An hour later, I am heading downstairs in fresh clothes,running my hands along the smooth oak banister, stroking the heavy brocade curtains as I pass them on the landing. As I make the last turn on the staircase, a complete stranger—a slim young woman with long white-blond hair—steps out of the cloakroom, sees me, and screams.
Danny appears in the kitchen doorway, a tea towel over one shoulder.
“Brooke?” He turns to gaze up at me, and then pads across to her with an apologetic grimace. “I’m so sorry. Meet my sister, Seraphine. She is pretty scary, I know. I had no idea she was here, actually.” He shoots me a dark look. “Seraphine, this is Brooke from next door.”
I come down two steps. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Her eyes are pale blue, like a washed-out sky, and she doesn’t smile.
“Did the grumpy couple move out then?” I ask Danny. He closes his eyes.
“No,” Brooke says. “I’m their daughter.”
“Oh. God, I’m so sorry—”
“What are you doing here, Seph?” Danny asks me, his tone cool. “Does Edwin know you’ve come?”
“Of course he does.” I take another step down, glancing at Brooke and back to Danny. “I need to talk to you, actually.” Brooke directs her gaze toward the grandfather clock rather than at either of us.
“Well, Brooke’s here for dinner,” Danny says. “I invited her.”
I carve my thumbnail into the wax on the banister. I wonder whether this is the first time Danny has invited this woman for dinner; he never mentioned her name in all the days he stayed at Summerbourne before and after Dad’s funeral. I wonder how well they know each other, and how she’ll react to sharing thedining table with a threatening letter that smells like the contents of a warm park trash bin.
“I went to see Laura today,” I say. Danny stares at me. “She’s being threatened.”
Brooke looks at me directly then. I’m expecting a hint of annoyance, but her expression is strangely serene. She glides over to Danny and kisses him lightly on the cheek, and then picks up a bunch of keys from the hall table.
“We can do dinner some other time,” she tells him, and then switches her calm gaze to me. “It’s nice to meet you, Seraphine. I’m sorry about your father. I’ll let myself out.” She leaves without glancing back.
Danny glares at me, and then stalks off into the kitchen where he crashes pans around on the cooktop. I follow and sink down on a kitchen chair, rubbing my eyes.
“This had better be good,” he says eventually.
“I’ll tell you when Edwin gets here.”
He keeps his back to me for a while, but eventually says, “I miss him too, you know.”
“Oh, Danny.” He turns, and I stretch my arms out toward him. “I know.”
When Edwin arrives he finds us holding hands at the kitchen table, a mound of tissues between us, our faces streaked with tears. Edwin bends to hug me, pats Danny on the back, and then leaps to rescue the stew which is starting to burn at the base of the pan.
I confess everything to my brothers over dinner: following Laura to the park, watching her read the letter and throw up, confronting her on her doorstep, what she said about our mother. We sit around one end of the dining table, picking at our food, while the pieced-together letter lurks at the other end like an uninvited guest.
I’m feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the route the conversation is taking.
“We should go to the police,” Edwin says. “Whatever this is about—we should report it.”
“Oh, and what will I say?” I ask him. “I stalked this woman. I pulled a ripped-up note out of a trash bin in the park and stuck it together?” I try to imagine pressing the soggy, taped-together letter into Martin Larch’s large hands.
“I’m worried, Seraphine,” Edwin says. “It mentions Dad, and Summerbourne. Going to Laura’s house today—you might have put yourself in danger.”
I shove my plate away. “I’mnother daughter!”
“I know, I know.” He takes my hand, squeezes it. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just that you were there, asking questions about Summerbourne.”
“Plus the small fact,” Danny says quietly, “that whoever wrote this seems to be implying they caused Dad’s death.”
Edwin and I stare at him, and then our eyes are drawn back to the note.
