“Okay?” says Nicola.
“The first night he went out, but the second night we ate at home. We drank a lot at dinner, wine, then bourbon, you know how it goes.”
“I know.”
“Taylor got disgusted with us and went to bed, no shocker, honestly, I don’t blame her, and we just kept pouring more and more bourbon. I could tell Jack was getting pretty drunk—hell, I was getting pretty drunk too, but he was drinking faster, more, and when it was pretty late, like maybe eleven, he brought up Shelly. And he told me—”
David clears his throat, pauses, keeps talking.
“He told me that he and Taylor’s friend Michael—do you know Michael? It doesn’t matter. Friend from boarding school.” The twoMs, Nicola remembers. “He’s sort of an asshole from my experience of him. Anyway, he told me that that night, the night Shelly died, he and Michael took the inflatable that was tied up to Johnny O’Neill’s boat and tooled around in Great Salt.”
“They just took an inflatable out? In the middle of a party?”
“The party on the boat was boring, I guess. I don’t know. Stupid reason. Jack thinks everything is boring. Even stupider, they didn’t use a light. Anyone who knowsanythingknows that you always use a light at night with an inflatable. Michael was driving. They were out in the middle of the pond, and Michael, for no reason, apparently, picked up speed. And then...”
Nicola has the sense of walls closing in around her, but of course there are no walls. The water is so clear at the edge of the lake,they can see all the way to the bottom. The sun is shining mightily. Far out a pontoon passes, sturdy and proud, and beyond that are the edges of Drumbeater Island. Nicola doesn’t want David to keep talking.No, she says, but only in her head.
“And then there was a bump. Like they hit something. But they didn’t have the lights, so they couldn’t see. ‘I thought it was a buoy, or a mooring ball,’ Jack told me. They went back, tied up the inflatable, went their separate ways. But the whole time, Jack said, he didn’t think it was a buoy. It didn’tfeellike a buoy. It felt like—”
“A person,” says Nicola.
“Right. A person.”
“My god,” says Nicola. “They didn’ttellanyone? They didn’t tell the police?”
“The day Shelly’s body was found, the police questioned anyone they could find who had been on the boat at the same time as Shelly. But everyone had been drinking; nobody was tracking who returned to the boat after jumping off. There was nothing to be done. And Jack’s attitude, that night around Christmas when he told me this, was Shelly was already dead. ‘Don’t get me wrong, David,’ he said. ‘It’s totally tragic. But what good would it be for Michael to come forward after the fact, if he doesn’t even know if he hit her?’”
“He definitely hit her,” says Nicola.
“That’s what I thought too. But Jack’s whole thing was they didn’t know for sure. And even if they did, what would be the point of ruining Michael’s life too? And anyway, said Jack, who’s to say she wouldn’t have drowned anyway? ‘That girl was a total mess, she never should have been swimming. She was wasted.’ That’s what Jack said.”
“What would be thepoint?”croaks Nicola. “The point is justice. The point is that you can’t just go around killing people and going on with your life like nothing happened.”
“Well,Iknow that.” David shakes his head. “I’m telling you whatJacksaid. But I haven’t told you the rest of it.”
“There’smore?”
David nods grimly. “In February, Michael and Mo stayed with us on their way up to ski in Vermont. Just for one night. Taylor wanted some time with Mo so she sent Michael and me to this bar around the corner. I almost couldn’t look at Michael, knowing he’d done this terrible thing. I really could hardly talk to him, and he could tell. We used to hang out and get along, you know? I mean, he’s an asshole, but he’s a tolerable asshole, and I’m actually fine with assholes. I’ve known a lot of them. But like I said, he could tell, and eventually, he asked me what was up. I told him. I said, I know about the accident with the dinghy. I know what you did, and that you didn’t tell anyone. And he said, WhatIdid? I said, Yeah, Jack told me.”
“Okaaaayy,” says Nicola, drawing it out.
“And he said, ‘Oh, Jesus, isthatwhat Jack told you? That I was driving?’” David pauses, and his eyes flick over to Nicola. “You maybe see where I’m going here.”
“I don’t.” Then all at once she does. All at once she understands. Her words ping over the lake. “Jack was driving the inflatable.”
“Jack was driving the inflatable,” says David.
Jackwas driving the inflatable.
Two kayaks, far out in the distance, do their thing, and she watches them, not wanting to look at David. “I feel like I’m going to throw up. David. I wish you hadn’t told me this. Why did you tell me?” She wants to put the story back in the box it came in, take it to the UPS store to return it.
David is looking at the water too. “Because I know how Jack operates. He’ll pop up in your life someday—that’s how he is. And I want you to know exactly who he is, so you can stay away. I used to think he was mostly harmless, you know, a playboy, ofcourse,which we told you before you ever started hanging out with him.”
“Taylor did say that,” agrees Nicola.
“Butthisis a whole other level. This is something I didn’t know he had in him.”
Jack taking all of the turns in David’s car too fast, shirking any responsibility.It takes two to make an accident.Jack beating his fist on his heart.You got me right here.Nicola doesn’t know what to do with any of this. Her skin feels too tight on her arms. Her heart is beating uncomfortably.
