Lynne thought about the phone call from Zoe. She had been calling to warn Lynne of what was coming. To let her know that her daughter-the girl who had survived-was a thief.

“Anybody else would probably have alerted the owners,” Kerry said. “And called the police.”

“Of course,” Al said.

“Now,” Kerry said, “I have more bad news.”

“Oh God,” Lynne said. The room was quiet for a second, and they could all hear Demeter sobbing on the other side of the door.

“I’ve had three separate complaints about missing bottles of alcohol from clients, which I dismissed because my crews never go inside the houses. However, when I spoke with Demeter’s crew members, they indicated that she enters clients’ homes all the time-most frequently to ‘use the facilities.’ My employee Nell, who worked closely with Demeter, told me that Demeter used the bathroom only when the clients weren’t home. I cross-checked the names of the clients who complained against the assignments of Demeter’s crew, and they all matched up.”

“So now you’re accusing my daughter of… what?” Lynne said.

“Honey,” Al said.

“I don’t think this stealing today was a onetime thing,” Kerry said. “I think it’s possible she’s been doing it all summer.”

“Stealing alcohol?” Lynne said. “But what for? I just don’t get it. What for? We don’t drink at home. Not a drop.”

“I think you’ll have to ask Demeter that,” Kerry said. “And I’m going to let you do that privately, because I know you’re good people and good parents. Demeter is finished working here, however, and I won’t be able to give her a reference.”

Kerry stood up and cleared his throat. He was wearing the standard-issue green Frog and Toad Landscaping T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. He was sunburned, and his hair was bleached-out blond. Lynne had always liked Kerry. She and Al sometimes saw him surfing at the South Shore after work. But what Lynne felt for Kerry now was anger and hatred, which was backward, she knew: she should be grateful that he wasn’t calling Ed Kapenash. Demeter had been stealing. She had been entering people’s homes as an employee of Frog and Toad and burgling them.

“I know Demeter has been through a lot,” Kerry said. “And you two as well.”

There was something that Lynne could agree with. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”


When they got home, all of them, at two o’clock that Tuesday afternoon, Lynne listened to the message from Zoe.

“Hi, Lynne, it’s Zoe. Listen, something happened at work just now, and I have to speak with you about it as soon as possible. Call me, please. On my cell.”

Lynne listened to the message again, then a third time. The first thing that struck her was that it was Zoe’s voice, and that she’d missed her. The second thing she noticed was that while the voice held urgency, it didn’t sound either angry or vindictive. This episode was not something Zoe had dreamed up to prove that Demeter was a bad person. To prove that the wrong girl had died.

Demeter was headed straight for her room, but Al stopped her. “Oh no, young lady,” he said. “You are going to sit right here”-he pointed to her usual seat at the dining room table-“and tell us what the hell this is all about.”

Lynne was glad for this. She needed Al’s help, even though she thought his tone sounded too harsh.

Demeter sat in the chair and dropped her face into her hands and bawled. Lynne fixed her a glass of ice water and, as a little treat, added a wheel of lime.

Lynne set the glass down on the table next to Demeter, and Al glowered at her. Demeter lifted her head and sucked the water down to the bottom, and Lynne realized that because of the lime, the drink looked like a cocktail. The roiling, nauseated feeling returned to Lynne’s stomach. She went over and turned up the air-conditioning a little, then sat down next to Demeter.

“Let’s start with the accident,” Al said. “Did you have a bottle of Jim Beam with you that night?”

“No,” Demeter said.

“Honey,” Lynne said. “We know the police found a nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam in your purse.”

“It was in my bag,” Demeter said, “but it wasn’t mine.”

“Whose was it?” Lynne asked.

“I don’t know,” Demeter said. “Some kid at the party gave it to me. I had a sip of it, and so did Jake and Hobby, but it wasn’t mine. I just ended up with it somehow. It was in my bag because I had a bag to put it in.”

“So you’re saying some kid at the party gave it to you,” Al said. “Some kid you didn’t know?”

“A kid from off-island,” Demeter said.

“So either you’re lying to us now or you lied that night to the police,” Al said. “Because you told Ed Kapenash that the bottle was yours and that you had bought it off-island.”

Really? Lynne thought. This was a detail that Al hadn’t shared with her. Bastard bastard bastard. Al and Ed and all those other bastards were part of this men’s club that discussed confidential matters and then decided how very little to pass along to their wives.

“I was lying to the police,” Demeter said. “I said I’d bought it so that I wouldn’t get anyone else in trouble.”

“This other kid from off-island, you mean?” Al said. “The one you didn’t even know? You lied to Ed Kapenash, Chief of the Nantucket Police, in order to protect some stranger from off-island?”

“I was in shock,” Demeter said.

“That is bullshit!” Al roared. It seemed to Lynne that the walls of the castle were quaking; she had never seen Al this angry. “You tell us the truth right now!” he demanded.

“I am telling you the truth,” Demeter said. She had shrunk, Lynne thought. She was losing weight; her face was getting back its beautiful contours. She was deeply tanned, and the blond streak in her hair was as light as Lynne had ever seen it. It seemed unfair that Demeter should appear so pretty, so genuinely pretty, on the very day that she was being revealed as a liar, and a thief, and possibly something even worse.

Al paced around the dining room table like a wild animal waiting to be fed. Who knew he could be like this?

“Why did you take two bottles of vodka from the Allencasts’ house?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” Demeter cried. “I went in to use the bathroom, I saw the vodka in the bar and I just… took it. I guess I wanted to… I don’t know… act out.”

“ ‘Act out,’ ” Al said. “Act out? Did you know that Zoe was in the house? Did you think if she saw you, she’d let you get away with it?”

“No!” Demeter said. “I had no idea Zoe was there, obviously, or I never would have…”

“Say it.”

“Taken the vodka.”

“Stolen the vodka,” Al said. “You stole it, Demeter. You are a thief. A criminal.”

“Al,” Lynne said.

“Zoe Alistair is one of our oldest, dearest friends,” Al said. “Do you have any idea how mortifying it is for us that she was the one who caught you? She lost a child. Penny is dead. You, my dear, are alive. You got a second chance. And what have you done with it?”

“I didn’t know Zoe was there. I didn’t even know it was the Allencasts’ house. I’m sorry I embarrassed you.” She took a gulping breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t die in the accident instead of Penny.”

“Demeter!” Lynne said.

“No, it’s okay,” Demeter said, in a voice that was all of a sudden nearly serene. “I know that’s what people wish would have happened-that it was me instead of her.”

“No one wishes that, sweetheart,” Lynne said.

“Zoe does.”

“Not even Zoe.”

“Hobby and Jake do.”

“Demeter.”

“What were you going to do with the vodka once you took it?” Al asked. “Were you going to drink it?”

“No,” Demeter said.

“But you drank the night of the graduation party?”

“That night, yes, a little bit.”

“ ‘A little bit,’ ” Al repeated. “Your blood alcohol content was point one-four. That’s more than ‘a little bit,’ my dear.”

Really? Lynne thought. Another piece of secret information that Al and Ed Kapenash had kept from her!

“I drank that night because it was graduation,” Demeter said. “Everyone was drinking.”

“But not Penny?” Lynne said.

“No. Not Penny.”

“Kerry said he had complaints from three other clients about missing alcohol. He said he discounted them because his crews don’t go inside the homes. Then Nell, from your crew, informed him today that you, Demeter, do go inside, on a regular basis, when the clients aren’t at home, in order to ‘use the facilities.’ Is this true?”

“I’ve had problems with my stomach,” Demeter said. “What am I supposed to do? Take a shit on somebody’s beautifully manicured lawn?”

“Have you done this before?” Al asked. “Have you taken bottles of alcohol from houses before today?”

“No,” Demeter said. “This was the only time.” She started to cry. Lynne rose to fetch a box of tissues. “And I don’t know what came over me. It was like I was temporarily insane. I saw those two bottles, and I just… wanted them. I’ve been trying so hard to hold it together this summer. I mean, I could have spent all summer in my room, but I made a promise to Kerry, and I wanted to honor it. You guys have spent God knows how many thousands of dollars supporting me, and I wanted to earn some money on my own. I didn’t want to do the predictable thing and fall into a depression, but the fact of the matter is, I do think about the accident just about every second of every day, and I do think everyone would have been better off if I had died instead of Penny.” Demeter plucked a tissue out of the box and blotted her eyes. “I’m sorry about the vodka. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“So just to be clear, you’re telling me that you didn’t take bottles from any other homes?”