You’re going to fix what you just did. I heard you’re applying to some really demanding schools. What if they got an email about what you and Ned have been up to?

She shudders. She nearly drops the phone. I had nothing to do with this, she writes.

Anyone who can shut down the business is part of the business. You’re an accomplice, Julia. Now what are we going to do about that?

20

Iris

Iris wonders.

Kyle’s lying to her. She can tell. Kyle is not a good liar. He’s a big-hearted guy, not a man who easily deceives. And she doesn’t believe that he fell down in the rough of the greenbelt. No alternate explanation makes sense. But she doesn’t quite believe him.

Either someone attacked him or he got into a fight, a physical fight, with someone. All in the wake of Danielle’s death.

Something is wrong. Obviously. Something is wrong all over the place.

Maybe he’s just shaken. They’re all shaken. None of them are right.

Kyle goes out to the backyard and Iris watches, where he can’t see her. Then into the greenbelt.

She follows him outside. At a distance.

She watches him go off the trail, down toward the creek. She hangs back. He goes to a tree and kneels by it. Sticks his hand in. It’s Grant’s tree, the one he used to hide things in. It had made her so nervous because he’d be down there alone and there were sometimes water moccasins and she had a horror of him getting bitten. Now Kyle is using it. And peering into the tree now, as if he is expecting to find something there and he isn’t.

She ducks back to their house so he won’t spot her. What is he hiding? Why?

Her phone chirps with a text: Girls, we need to meet and mourn. Iris, we want to know if you’re ok. In an hour at Trivet, don’t dress up, let’s just be there for each other.

Iris considers, then texts back: I’m OK and I’ll be there. Love you all.

She could confront Kyle. And knowing him, he’ll just seal up tighter. But whatever is wearing at him, he’ll get tired of carrying it alone and he’ll tell her.

Unless it’s really, really bad. Like he knows something about Danielle. Like he did something about Danielle.

And that she doesn’t want to know.

She showers, puts on a dressy, dark sweater and navy slacks. Back in the den, Kyle is sitting, watching television, a blank look on his face. Their gazes meet. She could say, What were you hiding in Grant’s old tree?