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CALIFORNIA, 2011

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were still rather smitten with him,” says Cassie, sounding as if she’s yet to reveal the ace up her sleeve. “Does Brad know about the candle you still hold for Ben?” My jaw clenches, but she can’t see it. “Maybe I’ll mention it to him next time I bump into him.” A sadistic grin stretches her mouth wide, made all the more sinister by the muted light that dances across her face. “Though I’m not sure our paths will ever cross again.”

An ice-cold hand reaches into my chest. “Where is he?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

She lets out a heavy sigh. “Let’s just say he’s taking a long walk on a very short pier.”

It was an expression our mother used whenever she wanted someone to disappear—albeit metaphorically rather than literally. I suck in a breath, hoping that the sentiment remains the same when coming from her youngest daughter.

“If you’ve done something—to either of them—I swear…”

An empty laugh echoes around the vaulted space. “If you could have seen their faces when they headed out of the marina. So full of hope and expectation of the adventure that lay ahead.”

“So, they’ve gone out on the boat?” I question, daring to allow relief to flood my veins.

“Yes!” says Cassie, overenthusiastically. “But without enough fuel to get back if they go too far, and without a radio to call if they’re in distress.”

I snort derisively, knowing that Brad would surely have checked both before they set off.

“And by all accounts, there was a whale incident a couple of miles out, and your caring husband didn’t hesitate to head out there to help.”

“You’re a fucking psychopath,” I yell.

“I may well be,” she sneers. “But not enough to leave Zoe alone with Ben. I mean, in what kind of fucked-up world would you think that was the sensible thing to do?”

My brain scrambles to make sense of all the noise that crowds my mind, but it’s a deafening cacophony that I can’t quell.

“I guess he still doesn’t know who Zoe is?” Cassie goes on, as I try to keep up with her dogged destruction of my life. “Would you not have thought to tell him, before leaving them together?”

I swallow, but my throat feels as if it’s lined with knives, the enormity of what’s going on slowly dawning on me. Had I been lured to Ben’s, a hundred miles away, leaving my family at Cassie’s mercy? Had Zoe left a trail to Ben’s door so that, when something happened to him, I’d be the prime suspect?

“She wouldn’t…?” I croak, barely audible, as I picture Ben and Zoe alone in his house.

“You couldn’t blame her if she did,” says Cassie. “After all, she is the daughter of the man he was convicted of killing.”