He stared down into the green, swampy-smelling pool that no one ever used and considered a list of things that could possibly be wrong. The pump was running; he could hear it humming softly through the open doors of the low-slung equipment shed. The chemicals had just been checked last week. There was no way a week of nonuse left the water looking like this unless it was something more serious, like a cracked pipe.

With his hands on his hips, Simon sighed, suddenly aware of the tension that had been building all day, ever since sneaking out of bed before Clare to read Donna’s review.

He stared at the sky above him, gray and overcast. The wind blowing in from the ocean picked up speed and smelled like a storm. He walked away from the pool. It wasn’t like he possessed even the most basic of mechanical skills; what was he going to do about it? Once he was back inside, he’d call their pool guy, see how quickly they could get out here.

Their house had been built on a vacant five-acre lot, naturally secluded on a jut of cliff. Three sides of the property were surrounded by steep, rocky drops that overlooked both the crash of the Pacific Ocean and Muir Beach. Should any of their closest neighbors—not that they knew any of them—happen to decide to drop in, they would either have to scale the three hundred wooden steps leading from the beach below or announce themselves at the fifteen-foot-high security gate protecting the fourth side of the property.

With bare feet and his pants rolled at the ankle so they wouldn’t get wet messing around with the pool, Simon crossed the stamped concrete pool deck to the grass yard that led out to the three-foot black wrought-iron fence, the one barrier between him, the cliff, and the Pacific. When the house was first built, they hadn’t even bothered with the fence. When the contractor mentioned putting it in, Clare had scoffed.

“What for?”

“Well, it’s pretty dangerous,” he advised them with a nervous glance over his shoulder. “A child, or adult, for that matter, in the dark, let’s say, could easily wander too far. Those cliffs are sheer. There’s nothing to stop them going right over.”

“We don’t have small children,” Clare announced like a declaration. “And we are likely the only adults who will ever be here—adults who are smart enough to not fall off a cliff,” she chided. “Right, Simon?”

“Um…of course,” he agreed, which was pretty much all you could do with Clare once she had made up her mind about anything. What had she meant about being the only adults? Like ever? This huge house and pool, the outside deck, surely there would be people over—parties?