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16

My hangover is brutal. I feel shriveled, desiccated—my tongue Velcroed to the roof of my mouth. I didn’t feel that drunk last night. Really, I’d swear I wasn’t drunk at all. Then again, three whiskys on an empty stomach probably wasn’t a great idea. Or maybe it was four.

After a handful of ibuprofen and a blistering shower, I’m almost able to think about food without throwing up. My binder sits on the table, notes and papers spilling out. But as soon as I sit down before it, my mind strays back to last night’s conversation with Parker. The body at the dump, yes, but the rest of it too. It’s all a warm blur until the end, then it’s white-hot humiliation. Why did I run upstairs? What did I think was going to happen? And why on earth did I accept a dinner invitation from the drunk guy who set his car on fire?

Air, I decide. Fresh air will help.

I put on my parka and start walking south, not for any particular reason other than it’s away from the lake. I can’t face that expanse of water. Not this morning. I consider stopping by Stedsan’s unannounced, but what good would it do? He either doesn’t know anything else about Tommy or doesn’t want to help me. Either way it would just piss him off. And my head hurts too much for that.

Instead, I follow the smell of baking and cinnamon into a cafe and order a triple shot of espresso, which burns my stomach like acid. I take the back door out, thinking it will save me a block of walking, but it doesn’t open onto the street at all. Instead, I wander through a maze of alleys that winds among brick warehouses. The windows are cracked and missing half their panes, but the walls are covered in murals. Enor mous bees climb up one wall, dripping with glistening honeycombs so real-looking I expect my fingers to come away sticky. On another wall, someone has stamped a field of blue flowers.

Waves of heat pulse out an open door. A man in a metal mask and thick gloves twirls molten glass on a long rod. Behind a window, a woman manipulates clay on a wheel, her dark skin covered up to the elbows in pale mud, so it looks as if they’ve been erased. Through another window, papier-maché whales hang suspended from the ceiling, each lit up to reveal a skeleton inside.

I feel the thrill of being lost, of crossing into another world nested inside my own like the crystals of a geode hidden inside a dull gray rock. I stop. Ahead of me, a tree made of mirror shards covers a two-story wall. Its branches reflect blue sky and then the white of cloud. It’s unreal, a portal to somewhere else.

Ice on Parker’s eyelashes. Tommy going in the water. A woman’s face covered in blood.

Leave it alone. But it’s a scab I can’t stop picking.

My phone pings. Reality intruding. I unlock it to find a message from Xander.

Still on for tonight? 7pm at Lands End. At the end of Harbor Rd.

I think about canceling, but then I’d just have to reschedule, dread this dinner for another week. Better to get it over with. I write back.

See you there!

I walk closer to the mirrored mosaic, touch a long sliver of glass that makes up the tree’s bark. It’s cold and smooth, the edge sharp enough to slice skin. Real, then, after all.

At six thirty, I trade my sweatshirt for a cable-knit sweater and swipe on some mascara. Good enough. Then I pull up directions to Harbor Road. It’s on the other side of the bay, running up the peninsula that extends toward Rock Point. The road ends at a marina, so at least the restaurant will have a water view.

After driving south for ten miles, I turn onto a smaller road that follows the curve of the bay back north. It’s quiet and dark. Most of the houses are wrapped in shadow and set back behind high fences. One fence has individual notches cut out for the limbs of an ancient hedge to pass through.

I arrive at the marina, but a sign nailed to the fence announces it’s closed for the season. No restaurant in sight. Ahead, the road is narrow and pitted with potholes. I wonder if I’ve taken a wrong turn, but my phone doesn’t have a signal. So I drive on.

After another minute, the road ends at a stone pillar topped with a brass carriage lantern, giving off just enough light to read a plaque fixed to the side: 4539 HARBOR RD., LANDS END . A black metal gate bars the way forward.

Okay, so it’s not a restaurant. It must be a hotel or some kind of private club. The gate swings open silently. I know there must be a camera or a sensor, but it feels like dark magic.

The drive is lined in tall, spreading trees whose branches form a tunnel above the car. After a minute, a building appears lit from below by hidden spotlights. The roof is flat and the angles are modern, more like a series of connected boxes than a house. But the structure is wrapped in cedar shingles, weathered to silver, so it blends into the forest despite the size.

The driveway widens into a circle with an island of dried plants in the center. I park and get out. Tall grasses glow silver in the moonlight. To one side, a shrub droops under the weight of purple berries. I run my finger up the golden bottlebrush of some kind of dried flower. It’s all dead and beautiful.

And empty.

I turn to take in the driveway, free of cars, the front stairs with a single pair of muddy boots sitting outside. That’s when I realize my mistake.

Lands End.

This isn’t a hotel. This is just the kind of neighborhood where houses have their own names. I’m at Xander’s house. Alone.

I’m trying to decide whether to get back in my car when the front door opens.

“Alex?”

He’s wearing jeans and a blue hoodie. He looks so different from the sloppy drunk I met in the police station, I barely recognize him. He’s handsome with symmetrical features and clear blue eyes behind glasses—a nerdy quarterback.

“Just admiring your garden,” I say. And hoping you’re not going to murder me at your isolated mansion.

He comes down the walkway. Up close, his skin has the tender look of someone who doesn’t shave often. He’s made an effort.

“What’s your favorite?” he asks.

I point to the bush with the purple berries. His smile is shy. He shuffles his feet in the gravel.

“Beautyberry,” he says. “I got deep into native plant gardening when I first moved here. Planned most of this myself.”

His broad gesture could mean the driveway or the estate beyond, hidden by darkness.

“Anyways, dinner will be a little bit.” He nods to a lit window and I see a woman in a white apron flash past. Relief rises in me—at least we’re not alone.

“Do you want to start with wine?”

Definitely .

“Sure,” I say and follow him inside.

Knotty pine floorboards lead from the entrance to the huge stone fireplace that dominates the center of the open room. On the other side, a wall of glass windows reveals a patio where flames leap from a stone fire pit. “I thought we could sit outside, if that’s okay?” Xander says.

“Sounds great,” I say casually, but in my head I’m already draining the glass of wine, feeling the edges of the world soften.

Xander leads me past overstuffed leather couches and an enormous coffee table made from a cross section of some ancient tree. The bar already has a decanter of red wine and two glasses waiting on it. He pours. It smells expensive. I try not to finish it in one gulp.

Outside, we settle into Adirondack chairs and watch the coals of the fire glow orange. Xander turns his glass around and around on the arm of his chair, not looking at me. “So,” he says, “I just—I want to say I’m so sorry for the way I acted in the station.”

Even in the low firelight, I see the deep crimson of his blush.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m sure it wasn’t your best moment, but we’ve all had those.”

He tugs on the strings of his hoodie, looking so uncomfortable that I actually feel better. At least I’m not the only one.

“Look, the last couple days haven’t been great for me either. And this wine is delicious, and I really don’t want you to spend the whole evening apologizing. Can we just—can we consider that part done?”

I can see the relief on his face. “Deal.”

“So how long have you lived here?”

I don’t know if it’s the wine or the setting, but everything about this place feels unreal.

He shrugs. “On and off for a couple years. It took two years to build the house, so I’d come back and forth from San Francisco to check on things. I meant it to be more of a retreat, but after the IPO flopped, things got kind of messy.”

He says it like I should know what he’s talking about. “The IPO?”

“Videara. It was—is—a video-sharing platform. I founded it, but exited last year after we took the company public. It wasn’t, well, it wasn’t great. I mean, I made shitloads of money, so it’s not like you should feel bad for me or anything.”

He says it reluctantly, like it’s the last thing he wants to talk about, but also like it somehow explains him, so he needs to get it over with. A feeling I know something about.

“At least they let you keep the hoodie.” I point to the logo on his chest, a bright-purple V . His laugh lights up his face.

“Yeah,” he says. “There’s that. Anyways, after I left, this seemed like a good place to regroup, you know? Wait for the next big idea to find me.”

“And has it?” I mean it as a joke, but he looks down at the ground with a mournful expression, as if the thought that he might not jump from one success to the next had never occurred to him.

“I have some ideas,” he says, “but nothing solid yet.”

“Well, there are worse places to live out an early retirement.”

His eyes widen. “It’s a break.”

“Of course. Sorry, bad joke.”

I take a sip of wine. A big sip. I’m not used to being around someone who shows exactly what he’s thinking. It’s like he’s managed to get through life without any of his edges being filed to sharpness.

“No, wait.” Xander rubs a hand through his hair, making it stand up like a hedgehog. “It’s just—you really saw me at my worst the other day. This was supposed to be my apology for all that. And I’m being a shitty host.”

The evening is balanced on a knife’s edge. I feel lightheaded, drunk not on wine but on knowing that whatever I do or say will topple us one way or the other. And not caring.

I hold up my empty glass for a refill. “Well, at least the wine’s good. Let me guess—it’s from your vineyard in France?”

His face goes bright red. “It’s in Napa,” he says quietly.

It’s not that funny, but suddenly I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts. “Of course it is,” I gasp.

At first, Xander looks uncertain, then he too starts laughing with the kind of unhinged hilarity that comes from releasing tension. I feel like an empty balloon.

Behind us, a door opens to reveal a tall woman in a white chef’s jacket. She frowns down at us, laughing like kids. “Dinner is ready,” she says.

“Yes, sorry, Cara,” Xander says, getting ahold of himself. “We’ll be right there.”

We both wipe our eyes and go inside.

The dining table looks like something a medieval king would sit at—rough-hewn wood and long benches, high-backed seats at the end like thrones. Cara enters, somehow balancing six dishes on her arms at once. Oven-warm pita served with whipped feta and nutty muhammara. Chicken sticky with a honeyed brown sauce and a salad overflowing with roasted sweet potatoes and crunchy radishes. After weeks of living on cereal and frozen burritos, every bite is like an explosion. Dinner is nice. The food, yes. But it’s also surprisingly nice to be eating with a real live human, someone who doesn’t know me at all. I could be anyone.

While I eat, Xander tells me about Silicon Valley like he’s summon ing memories from a past life. There’s something adrift about him. Like this estate is Avalon, unmoored from time and space. He asks about my life in New York, which I don’t want to talk about. So I tell him about the book: Coram House, the case against the church, how I’m here to shape it all into a story. History for true-crime fans, I say, trying it out and hating how it sounds. I’ve never been good at marketing-speak.

He nods as he refills our glasses, looking politely interested. But when I mention the condo development, his eyes light up. “You know,” he says, “there’s something about the project that draws you in. When Bill first took me to the site, I could see it. It was such a blank slate. So much possibility.”

My wine goes down the wrong pipe, and I cough a spray of red droplets onto my napkin. “The project,” I say when I can breathe. “You mean, Coram—Sunrise House?”

His brows furrow. “Well, yeah. I’m the largest investor, apart from Bill. Sorry, I just assumed you knew.”

I take this in with a burst of anger but no one to direct it at.

“It’s going to be really cool when it’s done.”

Xander goes on to describe the green roof, the communal gathering spaces, the fire pit. I think of the brochure Stedsan gave me. The good-looking, racially neutral yuppies drinking wine under the shade of trellised vegetables someone else would be caring for. I should have known all that didn’t come from Bill Campbell.

Xander makes a broad gesture—saying something about affordable housing units—and knocks over his wineglass. The red liquid pours into the cracks in the wood, oozing toward me across the table. Xander rushes to soak it up with his napkin. The stain spreads across the white linen.

“The history of Coram House,” I say, because I can’t bring myself to use the word sunrise again, “it doesn’t bother you?”

He frowns like he doesn’t understand the question. “Of course it’s terrible,” he says. “But that’s the point—it’s history. We’re building a new future. A quarter of the units are going to be affordable housing and the whole thing will be net-zero. That’s where the name came from. I wanted something the opposite of what it used to be. A new beginning.”

He looks at me, waiting. So I paste on a smile while I think. I mean, he’s not wrong. What would be the best use of that space? To molder away? Become a museum of horrors? But still, it bothers me. It’s not a blank slate.

“Look, I think we can find a way to honor the history while still harnessing its potential,” he says.

I imagine what the plaque will say. Some quote about beauty and suffering probably. After the rain, comes the rainbow. I feel a mad urge to laugh or to throw my wineglass at him just to hear something smash. But I know Cara would be the one cleaning up the mess.

Xander pushes back his chair and gestures for me to follow him. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

I look at the platters of uneaten food—far too much for two people—the ruined napkin, the half-finished bottle of wine that probably costs a week of my salary. I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Then I get up and follow him.

Xander leads me down a back hall and into a library with matching tartan armchairs and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The spines of the books are all arranged by color, so it gives the impression of a wall wrapped in rainbows. A massive coffee table is littered with stacks of photos, newspaper clippings, and a leatherbound notebook. The mess reminds me a bit of my own workspace.

I pick up one of the photos. It’s Lake Champlain. Rich, deep black in the shadows, but the surface of the water has the sheen of mercury. Probably a silver gelatin print. It’s dusty; everything on the table is, as if someone abandoned whatever project this is halfway through.

“I was thinking we could frame these,” Xander says, pointing to the photos. “And hang them throughout the buildings. I figured they’d give the historical flavor.”

I lay aside the landscape and lift another photo. Children sitting in a pew, dressed in dark jackets and dresses. Sunday Service , it says on the bottom. I frown.

“Xander, where did these come from? Father Aubry?”

He shakes his head. “Most of that stuff burned up, I guess. But these are from the right time period.”

The photo isn’t from Coram House at all. It’s a prop. Some picture unearthed at a thrift shop or, more likely, bought online.

“Here, check this out.”

Xander slides a photocopy of a newspaper clipping across the table. A grainy black-and-white photo shows a man in a suit and two children in front of a building, a ribbon stretched across the doors. Orphans open new library wing , says the caption.

“I’m trying to talk the library into giving me the original. They’ve got it framed in some back hallway, where no one can see it. And I figure there’s got to be more stuff like this out there.”

He goes on, but I’m not listening anymore. I hold the photocopy gently, as if it might crumble to dust. The two children in the image are dressed formally. The boy in a dark jacket, the girl in a dress and frilled ankle socks. I would have assumed the photo was from the fifties based on their clothes, but the caption says 1967. No Swinging Sixties here. But it’s not the clothes that have grabbed my attention, it’s the rest of the caption: Mayor Francis J. Cain cuts the ribbon on the new Mary Fletcher Library wing with some help from Elizabeth R. (7) and Thomas U. (8), children of Coram House.

I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. The image is grainy. But the boy’s age is right. The year is right. It could be him. Thomas U. A last initial. I grip the paper like someone might try to tear the photocopy out of my hands.

“Can I take this with me?” I ask.

Xander blinks at me. I’ve interrupted him, I realize too late. My mouth is dry, afraid he might say no.

“I’ve been looking for someone—my research—this might help.”

“Of course,” he says, and he looks so genuinely happy, that I feel bad for wanting to throw a glass of wine at him only five minutes before.

“Take anything you need.”

My phone vibrates. I pull it out to see a text from Stedsan, asking if I’m going to Jeannette Leroy’s funeral tomorrow.

“Do you want a coffee?” Xander asks. His voice is overly bright, like a kid who knows he’s in trouble but isn’t sure why. “I could show you the lake before you go. It’s a great view of downtown at night.”

I feel guilty—he’s obviously trying—and also something close to euphoric at having the photocopy folded safely in my pocket. Tommy U. It could be him.

“Sure,” I say. “Coffee sounds great.”

We wind our way back through the dark house to the front hall, where I pull on my jacket and hat. Xander disappears into the kitchen and reappears with two thermoses. Outside, liquid dark presses against the windows. We could be in a submarine, deep in the ocean. When Xander opens the door, I half expect the darkness to flood inside—to drown us. But it’s just the freezing air, the mineral tang of impending snow.

Outside, Xander taps his phone, and a soft glow rises from the ground, illuminating a path that leads into the woods. Uneasiness creeps up my spine. It’s the darkness of the trees, the flicker of shadows. Nothing particular. Just monsters in the woods.

The path winds beneath the trees to a set of stone steps cut into a steep hillside. Gravel and salt crunch underfoot. At the base of the hill, a dock stretches into the black night. Two red Adirondack chairs sit at the end, waiting for summer. The sight triggers something in my brain, some sense of familiarity.

“Careful, it might be icy,” Xander says, as we step onto the dock’s wooden boards.

The moon emerges from behind a cloud and illuminates the rocky cliffs across the water. And I understand, now, why the chairs felt familiar.

The cliff across the water is Rock Point. Five days ago, I stood right over there, looking across the ice at a huge house nestled in the trees. At a dock with two red chairs. This house. This dock. I feel untethered, as if I’ve stepped through the looking glass.

Xander is still talking and I force myself to return my attention to the present. “What?” I say.

“Oh, nothing, I’m just babbling,” Xander says, laughing. “I was just saying—there’s something hypnotic about the water. It’s always the same, but always changing, you know? It just froze out there, so we should be able to ice sail in a few days if the cold weather holds.”

“Out there?”

I look at the flat ice beyond us, beyond Rock Point, and realize what’s different. Everything out there was open water just five days ago. Now it’s all frozen solid.

“And to complete tonight’s tour, that’s downtown over there.”

Xander raises his cup to a scattering of twinkly lights to our right, resting in the curve of the bay.

In the distance, I make out the fishing shacks that dot the ice, but there’s something else out there too. A shadowy lump. Snippets of what Parker told me at the police station come back. A car on the ice. A fire. I point. “Is that—”

“My car, yeah.” Xander clears his throat, embarrassed.

“And you walked all the way from that to here?” I ask, incredulous. Now that I’m standing here—it’s not a funny story anymore.

“The ice is solid,” he says, defensive. “I drink my coffee down here every morning. Sure it was open water beyond the point, but the bay has been frozen for weeks.”

“Right.”

“It’s not like I’m the only one. People are out there fishing all the time. Skating. I mean, I saw someone paddling a canoe around the point last week.”

“The canoe thing isn’t exactly supporting your argument.”

Xander sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes. He’s silent for a few seconds and I wonder if he’s mad at me. When he takes his hand away, his smile is rueful. “I don’t know why I’m trying to recast my bad, drunk idea as something logical. I guess I just don’t want you to think I’m a total idiot.”

“I don’t,” I say. “Think you’re an idiot, I mean.”

He smiles at me. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I appreciate you saying it either way. Come on, I’ll walk you back.”

At the car, Xander opens the driver’s side door and I slide inside. I thank him for dinner, for the photo, and wait for him to close the door, but he doesn’t.

“Sorry, can I just ask something? My therapist—I’m working on being more direct—and I just, did I say something wrong before, at dinner? You seemed annoyed at me.”

I have a ridiculous urge to hit the gas and drive until he’s forced to let go of the car. But, of course, I don’t. Xander is so direct—no room for subtext. Maybe this is what people are like in California. Everyone’s on the road to self-actualization.

“I just have a hard time seeing Coram House turned into condos for people who want a water view.”

He opens his mouth—I think to protest—but I’m not done yet.

“Look, Xander, I know your plans go beyond that and, on some level, I do agree with you. There’s no good to anyone in letting the building rot. I just—I’m not comfortable with it. Not with the condos, not with the framed photos, none of it.”

I wait for him to explain all the reasons I’m wrong, but he just nods. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Thanks?” I ask, unable to cover my surprise.

He shrugs. “I’m glad you told me. And I hope you’ll come see it when it’s finished—decide what you think then.”

I smile. Hard to argue with that. “Deal.”

He shuts my door with a soft click. I roll down the window. “Thanks again for the newspaper clipping. And for dinner.”

“You said that already,” he says, but he’s grinning. “I’m going to call you about ice sailing. It’s the best. You’ll see.”

“I don’t think so,” I say with a laugh, and start the car.

As I pull away, I glance in the rearview mirror and see Xander standing in the driveway, waving. I raise a hand back. I feel a rosy glow, relief at being in my car, at having the evening I dreaded not be so bad after all. Nice, even. And, most of all, at the photo that might be nothing or everything, tucked safely in my pocket.