Page 125 of High Season

There is a thud from the end of the landing, like wood striking wood. A woman’s voice.

“Fuck.”

There was a door; Nina remembers it now. Wooden, discreet. Exactly where a large cabinet has stood for years. She had forgotten what hid behind it.

She hurries down the hallway, toward the cabinet. As she pushes against it with her shoulder, her fingers scrabbling for something to grip on to, she feels a pressure from the other side. Without thinking of any potential danger—without really considering who the woman’s voice belongs to—she finds that they are working together.

But then, perhaps she already knows. She already realizes that there are only a handful of people who know this house like she does. Who understand its secrets.

With one hard push, the cabinet finally eases away. The door swings fully open, and standing there, in the empty space it leaves, is Josie Jackson.

She holds one finger up to her mouth. One more secret. One more hidden thing.

FORTY-SIX

2024

Out on the terrace, the world feels too bright. It is too sunny for the weight that sits in Hannah’s chest.

Hannah turns to face Blake.

“I know what happened,” she says.

He slings himself into one of the chairs set out around a small white painted table. Folds one leg over the other, a pretense of ease that Hannah sees straight through.

“What happened when?” he asks.

“The day Tamara died,” Hannah says. “I know about the pictures you took of me. I know you drugged me.”

She almost thinks that she sees something pass across his face then. A flicker of something behind his eyes. And then it’s gone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Don’t give me that.” Hannah’s heart is beating fast. “I’ve seen the photographs. I’ve seen the autopsy. Rohypnol. It’s not a coincidence that Tamara had roofies in her system the same night I passed out and didn’t remember anything. Did Evelyn pay off the coroner to play it down? Or was she sleeping with him?”

“That’s a very serious accusation to make about my mother, Hannah.”

Blake’s voice lilts, faux serious. He is mocking her, a pretense of confidence.

“You’re forgetting,” Hannah says. “That I saw what happened.”

He stills at this. For just a second, she sees his composure slip. A flicker of fear behind his eyes.

“Webothsaw what happened,” he says, quietly. “And I protected you. For years. And now you’re accusing me of—what? Spiking my sister? Killing my sister?”

His mouth twitches, as if the thought is ridiculous.

“It was your fault that she died,” Blake says. “It’s your fault that Tamara is dead.”

FORTY-SEVEN

2004

THE DAY OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

For a long time, Tamara has tried to ignore her fears about her brother.

They began years ago. First, a night when they had been out drinking in London, at a bar that didn’t check IDs, as long as they had their parents’ credit cards. Tamara had seen Blake slip his arm around a girl who was so drunk that she could barely sit upright. His hand on her thigh. Offering to take her home in a taxi. She had felt an unexpected, slippery dart of relief when one of the girl’s friends had said that she’d go with her instead. Later that night, Tamara lay awake wondering if she would have intervened, had the girl’s friend not done so first.