The House Across the Lake(65)

All this aw-shucks modesty is an act. Boone knows exactly how good-looking he is. I picture him naked on the dock, bathed in moonlight, as beguilingly beautiful as Katherine herself. Now more than ever, I’m convinced he knew I was watching that night.

“So you went swimming together,” I say.

“A few times, yeah. But nothing more. Afterwards, we’d hang out on the deck and talk. She was really unhappy, that much was clear. She never said it outright. Just strongly hinted that things were bad between her and Tom.”

Katherine had done the same with me, dropping arch comments about the state of her marriage. Like Boone, I’d assumed she was sad, lonely, and looking for a friend. Which is why I had no reason to lie about the extent of our relationship.

“If it was all so innocent, why didn’t you come clean earlier?”

“Because it stopped being that way. Well, it almost did.” He slumps on the stool, as if telling the truth has made him exhausted. If it weren’t for his elbows on the counter propping him up, I assume he’d drop straight onto the floor. “The day after Labor Day, before she and Tom went back to New York, I kissed her.”

I picture a scenario similar to the two of us yesterday. Boone and Katherine sitting together, closer than they should be, the heat of attraction radiating from their bodies. I imagine Boone running a finger across her lower lip, leaning in, kissing the spot he’d just touched. Another smooth move.

“Katherine freaked out, left, went back to her fancy life with her billionaire husband.” Boone’s voice has turned hard—a tone I’ve never heard from him before. There’s an echo of anger and bitterness in it. “I never thought I’d see her again. Then, a few days ago, there she was, back in that house with Tom. She never told me they’d returned. Never stopped by to see me. I called her a few times, just to see how she was doing. She ignored them. And me.”

“Not completely, remember,” I say. “Since she was with you the day I rescued her from the lake.”

“She swam over, unannounced, just like the first time she did it,” Boone says. “When I saw her, I thought that maybe nothing had changed and that we’d pick up where we left off. Katherine made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. She told me she only came over to demand that I stop calling her. She said Tom had noticed and was asking a lot of questions.”

“What did you say?”

“That she was free to leave. So she did. Which is why I was surprised when she called me later that afternoon.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Boone says with a shrug. “I didn’t answer and I deleted her message without listening to it.”

I get a sudden flashback to me on the porch, spying on the Royces for the very first time. I’ll never forget the way Tom crept through the dining room as Katherine, in the living room, made a phone call, waited for someone to pick up, whispered a message. I now know who that message was for.

“You were on your way over here when she called,” I say. “Was she the reason you came by to introduce yourself? Since Katherine rejected you, you decided you’d try your luck with the woman next door?”

Boone flinches, hurt. “I introduced myself because I was lonely and thought you might be lonely, too. And that if we hung out a little, both of us wouldn’t feel that way. And I don’t regret that. Because I like you, Casey. You’re funny and smart and interesting. And you remind me exactly of how I used to be. I look at you, and I just want to—”

“Fix me?”

“Help you,” Boone says. “Because you need help, Casey.”

But he wanted more than that when he introduced himself that day. I remember the charm, the swagger, the flirtation I’d found both tiresome and tantalizing.

Thinking back to that afternoon prompts an unsavory realization. Boone had mentioned spending the day working on the Mitchells’ dining room floor. If he was there the whole time, within earshot of the activity on the lake, why didn’t he do anything when Katherine was drowning and I was calling for help?

That question leads to another. One so disturbing I’m barely able to ask it.

“When Katherine came over that day, did you give her anything to drink?”

“Lemonade. Why do you—” Boone stands again, suddenly understanding. “I didn’t do what you’re thinking.”

I wish I could believe him. But the facts warn me not to. Katherine claimed to have grown suddenly weary while swimming.

It was like my entire body stopped working.

All this time, I thought Tom was the one who’d caused it. Imitating Harvey Brewer and slipping small doses of poison into his wife’s drinks. But it also could have been Boone. Angry, jealous, rejected Boone, mixing a large dose into Katherine’s lemonade.

“Casey,” he says. “You know me. You know I would never do something like that.”

But I don’t know him. I thought I did, but only because I believed everything he told me. Now I’m forced to doubt all of it.

Including, I realize, what he said about the scream the morning Katherine vanished. Because I was still drunk, I didn’t quite know where the sound had originated. Boone’s the one who concluded it had come from the other side of the lake, citing an echo I’m now not sure existed.

It’s possible he was lying. That the scream came not from across the lake, but this side.