Swim Deep - Page 42

He started slightly, as though he’d been surprised by what I thought was the most obvious unspoken question at that moment.

“Do you?” he asked.

I gave a little gasp of disbelief. “I don’t see how my opinion matters one way or another.”

“Of course it does. Would it bother you? Knowing they live in the South Twin?”

“I don’t know them, Evan. It would bother me if it bothered you. Does it? You’ve said yourself you don’t like Noah Madaster. You’ve been in a court battle with him over your

inheritance of the North Twin, and just got your rights to the property earlier this year.”

His gaze sharpened on me. “Did I tell you that? About gaining rights to the property earlier this year?”

I paused with my mouth hanging open. I’d been caught.

“No. Wes only told me earlier today. Up at the overlook, while you were interviewing Valeria.”

God, had that unsettling conversation with Wes only occurred hours ago? It seemed like weeks, so much had happened since then: Learning about Evan’s plan to hire Valeria, discovering the treasures of the boathouse, witnessing Noah Madaster punching his fist through a pane of glass in a fit of rage, finding out the Madasters were our neighbors…

. . . Wes telling me how Lake Tahoe had swallowed up Elizabeth’s body, keeping her, and all of her secrets, for an eternity.

The image that had haunted me for so many nights in a row—the menacing, wet figure of a woman hovering over me, opening her mouth to speak—suddenly leapt into my mind’s eye. The nightmare took on a whole new level of horror. I shivered.

Why was Elizabeth haunting me?

She’s haunting you because your insecurity is allowing her to do so, I told myself with frustrated annoyance. I didn’t believe in ghosts. (Did I?) But I was becoming irritatingly familiar with my lack of confidence when it came to my husband.

“Anna? What else did Wes tell you?”

I turned at the sound of Evan’s voice. He’d sat forward in his chair and was giving me a narrow-eyed stare. I swallowed thickly, willing away that cold, nauseated feeling that had come over me at the mere memory of that nightmare-woman.

Elizabeth. May as well call that ghost created by your own unconscious mind what it is. She’s not real. But your insecurity is. Had Wes’s admission that her body had never been found somehow made the elusive threat of Elizabeth worse in my mind?

“Here.”

I blinked at Evan’s terse tone, and realized he held out my wineglass for me. I took it and drank, eager for the chance to distract myself.

“Thanks,” I said hoarsely, setting down the glass. I took in Evan’s sharp stare, and knew he was still waiting. He was concerned, but still expected an answer.

“Wes told me Elizabeth’s body was never found.”

Evan didn’t move a muscle. I had the horrible thought that his handsome, compelling face appeared frozen in that moment. Lifeless.

“I’m so sorry, Evan. That must have been awful.”

It still must be.

For a few seconds, I was panicked he wasn’t going to say anything, that this moment of me gazing at his frozen grief would stretch on forever. But then he nodded and leaned back in his chair, staring at the empty fireplace.

“She was supposed to meet me out for lunch in San Francisco the day she disappeared,” he said finally. “We’d been living in San Francisco for several weeks at the time.”

“You weren’t living here, at Les Jumeaux?”

“No. Elizabeth had been ill. She’d had a recent hospitalization. Work required me to be in San Francisco a lot during that time period. Although she was much improved after her hospitalization, I still didn’t want her far away from me.

“It was the oddest thing,” Evan continued, sounding distracted. “There was security video footage from our condo building of Elizabeth leaving for our lunch meeting. After she disappeared, it was reviewed by the police. But she never arrived at the restaurant. Instead, the surveillance video here at Les Jumeaux showed her getting on her boat four or five hours after that. She’d driven here instead of meeting me.”

“Why did she do that?” I asked, breathless over the fact that he was talking openly to me about a topic that usually was taboo between us.

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
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