“What is it, Tru?” Violet whispered. “What’s wrong?”

Tears pooled in Trudy’s eyes and she quickly flicked them away. She glanced sideways at something Violet couldn’t see. “It’s fine,” she said brightly. “We were just headed out to dinner.”

“Why don’t you come home with—” Before Violet could finish, Jay’s face appeared around the edge of the door and he snaked his arm around Trudy’s slim waist. He was handsome as always, his dark, floppy curls set against his tanned skin, his smile as wide as the sky.

“Everything okay here, love?” He pulled his gaze away from Violet and kissed Trudy’s cheek. “You’re not upsetting my wife, are you, Violet?” He gave a small chuckle to soften his words, but Violet felt their sting anyway.

“I’m not upsetting her.” Violet squeezed her hands into fists and shoved them into the pockets of her shorts.

“Well, I’m glad. Trudy and I are just heading out for a dinner party, and I’d hate for her not to have a good time.” He opened the door wider and she saw he was dressed in a crisp dark suit. His shirt underneath was bright white, and when he lifted his hand to brush Trudy’s hair back off her shoulder, his cuff links caught the light, sparking a flash at his wrist. They were tiny fish bones, shiny silver from head to tail. Such a strange thing to have on cuff links, so macabre, but Violet couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“You sure, Trudy?” Violet asked one last time. One last chance for her sister to be strong, to take the step she needed to save her own life. But Trudy just nodded, a quivering smile on her face.

Any hope Violet had had of sitting and talking with her sister, hip to hip, heart to heart, dissipated as anger rolled through her like a thunderhead over the water. She’d done all she could do, short of dragging Trudy by the arm down the driveway and into her car. Jay would surely have something to say about that, and who knew, maybe Trudy would too.

Violet turned and walked back to her car, each step a defiant shout at the deceptively charming cottage behind her, the woman too scared to leave, and the man who’d charmed them both.

In her car she glanced in her rearview mirror before she turned right at the end of the street. Jay stood next to Trudy, his arms crossed, and Violet could have sworn she still saw the shiny, grim bones on his wrist winking in the sun.

Three hours later, she still couldn’t get it all out of her mind—Jay’s wide, affable smile under those dark, ice-chip eyes. Trudy’s obvious discomfort. His fingers pressed tight against her sister’s side. And those ominous little cuff links. Such a small thing, but she couldn’t stop seeing the flash of them in her mind.

She knew if she went home, she’d just pace and worry, so she just kept driving, windows down, her hair whipping around her neck and against her damp cheeks, her mind working overtime. It was nearly ten o’clock when she made her way back up to Jay and Trudy’s street, her foot soft now on the gas, creeping the car to a stop just a little way down the road from their house.