“Maybe she’s—”
“Oh God!”
“Marlo, what—oh Jesus!”
The image tilted, tipped, showed Matthew racing toward the pool, jumping in fully dressed, turning over the floating body to reveal K.T.’s face.
Marlo let out a choked scream, and the view slid and blurred as the purse fell to the pool skirt. Eve saw her legs and feet, running, watched her drop to her knees, reach out to help Matthew pull the body to the side. Their voices, their words, mixed and jumbled.
What happened?
Help me get her out.
Is she dead? Oh God, is she dead?
Give me room, give me room. She’s not breathing.
She watched Matthew perform CPR, try mouth-to-mouth while Marlo rubbed K.T.’s hand between hers as if to try to warm it.
Come back, come back! Come on!
She’s cold. She’s so cold. Should I find a blanket?
She’s gone, Marlo. She’s gone.
He sat back on his heels, pale, dripping. His breathing sounded raw, labored, while Marlo knelt, shuddering.
“We should call for an ambulance. My ’link.”
But Matthew took her hand. “She’s dead. She’s dead, Marlo.”
“But, she can’t—how? There must be something.”
“I can’t get her back. She’s dead. She’s … she’s cold.”
“Oh, Matthew.” With the body between them, they leaned toward each other, all but fell on each other. “What do we do? What should we do? Dallas and Peabody. We have to go down, tell them.”
“Yeah. Jesus, I’m shaking. Some hero. I need a minute. I just need a minute.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She held him, then jerked back. “The recording. We have to get it.” She scrambled to her feet.
“Marlo, don’t touch anything.”
“I’m just going to take the recording. It must be in her purse. It’s right here. If the police find it, they could think—Matthew, they
could think we killed her, or fought with her, or … It’s not here. There’s nothing here. Does she have a pocket? Is it on her somewhere?”
“Marlo, stop. Stop. She doesn’t have anything. She must’ve lied. Just lied, and now she’s dead.” His words came out as if they’d been scraped against a rasp. “She’s dead, and we’re not doing anything.”
“You did everything you could.” Marlo dropped down beside him, stroked his dripping hair. “She must’ve hit her head and fallen in. She was drunk, and she fell and drowned. Look, there’s her glass, some wine spilled and a broken glass. It was an awful accident. God, Connie’s going to be sick about it. We should go down now. Come on, baby, let’s go down, get help.”
“Yeah. Yeah. What do we tell them, Marlo?”
“The truth. We came up, and we found her. You pulled her out, and you couldn’t save her. We don’t have to tell anybody the rest. It doesn’t matter to anybody but us.”
“You’re right. I wanted to hurt her, Marlo. I wanted to see her squirm. I don’t know how to feel about that now.” He took a breath, took another, got to his feet. “How did you feel when I told you she was dead?”
“What? Horrible. Horrified. Scared. Sick.”