“Good. Did you have the sense she’s planning to hang around today?”
“Don’t think so. She and Blake went into the dining room for a minute, and when he came back into the kitchen, he said she was leaving, going back to the city.”
That’s a relief. And it might be a sign that there’s really nothing going on, but I think Marcus still needs to talk to Ash about what we saw.
I check my watch as I head back outside. The meeting with the lawyer is only a couple of hours away, and I could use a break. Gabe and I decide that I’ll take Henry back tothe cottage and he’ll meet us there as soon as the last guests have left. Once Henry and I are ensconced in the sitting room, and he’s scribbled down everything he remembers from Gabe’s summer camp list, I somehow manage to convince him to take a reading break in his room with a glass of Coke. If Amanda finds out, she’ll report me to the national dental authorities, but she’s the least of my concerns right now. When Gabe returns, I have to tell him everything I know about Hannah, and I need to convince him that this isn’t a matter of me being envious or snoopy. Hannah could be a murderer. And she’s a potential threat to all of us.
In my college acting program, I learned that to come across as authentic and credible as a character, one of the keys is to not sound fanatical. Most great theatrical characters are plagued by doubts at times—well, maybe not Antigone—and I need to indicate that I’ve weighed all sides of the situation. I’m still thinking this through when Gabe pushes open the door.
“Everybody get off okay?” I ask.
“Just about,” he says. “Where’s Hen?”
“Upstairs reading, though he may have conked out by now. I loved what you had to say today, Gabe, and so did Henry. He’s been busy writing down all the items on the list.”
“Thanks—but I didn’t have to miraculously make it up on the spot. You have to tell me how you did it.”
“Let me ask you something first,” I say, closing the door to the stairwell so Henry won’t overhear. “Did Nick know exactly what I was planning to read today?”
“Nick? No. He just asked if you were speaking and I told him you were reading a poem. I didn’t tell him the namebecause I didn’t know it myself at the time. I’m sure it was all just a rotten coincidence.”
I take a deep breath. “I wish. But there was no coincidence, Gabe. Hannah figured out the poem I’d chosen, and she decided to read it herself, knowing that I’d be left high and dry.”
“What?” he says, looking incredulous. “How can you think that?”
“I don’t think it, I’m sure of it.”
“Summer, she’s not a mind reader. How could she have known? And why would she do something like that anyway? You two might not have hit it off, but that would be a pretty aggressive move on her part.”
“Well, sheisaggressive.” I point to the volume of poetry on the coffee table. “She figured out which one it was because she snuck into the cottage and saw the bookmark on the page.”
Gabe’s gawking at me but he doesn’t say a word.
“Look, I know it seems hard to believe,” I say, “but I need to share something difficult with you, okay? It’s something that at first I thought couldn’t possibly be true,prayedwasn’t true, but despite my initial doubts, I’ve come to see it probablyistrue.... I think Hannah might have murdered your mother.”
He straightens in shock, then steps a few feet backward, finally collapsing on the sofa, his eyes on the ground. But he still doesn’t say a word.
It all spills out of me then: how his mother lied to him about who she’d confronted on the patio that night; my strange conversation with her the day she died; the missingfoxgloves; my fruitless search for the flowers; the disappearing jug; Hannah pretending she didn’t know about the dangers of foxgloves; the blossom tucked diabolically in my drawer. Finally, I present a minute-and-a-half course on digitalis, how it’s especially dangerous for anyone on a diuretic and why it can lead to cardiac arrest.
I give Gabe a chance to respond, but he remains silent, staring now at something in the middle distance. After what feels like an hour, he looks in my direction and pushes himself up off the couch.Okay, I think,he’s going to take me in his arms and say that it all makes sense, and that he’s horrified I’ve had to deal with this solo.
But he doesn’t. He simply says, “Show me the place in the garden where the flowers are missing.”
“Of course,” I respond, feeling an iota of relief. I hurry across the room, part the drapes, and tug open the doors to the patio, beckoning him to follow. A cloud has passed across the sun, dulling the garden colors, but the air is ripe with the sweet scent of the artemisias.
“There,” I say, pointing to the spot but training my eyes on Gabe. Instantly I see the surprise on his face. He gets it. He finally does.
But when I drop my eyes to the garden a second later, I see there’s no gap anymore. It’s now filled entirely with stalks of purple foxgloves.
18
For a second I freeze, my feet bolted to the ground. But then I bend my knees for a closer inspection and I discover right away what’s happened. The soil around a handful of the foxgloves is rough and knobby, making it clear that someone has dug there in the last day or two, and the flowers themselves are a little limp.
“Okay, there’s no gap now, but it’s pretty obvious why not,” I say, hearing the desperate edge to my voice. “She clearly found these foxgloves in another one of the gardens, dug them up, and planted them to replace the ones she clipped.”
Butwhen? Probably after I’d stupidly mentioned foxgloves to Hannah, telegraphing my suspicions.
Gabe doesn’t move. He’s next to me, his eyes on the border garden.
