By the time I reach the top of the back road, my thighs burn and my lungs sting from the cold. The estate crouches on the cliff ahead of me, shingles dusted with snow, glass walls reflecting a dull pewter sky. Wind snaps at my coat and carries the mixed smells of salt, woodsmoke from neighboring chimneys, and that faint chemical tang that drifts up from the hospital on the hill.
I press a hand over the inner pocket where the folded reports rustle against my ribs. Two minors unaccounted for. One later determined not present. Ink scratching out a child. I picture putting those pages on Evelyn’s lap and asking her, very calmly, which missing girl she paid to erase.
The front doors swing open before I reach them. Leonard, in his dark suit, stands framed in the warm light.
“Mrs. Mercer,” he says. “Mrs. Evelyn asked that I let you know she’d like to see you in the blue sitting room. At your convenience.”
The words wear courtesy, but the timing strips away the illusion. I step over the threshold into heated air that smells of lemon polish and the pine garland draped along the banister.
“Did she say what it’s about?” I ask, unwinding my scarf.
“Just that she wanted a quiet moment with you,” he says. “To get to know you better.”
My fingers fumble at the knot. I nod, hand the scarf over, and smooth my hair in the reflection of the glass door panel. My cheeks burn from the wind. I look like I’ve been somewhere I shouldn’t.
The Mercer crest repeats as I walk down the hall: embossed on the runner’s edge, framed in a donor plaque from the hospital, worked into the pattern of a throw pillow on a bench. Abstract waves, curling and folding, the same shape that crowns the Light the Harbor posters in town. A reminder that even here, in this supposedly private house above the law, I’m moving through their branded territory.
The blue sitting room faces the water, smaller than the grand salon, all soft blues and creams and silver picture frames. A fire burns low in the marble fireplace, sending out gentle heat and a faint crackle. One of the windows is cracked just enough to let in a thread of cold, salt-heavy air that cuts through the floral candle on the sideboard.
Evelyn sits in an armchair near the fire, ankles crossed, a book closed in her lap. Her cream cashmere sweater matches the upholstery, her pearls catching little flashes of light. On the table between us, a tea tray waits: delicate white china cups edged with gold, each saucer stamped with the wave crest. A plate of thin lemon cookies sits beside them, sugar dust catching the firelight.
“Hannah,” she says, rising with that smooth, unhurried grace. “You must be frozen. Come, sit. I insisted they light the fire; this wind off the Sound can be brutal.”
I slide onto the opposite armchair, the cushion swallowing me a little. I tuck my hands under my thighs before I can fidget.
“Thank you,” I say. “The walk back was…brisk.”
She smiles. “You’re very disciplined. Most of our guests beg for the car rather than brave Harbor Glen in December.” She reaches for the teapot, its handle looping like a question mark. “Earl Grey? Or do you prefer something else?”
“Earl Grey is perfect,” I say.
She pours with steady hands, the stream of dark amber liquid releasing the bergamot’s citrus bite. Steam curls up, distorting her face for a heartbeat. My stomach coils tighter.
“Sugar? Lemon?” she asks.
“Just a little milk,” I say.
She nods approval, adds a precise splash, and passes me the cup. Porcelain clinks lightly against porcelain. The heat seeps into my fingers.
“I asked you down,” she says, settling back with her own cup, “because I realized there has been so much activity since you arrived. Parties, the storm, Daniel’s work calls. I haven’t had you all to myself for a proper welcome to the family.”
The words land on me like a warm blanket with a hidden weight stitched inside.
“I appreciate that,” I say. “It has been…a full week.”
“Mm.” Her gaze traces my face, cataloging, then slides away to the window. Outside, the cliffs drop toward the rocky shoreline, the winter sea a dull sheet of pewter, boats bobbing small and distant. “Daniel married well,” she says. “Your mother worked nights as a nurse, didn’t she? You put yourself through Columbia. First in your family to do so. That takes grit.”
The compliment has teeth. I keep my voice even. “She worked very hard so I could have those opportunities.”
“And you chose social work,” she continues. “Such meaningful, demanding labor. Listening to people’s pain. Helping them reframe their stories. I imagine that gives you a very particular lens on the world.”
I take a sip to buy myself a moment. The tea scalds the tip of my tongue. “I like to understand why people do what they do,” I say. “Patterns. Motivations.”
“Of course you do,” she says. “That must make this house feel like an irresistible puzzle.”
My pulse jumps. “I’m still learning where everything is,” I say lightly. “It’s a big place.”
“It is,” she says. “My husband’s grandparents built it when Harbor Glen still had more fishermen than hedge fund managers. They chose this cliff for the view and the privacy. And yet we’ve always believed in staying connected to town. Sponsoring the hospital. The Light the Harbor parade. The library.” She glances at my boots, still faintly dusted with salt and slush, then back to my eyes. “I hear you’ve been exploring.”
My throat tightens around another sip. “I went into town this morning,” I admit. “Cabin fever.”
“Perfectly understandable,” she says. “Claire makes an excellent cappuccino, doesn’t she? She insists on that imported machine. The cinnamon scones can be a bit much, but everyone loves them.”
The cup shakes slightly in my hand. I steady it against the saucer. “You know Claire?”
“Harbor Glen is very small, dear,” she says, lips curving. “We know everyone who matters. When one’s family name is on the donor walls and the hospital wings and the yacht lists for Light the Harbor, one hears things. Who’s in town. Who they talk to. What they ask.”
Heat crawls up my neck. I think of Claire spinning her towel behind the counter, of the regular at the bar cutting into our conversation, of the way she told me the town protects the Mercers, not people who dig.
“I had no idea my coffee order was newsworthy,” I say, trying for a laugh that doesn’t quite make it out of my chest.
“Oh, Hannah,” she says, tone softening in a way that feels rehearsed. “Don’t be dramatic. People are curious, that’s all. You’re new. You’re lovely. You’re Daniel’s wife. I’m sure you charmed them.”
She lifts her cup, takes a measured sip, and sets it down without a sound. The silence stretches, pressed at the edges by the crackle of the fire and the muffled boom of waves below the cliff.
“And the library?” she adds, almost idly. “How did you enjoy our little civic treasure?”
My fingers clench around the handle before I can stop them. In my mind, the police report hovers on the monitor, the scribbled line, the librarian’s warning about glitches.
“It’s a beautiful building,” I say carefully. “Very peaceful.”
“We paid for those public terminals,” she says. “Robert and I. It was part of a transparency initiative. Accessible records for everyone. A modern, enlightened town.” Her eyes rest on my face. “I do hope the software behaved. The Wi-Fi can be temperamental, and I’d hate for your searches to get…misdirected.”
I swallow. “My searches?”
“Guest logins leave such a helpful trail,” she says, still in that conversational tone people use in elevators. “Especially when someone’s using our network here as well. The IT team at the foundation is very protective. They flag unusual activity. Certain keywords. ‘Mercer.’ ‘Accident report.’ ‘Adoption.’”
The cup clinks against the saucer as I set it down too quickly. Tea sloshes over the rim, a dark crescent staining the white china. I grab a napkin, blotting at it, focusing on the little motions so I don’t bolt from the room.
“I was just…curious,” I say. “Daniel’s told me stories about growing up. The town talks about Lydia. I wanted to understand.”
“Curiosity is a sign of intelligence,” Evelyn says. “Daniel always admired that in you.” She leans forward slightly, elbows on the padded arms of her chair. “The question is what one does with that curiosity. Whether one uses it to deepen empathy and connection, or to pry at scars that hold families together.”
I meet her gaze. “You’re worried I’m prying.”
“I am concerned,” she corrects me gently, “that you might not yet appreciate the position you occupy. Being a Mercer means living on a cliff, in every sense. The view is extraordinary. The fall is…unfortunate.”
A log in the fireplace collapses inward, sending up a spark. The crack makes me flinch.
“No one wants you to fall, Hannah,” she says. “Daniel loves you. We welcomed you into this house. Into Harbor Glen. That comes with immense protection. It also comes with expectations.”
“What expectations?” I ask.
Her smile returns, small and bright. “Loyalty,” she says. “Discretion. An understanding that certain narratives are settled. The boating accident. Lydia’s memorial. The hospital’s work in this community. We all know those stories. They are part of what keeps this peninsula stable. Questioning them in private is one thing. Spreading doubt, implying wrongdoing—well. That begins to look like slander.”
The word lands with a dull thud between us. I straighten, nails biting into my palms where my hands curl out of sight.
“I haven’t slandered anyone,” I say. “I asked a few questions at a café. I used a public database. I didn’t accuse—”
“Intent matters less than impact,” she says. “We have an obligation to protect the foundation, the hospital, the board. Donors hear whispers. Reporters misinterpret curiosities as allegations. It all becomes very messy.” Her voice softens further. “Our attorneys have quite a bit of experience in handling such messes. They work very swiftly to clarify things in the public record. And if that involves demonstrating that a person has…imagination, a tendency toward anxiety or mistrust, well. That is unfortunate, but necessary.”
I picture a therapist’s letter on a court docket, a line in a police detective’s notes: subject prone to paranoia. A wife whose word can be dismissed.
“You’d paint me as unstable,” I say slowly, “for looking at a file with your name on it.”
“I would prefer not to paint you as anything but my dear daughter-in-law,” she says. “Which is why we are having this conversation now, while everything is still graceful and containable.” She reaches for a lemon cookie, breaks it neatly in half, and places one piece on my saucer. “You are not the first young woman to find this house overwhelming, you know. The power, the history, the tragedies. Some of them tried to fix things that were not broken. They did not stay long.”
“Is that a threat?” I ask. My voice trembles at the edges, but I keep it low.
“It is a caution,” she says. “I’m telling you where the road curves before you drive off it. Harbor Glen is a narrow place. Back roads, as you’ve discovered. People know who rides on which yacht, who sits on which committee, whose name is where on the donor wall. When they decide someone is against the Mercers, doors close. Jobs vanish. Friendships…evaporate.” She tips her head. “It would grieve me to watch that happen to you.”
I inhale through my nose, the bergamot and lemon cutting through the smoke. “What would you like me to do, then?” I ask. “Specifically.”
“So practical,” she says with a faint chuckle. “I do admire that about you. I would like you to decide that you are on our side. To accept that certain questions have been settled by people who bore the responsibility at the time. To leave the past to those of us who lived it. You have a new life now. A husband. A future. Focus on that. Let the dead rest.”
Lydia’s tree flashes in my memory, the waves slamming the base of the cliff. The scribbled line on the report glows behind my eyes. Two minors unaccounted for.
“And if there was someone who didn’t get to rest?” I ask quietly. “Someone whose story never got written in the first place?”
Her jaw tightens for a fraction of a second, a tick under the smooth skin. She lifts her cup, giving herself a moment.
“You are young,” she says, after a sip. “You believe every injustice can be remedied if you care enough. It’s very noble. It’s also very naive. This family has saved more lives than you could count in a year of your hotline shifts. We fund the NICU. The cancer trials. The addiction program. Sometimes, protecting that work means accepting that not every detail of every tragedy can be aired and re-litigated. You start pulling on threads, and you don’t just unravel us. You unravel the entire town.”
Love and harm, same hands. I stare at her manicured fingers resting on the armrest, at the diamond band that financed scholarships and silence.
“So the good cancels the bad,” I say. “Is that it?”
“The good stands,” she answers. “The rest is context.”
My heart hammers against the folded papers in my pocket. I think of the librarian’s suggestion to email the reports to myself, the digital copies waiting somewhere beyond Evelyn’s reach. I force my shoulders to relax, let my mouth curve into something that might pass for gratitude.
“I don’t want to hurt Daniel,” I say. “Or the foundation.”
“Of course you don’t,” she murmurs. “You love him. That is why I am trusting you with this…orientation, shall we call it. A true welcome to what it means to be part of this family.”
She sets her cup down and stands. I follow her lead, my legs unsteady but functional. The room seems smaller now, the windows narrower, the crest on the china louder.
She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her perfume, powdery and sharp underneath, like hospital antiseptic wrapped in roses. She reaches up and smooths an imaginary wrinkle from my sleeve, an intimate, proprietary gesture.
“We protect our own, dear,” she says, meeting my eyes with a smile that never touches hers, “when they remember which side they’re on.”
The words hang between us, warm from her breath and cold in their meaning. I hold her gaze, teeth pressed together behind my polite smile, and lay my hand over the pocket with the police report, feeling the stiff edge of the paper.
“I’ll remember,” I say.
Out loud, it sounds like a promise. In my chest, it lands as something else: a vow to remember that there was once a second child on that boat, a girl everyone insists was never there, and that whatever side Evelyn thinks I’m on, I owe that erased life more than I owe the woman who buried it.