He glances back out the window, down the hill to the dock. “Popular spot.”

I don’t want to feel that little niggle of doubt, but it nudges me between the ribs anyway. One body under the dock is a tragedy. Two is a pattern. I tell myself that it is a coincidence, that Paul had nothing to do with either. He was in bed with me all last night, and he loved Katherine. Her death was an accident, one he mourns to this day.

And yet I still hear all Sam’s awful, horrible arguments, the words he said the night before I walked down the aisle to marry Paul. That former competitive swimmers don’t just sink to the bottom of the lake. That drowning is the hardest murder to prove. That one of the reasons Paul is so loaded is because he inherited all her wealth. I don’t know how much, but it’s got to be millions. Her family had even more money than Paul’s, and she got it all when they passed.

“Chet, stop. This is serious. They think she was murdered.”

“Seriously? Why? Who was she?”

“I don’t know. A tourist, I guess.”

He whistles between his teeth. “Talk about a crappy vacation.”

I smile despite myself, a particular talent of Chet’s. The other is the way his eyes, big and green and framed with a thick fringe of lashes, really open up his face, make it seem like he’s paying attention even when he’s not, which is pretty much the only reason he made it through school. His teachers liked him enough to let him squeak by with a C minus.

He steps away from the window, clomping in his boots across the rug and into the kitchen. He doesn’t bother to ask, just moves around the island and flips the switch on the coffee machine. Chet knows his way around Paul’s kitchen, and the two share a taste for strong espresso, which is about the only thing they have in common.

I sink onto a stool at the counter, taking in his grungy jeans and the ring of scruff around his mouth and along his chin. His hair is even shaggier, long and slicked back off his face, curling up where it hits the collar of his coat. I know we live in the Appalachians, but still. He’s taking the mountain man look a little too far.

“What’s up with the hair? Are you interviewing for Hells Angels or something?”

He rears back, frowning down his nose at me. “What’s wrong with my hair? You never complained about it before.”

No need to define what he means by before. Before Paul, when my boyfriends looked just like Chet, all denim and leather and hair one week away from shaggy. Sometime in the past year, Paul’s style, short and well clipped, has grown on me.