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I feel like I’m underwater.

“No.” I shake my head. “No, Fritz.” I raise a hand to keep them at arm’s length.

I’m insisting, but they don’t seem to notice.

Can’t they hear me?

“Leave!” I scream. I feel like dropping to my knees and covering my ears like a child.

But they’re still talking. Everything comes in weird waves.

“Nora, I’m so sorry to tell you…”

“…we found a body…”

“…identified as Will…”

I can feel the world starting to spin. I must have a dire look in my eyes, because suddenly both Ardell and Fritz have either side of me and they’re pulling me into Este’s house. I can hear Este screaming.

“Beau! Beau, get in here!”

I have no idea how much time passes after that. I’m just sitting on the edge of the couch where Ardell and Fritz set me down, trying to see if my heartbeat will slow down, or if it will race to find the end of my time on Earth.

I have lost Will every hour since that first morning I realized he was gone, but until now, I could find him again.

I could picture some cosmic loophole, a silver lining, some impossible comeback where I was wrong and he was alive, and we could fix…

everything. But now he is gone for good, and I’m free-falling through space.

I close my eyes, trying to conjure his face, but I can’t.

My brain won’t let me even go into a liminal space to see him again. One more time.

“I can’t—” I start to stand up, but I’m so wobbly I sit back down. Beau comes over and just scoops me up into a bear hug.

“We’ve got you, Nora. We’ve got you.” Pressed up against his chest, I hear the quiver in his voice and feel his stuttered breath.He’s crying. I sink into him, but I’m numb. There’s nothing there. No feelings. Just—air and silence.

Ardell comes over and sits on the coffee table across from me.

“Nora, I’m so sorry. About all of this.”

“How do you—What—Where did you find him?”

“A pair of kayakers found him snagged in a lily pad near one of the canals. Our best guess is that his body took some time to surface.”

I nod like I am taking this information in, but I know that I am going to have to hear it all again. Someone is going to have to tell me multiple times. Maybe for years. I might never believe it.

Because this can’t be happening. This can’t be real.

“Fritz came down to identify him.”

Fritz steps over. “I didn’t want you to have to be the one.”

I nod at him. He’s right. I didn’t want to be the one to see whatever that was.

That…Will…Oh god.

“He looks to have suffered blunt force trauma to the head. We’ve got our homicide unit involved, trying to get to the bottom of things.”

“Homicide?” Este looks like she’s been slapped.

“We’ll clearly have to wait for our medical examiner’s opinion on it, but given the wounds he sustained, this doesn’t appear to have been an accident.”

I stare at him. So unable to process his words that my entire body goes numb.

Will Somerset doesn’t die. He drifts off in his sleep surrounded by his family at the enviable age of a hundred and four. He passes gently into the eternal, shrouded in dignity like some fucked-up American Gothic bullshit.

And he really doesn’t get murdered.

I stand. “I think I’d like to go home, please. I need to go home.”

“The press is en masse. Let’s take her through the back.” Fritz looks out the window to the front.

Her.

They’re talking about me like I’m not here. Like I’m a thing to be shuttled around. That feels about right. Take me through the back. Put me in a padded room. Strap me to a spaceship and send me to the moon. It doesn’t matter. Will’s gone.

But he can’t be gone.

He can’t be murdered.

That doesn’t make any sense.

I study Fritz’s expression like it’s a weather pattern, searching for proof, for signs of the grief and horror of being the one to identify your best friend’s body.

Like maybe seeing his grief will crack open my own.

It’s barely there, underneath the surface of his eyes.

He looks tired, even a shade of broken. But he’s in damage control mode—like any attorney.

Solve the big problem first. Have feelings later.

Fritz isn’t the only one playing a role. Ardell’s demeanor has shifted from the last time I saw him. His eyes are on me like he is waiting for my next move.

Will is dead. The game has changed.

He takes a step toward me, but Este puts herself between us.

“I’m going to get Nora home. If you need to talk to her, you can do it later.

” Este grabs Beau and puts an arm around me.

As she cracks the back door to their pool, the shouts from reporters trigger Fritz and Ardell to step up, doing their best to shield me as we cut through the hedges.

A few of the press who can’t help themselves have started to inch up the street.

I’m sure they know it’s a private drive, but they’re magnets to tragedy. Ardell sees it.

“Get her inside. I’ll deal with them.”

As we cross the threshold into the house, it all looks different now that I know Will’s never going to come home again. I excuse myself and go up to my room, where I stand, stunned, numb. Lost.

Will Somerset dies in a lake? Will—the man who can do anything, the smartest man I know—gets murdered?

That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.

An unhinged laugh escapes my lips.

This isn’t happening.

The laughter gets bigger and louder until it folds me in half. I’m doubled over and howling when Este puts a gentle hand on my back.

“Nora,” she says softly.

“This isn’t happening,” I say, wiping at the tears stinging my eyes as the laughter persists in a painful sort of mania. My stomach aches with every breath. “Will isn’t dead. There’s no way.”

And then the gurgles in my stomach turn and I’m rushing for the bathroom. Fig jam spread, cheese, and crackers come back up in a violent rush, and I reach the toilet just in time.

She hands me a glass of water. “Sip it slowly. It’s okay.”

I take a gulp and feel my chest tighten as I swallow.

“Here.” Her open palm offers half a pill. “Xanax. It’s just half. Lay down for a little bit.”

I wash my mouth and tromp to bed, downing the pill and water without a word. Crawling under the covers and pulling them over my head.

My phone starts to ping from across the room.

Este hands it to me. “Marcus is texting. The news must be out.”

I pull the covers tighter, ignoring Marcus and the news.

I don’t want to know anything. I never want to hear about anything ever again.

I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the drug to work.

I can feel the pill hit my bloodstream as the questions hanging over my head get quieter.

But even as I drift off to sleep, they’re still haunting me.

How did this happen? What are any of us going to do without Will? And how in the hell did he end up murdered?