The House on the Water Read online

  The House on the Water

  Copyright @ 2021 Whitney Kelly writing as Margot Hunt

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Our annual tradition started in the summer of 1994, just after Esme and I graduated from Tulane. We had no idea then that we were taking the first steps together down such a dark, twisted path. If we had, maybe we could have stopped what was to come. Maybe everything would have turned out differently.

  I’d moved back into my parents’ house in West Palm Beach. Esme had also returned to her hometown of Miami, although she was living on her own in an apartment on Brickell Avenue that her father rented for her. Esme called it the Pink Pad. It had come fully furnished by a terrible decorator who must’ve been obsessed with cotton candy pink. The couch, chairs, drapes, upholstered bed, and matching linens were all done up in the same sickly sweet shade. Esme and I made fun of it, but I was deeply jealous. I was back living in my childhood bedroom, complete with Duran Duran posters still tacked to the wall.

  Esme called me one night. “What are you doing? I’m bored out of my mind. Let’s go somewhere.”

  “I wish I could. I have to work.”

  “You can take off a few days, can’t you?” Esme’s tone was wheedling. “Come on, Caroline. You know you want to.”

  I smiled into the phone. My best friend knew me too well. Post-college life was not living up to my expectations. Shockingly, there wasn’t much of a job market for recent graduates with European history degrees, so I was waitressing at Chili’s and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I spent all my nights off watching TV with my parents and trying to wash the scent of fajitas out of my hair. The idea of getting away for a few days was irresistible.

  “I’ll ask my manager if I can take next weekend off,” I said.

  “Woo-hoo! We can go to Key West and drink away our sorrows.”

  “Okay, but we can’t stay anywhere expensive,” I warned her.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find us a cheap and seedy hotel,” Esme promised. “We’re going to have a blast!”

  A week later, Esme and I were sitting in a bar on Duval Street where Hemingway had once been a patron. In the weeks since I’d last seen her, Esme had chopped off her long and luxurious dark hair into an unfortunate pixie cut. She’d slicked it back with hair gel and bobby pins.

  “Clearly the haircut was a huge mistake. But I was bored, and wanted to change things up,” she explained, crossing one leg over the other. She was wearing a satin black slip dress, chunky Doc Martens shoes, and bright red lipstick. I felt underdressed in my tank top and shorts. Esme looked glamorous, and I looked like a tourist.

  “You have the cheekbones to pull it off,” I said supportively.

  “Thank you, but it looks awful, and you know it.” Esme shrugged and lit a cigarette. “I don’t care. It will grow out eventually. Just remind me never to cut off all my hair ever again, okay?”

  “You have to call me ahead of time if you want me to stop you.”

  “It was a spontaneous thing. You know what I’m like. Act now, think later.”

  “Is that how I ended up in Key West on the hottest weekend of the year? I think my head’s melting.” Sweat beaded on my skin and dripped down into my cleavage.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not having fun, because I don’t believe that for a minute.” Esme waved a hand at the bartender. “Another round, please.”

  “It definitely beats watching Dateline with Doug and Susan,” I said, as the bartender set two bottles of beer down in front of us.

  “Exactly. You know what? We should a make a pledge to do this every year, no matter what, until one of us dies,” Esme said.

  “Wait, why does one of us have to die in this scenario?”

  “Okay, fine. Every year until we’re stuck in nursing homes or something.”

  “What if we ended up in the same nursing home? That would be fun.”

  “We could share a room, just like we did freshman year.” Esme sighed, and took a long sip from her beer. “Back when we were young and innocent.”

  I laughed again. That had only been four years ago. “Okay, I promise.”

  “What?”

  “You said we should make a pledge to do this every year. I’m promising.”

  “Oh, right.” Esme paused. “I promise, too. And it’s possible I’m drunk.”

  “It’s more than possible. You’re definitely drunk.”

  “I just think it’s important to have traditions. To know we’ll always have each other. I mean, God knows where we’ll end up. I don’t know where I’ll be in ten minutes, much less in ten years.”

  I didn’t really believe that. Esme was flighty, but she was also a trust-fund kid who knew that she’d always be okay. Her irresponsibility was just casual rebellion. I had a more pedantic, regimented personality, and yet I still felt unmoored, unsure of which direction life was taking me.

  Esme never really had to worry. She was the heiress to a fast-food fortune, a chain of sandwich restaurants called Wrapt that her father, Henry Overfield, had founded in the eighties. All she had to do to have a successful life was not screw up. It was hardly fair, but it wasn’t her fault. That’s what I kept reminding myself, anyway.

  I patted Esme’s arm. “In ten minutes, you’ll still be sitting next to me in this very bar.”

  “That sounds totally plausible. But where will I be in ten years?”

  I smiled. I knew Esme well enough to know that she didn’t want me to answer honestly. She didn’t want me to tell her that she’d probably be working for her father, possibly be married, maybe even be a mom. Esme wanted me to tell her a story.

  “Let me see.” I hesitated, trying to think up something that would entertain her. “You’ll have moved to Los Angeles.”

  “Los Angeles? What am I doing out there? I could never be an actress.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because whenever I lie, I start blinking uncontrollably.” Esme demonstrated, batting her eyelashes.

  “Huh,” I said. “I always thought your contacts were bothering you when you do that.”

  “No, I was totally lying. Anyway, give me a different job.”

  I considered this. “You’ll be a personal stylist to the stars.”

  “I get to spend all day shopping with other people’s money? That sounds fun.”


  Esme already shopped whenever she wanted with money she hadn’t earned. She didn’t sift through the sale racks at chain stores like the rest of us. Her clothes, even the trendy ones, were purchased at high-end department stores with a credit card she never got the bill for. I was about to point this out but stopped myself. It wasn’t Esme’s fault that she came from money, any more than it was my fault that I didn’t. And, after all, I was the one who’d started this alternative-reality fantasy.

  “And then one year, you’ll be hired to dress an up-and-coming actress who’s been nominated for an Academy Award for some obscure art film. She’ll end up winning the Oscar, and you’ll suddenly become the It Girl of stylists. They’ll even want you to star in a television show about stylists.”

  “So, I’ll become as famous as an actress without having to act.”

  “Definitely. You’ll be a household name.”

  Esme grinned at this, but then her smile faded. “Sounds amazing, but I have a feeling my future won’t be quite that glamorous.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve decided to go to business school.”

  “Really? That’s a big decision.” I was taken aback. “When did that happen?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I just signed up to take the GMAT. I’ll see how I do, and then start applying.”

  I should’ve been happy for my friend. Instead, I just felt even more adrift in my own life. I tried to push down my jealousy and raised my bottle in a toast.

  “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll do great.”

  “Thanks.” Esme clinked her bottle against mine and then leaned over, resting her head on my shoulder. “And every year we’ll get together and travel somewhere together, just like this. No matter what else is happening in our lives. I love you, Caro.”

  “You always get sappy when you’re drunk.” I nudged her and smiled. “But I love you, too.”

  Twenty-Six Years Later

  The trip was doomed from the start.

  I hadn’t had a panic attack in years, but as soon as John backed our SUV down the driveway and the garage door slid closed, I could feel my pulse start to race and my breath grow shallow. The sensation scared me. I wanted nothing more than to throw open the door, jump out, and run back to the safety of our house.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go,” I said.

  “We’ve talked about this,” John replied.

  We certainly had. We’d discussed whether or not to cancel the Labor Day trip at length, each arguing one side, and then abruptly switching and arguing the other. We’d already paid for the vacation house. Then again, it was just money. Esme had recently gone through an unpleasant divorce and needed cheering up. But our family was in crisis. Sitting at home wouldn’t help anything, though the last thing either of us felt like was taking a vacation.

  “Let’s just go,” I’d finally said, exhausted by the debate. “It’s just a week. It won’t change anything in the long run.”

  “Fine,” John had said in agreement.

  But now I wasn’t so sure.

  “What if Aiden needs us?” I asked softly.

  John made a sound somewhere between a snort and a humorless laugh. “Our son doesn’t need us. All he cares about is that we keep paying his bills.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I damned well do.”

  I stared out my window at a street of well-appointed homes with pristine lawns and professional landscaping, taking in the familiar site of our serene Jacksonville neighborhood. We’d purchased the house twelve years earlier, when Aiden was ten. At the time, we could barely afford the staggering mortgage, but it had seemed worth the sacrifice to get Aiden into a better school district. To give him every possible advantage in life.

  That hadn’t exactly worked out as planned.

  I’d always thought we were a normal family. Boring, almost. John worked as a financial advisor. I was a Realtor. Growing up, Aiden had always been a kind, sweet-natured boy. We worried that he spent too much time playing video games, but all parents worried about that. He’d always been a good student and made friends easily. Now Aiden was in his senior year at the University of Central Florida.

  Or at least we thought he was.

  Three weeks earlier, Aiden had called John at work one morning to let us know he was in jail. He’d been arrested buying heroin from a man who had turned out to be an informant working for the police. I’d had no idea my son had ever taken heroin. But before I could even process that horrifying fact, all sorts of other secrets came spilling out.

  We found out Aiden had stopped going to classes. He’d moved out of the apartment we were still paying rent for and was living with a new girlfriend named Darcy, who had a history of drug addiction. John and I hired the best criminal attorney we could find, an overly confident man named Tank Crawley, who recommended that Aiden immediately enroll in an inpatient drug treatment program. He thought this would make a good impression on the state’s attorney charged with prosecuting the case, so Aiden went along with it. I had my reservations. I didn’t get the sense that Aiden was committed to getting sober, or that he had any real grasp on how much damage he was doing to his life. To any of our lives.

  Suddenly, without warning, John and I been plunged into a hell that involved court dates, drug counselors, and reading terrifying articles on the living hell that was heroin addiction.

  And now, in the middle of all of that, John and I were going on vacation.

  The trip had, of course, been planned before everything blew up. Esme and I had kept the pledge we’d made all those years ago in Key West: one trip a year, no matter what. The first few had been just the two of us. I was broke through my early twenties, so we chose locations we could drive to—Tampa, Orlando, Destin. Later, when we both married, we started bringing our respective spouses along, and started traveling a bit farther away. One year we went to New York City, and another to San Francisco. The only time we missed a trip was the year when I was pregnant with Aiden and my obstetrician had put me on bed rest. We’d had to cancel our plans to meet in Hilton Head, and instead, Esme and her husband, David, came to stay with us in Jacksonville for a long weekend. Esme had lounged in bed next to me while we binge-watched movies on the Lifetime channel and ate bowls of buttery popcorn.

  This year we’d booked a rental in Shoreham, Florida, a small seaside town that was roughly equidistant between Jacksonville and Miami. In an attempt to make this year’s trip a bit more festive, and to keep Esme from feeling like a post-divorce third wheel, we’d invited along Esme’s brother, Nick, and his new husband, Ford, to join us for the first time.

  “What time are Esme and her crew arriving?” John asked.

  “I don’t think they’re driving together.” I checked my phone. “Esme texted twenty minutes ago and said she was on her way, so we’ll probably get there at about the same time.”

  “Why wouldn’t they drive together?” John asked.

  I smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks. “I know Esme wants to rebuild her relationship with Nick, but I don’t think she’s ready to be locked in a car with him for three hours.”

  “Any idea what his new husband’s like?”

  “I asked Esme about him. She said that Ford is handsome, charming, and cocky. Which sounds pretty much like every guy Nick has ever dated. Anyway, I think it’s a good thing that Esme and Nick are trying to repair their relationship.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You know their dad has prostate cancer. The prognosis isn’t great. Once he passes away, they’ll need each other. At the end of the day, they’re family. And isn’t that the most important thing?”

  “Is it? Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t all overrated,” John said sourly. I knew we were no longer talking about Esme and Nick.

  “Thank you for sharing that lovely sentiment.”

  “Jesus, Caroline.” John glanced at me, his expression wary. “All I meant was�
��”

  “Just stop,” I said, interrupting him. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  We rode for the rest of the trip in silence.

  “I think this is it,” John said, pulling into the short, paved driveway.

  I recognized the aqua blue house from the picture on the website. It was three stories, with a two-car garage. There was a white Mercedes convertible parked in the driveway.

  “Someone beat us here,” I said.

  “Damn. That means we won’t get first dibs on a bedroom,” John said. “I’ll get the luggage. You go ahead.”

  I got out of the car. It was hot and humid out, which was typical for South Florida in September. The house looked friendly and larger than it had online, and I felt my spirits buoy. Now that we were here, I might as well enjoy myself, I thought.

  The glass-paned front door was unlocked. It opened onto a narrow hallway and a tall flight of stairs leading to the upper stories.

  “Hello?” I called out, climbing the narrow stairs.

  “Caroline!” Esme called back. “You made it!”

  Esme appeared on the second floor, grinning down at me. She looked fantastic. Esme had always been slim, but she was now thinner than ever. It made her blue eyes look even larger, her cheekbones sharper. She was coolly glamorous in a white tank top paired with flowing white linen pants, and her long, dark hair was loose over her tanned shoulders. I was suddenly aware of how rumpled my tunic shirt and khaki shorts were after the long car ride.

  “You look amazing,” I said. I ran a self-conscious hand through my short blonde bob, which had picked today of all days to go frizzy.

  “You sound surprised.” Esme laughed. She gave me a brief hug, and I breathed her in. She smelled like she always did, a pleasant mixture of jasmine and citrus. “It hasn’t been that long since we’ve seen each other. When did you come to Miami?”

  “June.”

  “I can’t have changed that much in three months.”

  I leaned back and looked at her again. “It’s not that, it’s just . . . you look happy.”