Page 47 of The House Across the Lake
“I wish you could hear yourself right now,” Marnie says, her calm tone replaced by something even worse. Sadness. “Admitting that you’re spying on your neighbors and talking about Tom Royce hiding something—”
“You’d think it, too, if you saw the things I have.”
“That’s the point. You shouldn’t be seeing it. None of what’s going on in that house is any of your business.”
I can’t argue with Marnie on that point. It’s true that I had no right watching them the way I have been. Yet, in doing so, if I stumbled upon apotentially dangerous situation, isn’t it my responsibility to try to do something about it?
“I just want to help Katherine,” I say.
“I know you do. But if Katherine Royce wanted your help, she would have asked for it,” Marnie says.
“I think she did. Late last night, when I saw them fighting.”
Marnie lets slip a sad little sigh. I ignore it.
“Our eyes met. Just for a second. She was looking at me and I was looking at her. And I think, in that moment, she was trying to tell me something.”
Marnie sighs again, this one louder and sadder. “I know you’re going through a hard time right now. I know you’re struggling. But please don’t drag other people into it.”
“Like you?” I shoot back.
“Yes, like me. And Tom and Katherine Royce. And anyone else at the lake right now.”
Although Marnie sounds nothing but sympathetic, I know the deal. She, too, has officially grown tired of my bullshit. The only surprise, really, is that it took her this long. Unless I want to lose her completely—which I don’t—I can’t push any further.
“You’re right,” I say, trying to sound appropriately contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry,” she says. “I need you to get better.”
Marnie ends the call before I can say anything else—an unspoken warning that, while all is forgiven, it’s certainly not forgotten. And when it comes to Katherine and Tom Royce, I’ll need to leave her out of it.
Which is fine. Maybe she’s right and nothing’s really going on except the unraveling of the Royces’ marriage. I sincerely hope that’s the worst of it. Unfortunately, my gut tells me it’s not that simple.
I return to Katherine’s Instagram and examine that picture of her apartment, thinking about Marnie’s theory that she posted an old photo to deceive her husband. The idea makes sense, especially when I take another look at the view of Central Park outside the apartment window. The leavesthere are still green—a far cry from the blazing reds and oranges of the trees surrounding Lake Greene.
I zoom in until the picture fills my phone’s screen. Scanning the grainy blur, I focus on the Mondrian calendar on the wall. There, printed right below an image of the artist’s most famous work—Composition with Red Blue and Yellow—is the month it represents.
September.
Marnie was right. Katherine really did post an old photo. Faced with proof that she’s being deceitful, most likely to fool her husband, I realize I can stop worrying—and, yes, obsessing—over where Katherine is or what happened to her.
It’s none of my business.
It’s time to accept that.
I swipe my phone, shrinking the photo down to its original size.
That’s when I see it.
The teakettle on the stove, polished to a mirrorlike shine. It glistens so much that the photographer can be seen reflected in its surface.
Curious, I zoom in again, making the kettle as big as possible without entirely blowing out the image. Although the photographer’s reflection is blurred by the amplification and distorted by the kettle’s curve, I can still make out who it is.
Tom Royce.
There’s no mistaking it. Dark hair, longish in the back, too much product in the front.
Katherine never took this photo.
