Luddite that I am, I have probably disabled something.
I stuff my phone, some water, and the note in my bag—on the off chance, I suppose, that someone might recognize the handwriting. Then I give the house a cursory look to make sure everything is fully secured and locked before I head out the front door.
At the bottom of the steep stone steps, I look back up at the house, but down by the gatehouse it is blocked from view by the ascent. Down here you would never know what was happening up there—if there was a problem there would be no way to tell.
I shake off the odd thought and tear my eyes from it before heading to the gatehouse. Beyond the fob-activated security gates is a rough-hewn untarmacked Caribbean country lane, tufts of sunbaked hardy grasses springing at intervals along the caked central mound.
As the gates close behind me, I look up and down the road. To the left it curves down to the public cove, our own private beach inaccessible from there—though since receiving the note on the terrace this morning I am not so certain it is truly inaccessible. The road to the right leads back inland and to the nearest neighboring properties. I look up its slight incline and with a deep intake of breath head inland, making a pact with myself to knock on the first neighbor’s building I come across no matter how daunting it may look.
—
IT TAKES ME THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES at a brisk pace to reach the next property from mine. Flushed with exertion, I attempt to tidy myself before pressing my nearest neighbor’s gatehouse buzzer.
As it sounds, I step back and take in what I can see of the property over the electric gates. It is larger than Anderssen’s Opening, a three-story, Caribbean-pink-sandstone colonial-style villa. Its proportions are intimidating, though I remind myself that Dad’s house, or rather, my house, has its own beach, so…
The buzzer sound stops and the entrance camera flares to life.
“Yes,” a female voice answers abruptly, the tone blunt.
I lean in toward the camera so the speaker can hear me better even though I am aware there is no need, something stupid, and British, inside me desperate to be amenable. “Yes, hello. My name is Nina. I’ve just moved into the place next door.” I wait, then add, “To you.”
“Okay?” the voice asks, clearly not getting any inherent social cues from our apparent connection. She needs more to go on…
“Oh, right. Um, my father—well, it’s a long story—I was wondering if I could pop in. Say hello. Ask you a few questions?”
“Ask me questions? About?” the voice asks, clearly appraising me.
“Well, about my father.”
“I don’t know your father. Who is your father?”
I let out a short sigh and regroup. “He lived next door to you. He left me the house. The next house along from here. I just moved in. I’d like to speak to you, as a neighbor. If that’s all right? About the house. The area?” I give the voice a second then dig into my bag and pull out the note, holding it up to the camera. I follow up with, “Also, I got a weird note this morning.”
A moment’s silence, then, “Huh. Interesting.”
“Could you open the gate?” I prompt hopefully.
A tart huff on the other end of the line then the mechanical sound of the gate’s motor being engaged. It rolls back on its rails to reveal a cobbled courtyard, fecund with bright tropical blooms. Beneath a heaving imported ancient wisteria bough, the front door opens slowly as I approach, a young man in uniform giving me a gentle nod.
“She says you can stay for a cup of tea, as neighbors, but she is very busy and then you will have to go.”
CHAPTER 14
NINA
“ O kay,” I manage, unsure if I should be grateful or insulted by any, or all, of that. Regardless, I follow the young man through the opulently chintzy house —the polar opposite of Anderssen’s Opening—out onto an enormous French-Riviera-style terrace overlooking a long Greco-Roman-style pool and beyond it a lake with a small blue rowboat bobbing on its surface.
At a wrought-iron table, a well-preserved woman in her late fifties, with perfectly coiffed hair and a wide-brimmed sun hat, turns to take me in.
“Sit,” she tells me brusquely, waving a hand vaguely at the chair beside her. I’m not sure if it’s her accent, or her age, but I do as I am told.
She extends a hand toward me expectantly, but when I offer mine, she looks at me like I have completely lost my senses. “No. Note. Let me see note.” The hand flaps at me, again, brusquely, so I quickly divest myself of the crumpled paper.
The woman squints at the words, her bottom lip jutting. She grunts then hands it back to me, her eyes skimming me up and down.
“You are English?” It’s a rhetorical question but I nod regardless.
She looks past me and clicks her bony fingers high in the air for the man in the uniform. “Iced tea,” she croaks at him.
