“So which is it?” Susan asked him. “Is he using me to make sure Leo does something, or doesn’t do something?”

Cooper put his hands in his pockets. “You want to know what I would do if I were you?” he asked.

Susan gazed out at the cold black water. “Swim for it?” she said. It had been less than a year since she’d almost drowned in the flood. Technically, she had drowned. She had been clinically dead when Archie had pulled her from the river. Even the thought of her body in that lake made her squirm.

“It’s nine P.M.,” Cooper said. “The party will go on until four in the morning. There’s food, music, scintillating conversation. Relax. Have a drink.”

Was he serious? “Because a champagne cocktail is exactly what I need right now,” Susan said.

Cooper leaned close to her. He was a foot taller than she was, and three times as wide. The weird thing was, the gesture didn’t feel threatening—just the opposite. He made Susan feel safe. She had thought he was following her in order to scare her. Now she wondered if he was actually trying to protect her.

“It will be better for him if he thinks you’re not afraid,” Cooper said.

Chapter 12

CHAPTER

12

Archie had never liked crowds. He depended on his ability to absorb detail, to notice what was out of place, and too many people softened the lens. Everyone blended together.

He had been patrolling the party for the better part of an hour. He hoped it looked like mingling. Every once in a while he would set a drink on a tray and pick up another one, so that to anyone watching it would look like he was drinking more than he actually was.

There was no good vantage point. The grounds were a maze of horticultural nooks and crannies.

The island was crawling with guests. Everyone looked sweaty from alcohol, and glowing with their own importance. Most of the tuxedos looked custom. Most of the women had hair that cost more to maintain than Archie brought home in salary. The valets had stopped parking cars. The gates at the end of the bridge were closed. None of the guests seemed to mind that they were all essentially now trapped on the island.

Archie hovered near the house, scanning for signs of Leo. Some people had given up on their masks, abandoning them for the sake of comfort or conversation, or maybe because they were tired of looking like idiots, but Archie kept his mask firmly in place. He liked it. For the first time in three years, he could move among a crowd without worrying about someone recognizing him as the man who survived ten days with Gretchen Lowell.