Page 99 of The Summer Guests

“I just wanted to find out if this belongs to you.” Susan held out the gold ear stud.

Brooke frowned. “Where did you find that?”

“In the trunk of your car. I found it when we were unloading the groceries.”

“Oh.” Brooke paused, then managed a careless laugh. “So that’s where I lost it.”

“No. Yours are here.” Susan pointed to the pair of Brooke’s studs on the countertop. “Both of them.”

“Then I don’t know where that one came from.”

“Zoe has a pair just like these. When they found her in the ravine, one of them was missing.” She held out the nubbin of gold. “How did this end up in the trunk of your car?”

Susan watched as Brooke processed this information. As its significance slowly dawned on her.

Brooke shook her head. Said softly, “This can’t be happening.”

“Thinkabout it, Brooke. My daughter’s missing ear stud ends up in your car. How did it get there?”

“Colin would never—”

“Put my daughter in the trunk? Drive her to that lookout and throw her into the ravine? Who else was strong enough to do all that? Not you.”

“You’re wrong. You’vegotto be wrong!” Legs suddenly wobbling, Brooke stumbled backward and sank onto the bed.

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Susan said quietly. “I have to call the police.”

Brooke took a shuddering breath and dropped her head in her hands. “God, I don’t understand. Why would he do this? Why would he hurt her?”

“That’s something for the police to find out,” said Susan, and she walked out of the room.

In the hallway, she paused to take a deep breath, to calm her racing heart. She pulled out her cell phone. What she was about to do would set off an irreversible chain of events: The police swarming in to search Colin’s car, the entire house. The high-and-mighty Colin, arrested and thrust into the glare of publicity. She thought of Elizabeth’s words:Loyalty to family, above everything else.To hell with that.My daughter comes first.She’d go downstairs, out of Brooke’s earshot, and call Jo Thibodeau. Then she’d get out of this house, away from the Conovers. Away from Elizabeth, the family puppeteer, the one whose every word must be obeyed. She headed to the landing, took the first step down.

That’s when two hands slammed into her back, a shove so powerful it pitched her forward. Arms flailing, like a bird with broken wings, she fought to slow her descent, but she could not resist the relentless pull ofgravity. The stairs dropped away before her, and she was falling, falling, an impossibly long plunge toward the bottom of the stairs.Brooke,was her last thought.Why?

The first thing to penetrate the darkness was Kit’s voice, pleading, desperate: “I don’t want to do this again, Mom. Please don’t make me do this.”

Then the pain exploded in her head, like a hammer pounding again and again against her skull. Between the cruel blows of that hammer, the voices faded in and out.

“We have to, darling,” said Brooke.

“Why? She doesn’tknowanything.”

“Yes, she does, and she’ll tell the police. She’s not family, not really. Remember what Grandma always says.Family comes first.Now, hurry!”

Hands closed around Susan’s wrists and pulled, dragging her across the floor. That pitiless hammer kept pounding, pounding against her head. She opened her eyes, struggling to focus on the faces above her, but the light only made the pain pierce deeper into her skull.

“Where are we taking her?” said Kit. “Dad has the car.”

“We’ll put her in the pond.”

“You mean,drownher?”

“It’s thewaterthat will do it, not us. That’s not murder, Kit, not when thewaterdoes it.”

Kit suddenly released Susan’s wrist. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. Remember our promise? I protect you, you protect me.Remember?”