you were like when you were writing the book. Not as dumb as he looks, that one. Despite the awful poetry, I think he’s a keeper. And saying this will bring me out in hives because, ugh, feelings , but I think he really loves you and is genuinely worried that you’re keeping something from him, and that’s only going to make a gulf.’

‘No,’ Emily said. ‘No way.’

‘What’s the downside of telling him?’

‘He’d know . That’s the downside. He’d know what I did, who I really am.’

‘He already knows who you really are, you idiot. You’re the woman he loves. Do you seriously think this would change that for him? That it would matter?’

‘It matters to me.’

‘You could tell him a half-truth.’

‘Which would be what?’

‘About the book,’ Alice said, ‘but not the rest.’

‘I think, with him, the book stuff would be worse.’

‘It was just a book, Em. It’s not your identity. It’s not your worth. It’s not your heart. You know that, right? It’s a thing you made.’

‘But I didn’t make it.’

‘Yes, you did. It didn’t exist and then it did, because of you.’

‘Can this be a when-I-get-home problem? Could we focus on the murderer for now?’

‘At least you haven’t lost your sense of humour.’

‘But I might be losing my fucking mind.’

Movement then, further down the beach.

A shimmer of a person.

Someone was coming towards her. A man.

Ben .

‘Hey,’ Emily said, turning to start walking back up the beach to the marble steps. ‘No matter what, stay on the line, OK?’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Just stay on the line.’

‘Emily?’ Ben called out.

She ignored him and quickened her pace on the sand, which was difficult now that she had crossed onto the soft, sinking part of it.

And saw that, directly ahead of her, someone else was coming down the steps.

Tall Blonde Woman.

What the hell was she doing here? Both flights, Seaside and now here, on the beach in front of Beach Read?

‘Shit,’ Emily muttered.

Ben called her name again, from much closer.

‘Em?’ Alice’s voice said in her ear. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘No, I agree,’ Emily said, loudly. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’

‘Is that supposed to be some kind of code? Because it’s terrible.’

‘Yes, I know. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.’

‘Emily,’ Ben said from behind her.

Right behind her. So close she felt his breath on the back of her neck.

And this time her name was a command, not a question.

‘I’m sorry.’ She threw the words at him carelessly, over her shoulder, without turning around. ‘I’m on a call—’

‘It will have to wait,’ he said.

Tall Blonde Woman waved. At first Emily was confused, because why would that woman be waving at her? And then – No, of course. She wasn’t waving at Emily. She was waving at Ben.

She thought, They’re in this together, whatever the hell this is .

And then Ben grabbed her arm.

Emily was so intent on getting away that the sudden force acted as a kind of slingshot, spinning her around with the surprise of it and then, rendered unsteady on her feet by the change in direction, closer to him.

It was disconcerting to see him this close, uncanny, like when you’ve come to know someone entirely through a thumbnail picture online and then meet them in 3-D, at all angles, in real life. He looked just like he had in the picture Jack had shown her, except red in the face, eyes wide, teeth clenched.

Furious.

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ His words threw spittle into her face.

‘ Emily! ’

It was Alice’s voice, muffled but audible, because she’d shouted at the top of her lungs into her phone, loud enough to be heard in the vicinity of this one, to make her disembodied presence known.

It seemed to break a spell in Ben, who let go of her and stepped back.

His gaze rose over her shoulder, to where Tall Blonde Woman was standing, waiting. She’d stopped a few feet up the beach, apparently waiting for his direction.

‘Just one second,’ Emily said, as calmly as she could, into the phone. And then, in Ben’s direction, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

And with that Emily took off up the beach, brushing past Tall Blonde Woman.

She dug her heels into the sand, going as fast as she could, not looking back. Her chest grew tight and her calves burned, but she pushed on.

She picked her shoes up at the bottom of the beach side of the marble steps but didn’t stop to put them on, running up the steps to the gate, scanning for a release button so she wouldn’t be delayed looking for it when she actually got there.

And saw Jack.

He was on the other side of the gate, punching in the code, opening it from the other side.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his face full of concern. He looked behind her. ‘Is that Ben?’

Emily came barrelling through the gate, pushing him out of the way, and then turned back around to push it shut. She gulped down a few breaths, trying to catch her own after the exertion.

Down by the water, Ben and Tall Blonde Woman were deep in what looked like an agitated conversation, hands flying.

‘Who’s that woman with him?’ Jack asked, squinting.

‘ Emily, for fuck’s sake! ’

Alice. She’d forgotten she was still on the line.

She put the phone to her ear. ‘I’ll call you in a little while, all right? Everything’s fine now.’

‘What the actual f—?’

‘I’m fine now. I’m with Jack.’

‘Hang on. Are you—?’

‘I’ll call you later, I promise. OK? I promise.’

She hung up the call and turned to Jack, who was looking completely bewildered.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘I came out here because I saw you and Ben on the beach and I was going to ask you what you were saying to him. But it looks like maybe I should be asking what he said to you ?’

‘I need to talk to you,’ Emily said.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Not here. Not in the house. Not in Sanctuary.’

‘All right.’ Jack pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket. ‘Then let’s go.’