“His name is Paul. He’s my husband. I’m sorry but he’s not here.” Neither is Chet, and I wish he was because I am not emotionally prepared for this. I’m not sure I’m equipped to comfort grieving parents on my own. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

The last sentence is the one I should have led with, I realize too late.

“Thank you,” Mr. Sterling manages with a jerky nod. His face is grim and rock hard. “Were you...were you here when it happened?”

I nod, trying not to wince at the memory of her pale skin, that one glass-blue eye staring into the sky. “I’m the one who found her. I called the police.”

Mrs. Sterling gasps, whipping off her glasses and staring across the pavement like I’m her daughter’s savior. Like I am the one who rescued her from the lake, except that I didn’t. By the time I got to her, she was already dead.

I stare into eyes the color of a weak sky, just like her daughter’s.

It’s to her that I make the offer. “Would you like to come inside?”

The Sterlings step across the threshold and pull up short, planting their shoes at the edge of the foyer rug and staring with obvious shock. Not at the house, at the size of the place or the way it looks ripped from a design magazine, but at the lake, glittering on the other side of the plate glass.

Mrs. Sterling sees it and bursts out crying. She clutches the flowers to her chest and just lets loose, a continuous sobbing that racks her body so hard I worry she might pass out. Her husband stands next to her, both hands shoved in his pants pockets, glaring out the window in grim silence.

I give them space, shimmying my cell from my back pocket, and text Chet.

OMG the Sterlings are here. Where are you?

Three little dots dance around at the bottom of my screen, and then:

Still in town. Want me to come home?

My gaze creeps to the Sterlings, lit up golden by the setting sun, and I wonder what Chief Hunt has told them. I wonder if they’ve already been to the B and B, if they’ve talked to Piper. If they’ve heard what their daughter was doing on her last days in Lake Crosby...or more specifically, who. My thumbs fly over the keyboard.

Actually, prob better if you stay away. Wait there until I give the all clear.

“Chief Hunt said she was under the dock.” Mr. Sterling turns away from the glass, and for a split second, his expression matches his tone, glittering with accusation. As if I was the one to drag his daughter up from her watery grave like some kind of lake monster. He squints, watching me from across the room. “Is that true?”