Page 115 of The House on Sunset Lake

‘Hurry. Hurry,’ she whispered, closing her eyes.

She barely registered Marion’s arrival at the house, and then she was surrounded by people and noise. A stretcher was wheeled into the hall, and although the wail of the siren had stopped, the scarlet light of the ambulance seemed to cast the house in a fiery glow, as if she were in hell.

She felt Marion’s reassuring hand on her shoulder. When she turned, she noticed that the housekeeper’s eyes were glassy with tears.

‘What’s happening?’ she whispered.

‘It’s too early to say,’ replied Marion soberly.

Jennifer walked slowly, as if in a daze, to the porch, resting her hands on the ledge as she looked down at her grass-stained sneakers.

‘Jen.’

A voice disturbed her. She looked up and saw a figure standing outside the house. Through her clouded vision, it took her a moment to recognise Jim Johnson.

‘What’s happening? Tell me,’ he pleaded as he came up the stairs towards her.

‘My mother. There’s been an accident.’

‘Oh God,’ he said, glancing towards the inside of the house then coming to put his arms around her.

She shrugged him away.

‘Don’t,’ she said, stepping back.

She looked at him and it was as if she were looking at an old skin she had just shed. There was no point mourning it, no matter how beautiful it had once been, for it had gone.

‘I’ve got a new ticket,’ he said, trying to catch her eye.

‘Didn’t you get my letter?’ she said, her voice barely a croak.

The paramedics wheeled the stretcher on to the porch. Her mother was lying there, attached to tubes and wires, her father moving alongside her, his hand gripping hers, as the two men lifted the stretcher down the steps.

‘I’m going to the hospital,’ said David, glancing at Jim.

‘I’m coming too,’ replied Jennifer quickly.

‘I’ll take you,’ said Jim, a quaver of desperation in his voice.

She sighed, and her breath shook in her throat.

‘Catch your plane. Go back to England,’ she whispered.

He came to her and grabbed her hand, tears welling in his own eyes.

‘I’m here for you, Jen. Just tell me what you want me to do.’

She summoned all her courage and looked straight at him.

‘You’ve read my letter. Go back home, Jim,’ she said as she followed her father into the back of the ambulance.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

2015

Jim felt horrible. He stood there for a moment, listening to the breeze. Everything Jennifer had said made sense, and yet it was the most vicious and vile story he had ever heard.

He remembered vividly where he’d been on the afternoon following Jennifer’s twenty-first birthday party: in Savannah, trying to change his airline ticket. His mother had gone downtown too, wanting to buy last-minute presents for everyone back in London, and a little something for Saul Black, whom they were due to meet the next day in New York. Jim had driven them both there in the truck, and on the way he’d confided to Elizabeth that he wanted to stay in Georgia just a little while longer.