The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black Read Free Book Online Page A

him whether I remembered. When of course it was a given. Everyone knew him, or at least knew who he was. On the Island, his casual manner was set off by a sort of accompanying radiance that derived in part from his wealth, but also from his family history and its place in the local pageant. If he was aware, he gave no indication. This was it then, the famous charm. “I’m Will Carraday,” he said.
    When I try to recall the rest of our conversation that day, I can’t remember anything specific. Will and I stood together. We talked. Otis closed and locked the garage doors and left. How long were we there? I don’t know. I remember that Will expressed sorrow about Bailey, I know he welcomed me to the Island. And somehow, coming from him, these commonplace messages seemed essential and profound.

Chapter 6

    LATER I HEARD WILL DESCRIBED as calculating, and I suppose in some ways he was. You’d expect someone who owned a controlling interest in several companies, as well as a bank, to be astute. But his pleasure as he greeted his guests that night was real.
    They came through the door with their elbows tight against their sides, and stepped tentatively into the pool of light under the chandelier. But when Will spoke to them or took their hands, when he fixed his attention on them, they relaxed. Yes, he adjusted his manner, the way a good dancer adjusts to his partner’s height and ability. He was not the same with everyone. But it seemed less a conscious choice than an instinctive move toward harmony, and his guests responded to it.
    Charm. Skill. Whatever you choose to call it, Will’s gift wasn’t inherited from his father, a dour man with a heavy, low-slung jaw and a habit of working his back teeth that had earned him his nickname—the Grinder. Not from his grandfather, either. Ward Carraday’s appearance was said to have frightened his customers into paying their bills.
    While the guests were arriving, I stood in a narrow passage off the front hall where I could see everyone without seeming to watch for Patrick.
    When I thought about Patrick, when I tried to imagine our meeting, there was no consistency about any of it. Sometimes I felt certain that I would know him despite any kind of change. At other times,I thought the years must have turned him into an entirely different person. What Eleanor had said raised new doubts. Patrick behind a desk? I resolved to practice, so I could meet him and offer my hand casually without giving anything away. Do you remember me?
    The paneled walls of the passage were filled floor to ceiling with family photos, most of them taken years before. I was only pretending to look, but every so often something caught my eye. There, for example, was Mary Liz Carraday, Patrick’s mother, before her accident, field dressing a downed buck. Will, holding up a glistening fish.
    The image below was painful—Patrick a scrawny seven or so, reaching awkwardly to put one arm around his sister, Catherine, who was already so much wider. Catherine was disabled. From the time she was about twelve, she had lived away, but I could always tell when she was visiting. She spoke only a few intelligible words, she made harsh squawking noises, and when a door or window opened, I could hear her.
    “Are you hiding in there?” Eleanor was wearing a silk tunic that set off her eyes. Her hair was up, not coiled and pinned as I remembered, but loosely piled, so that it looked as if it might come down the way it had in the garden. I realized with a shock that her fitful incandescence was something other people could see. My mother is a beautiful woman , I thought.
    “You said to come early so we could see the house.”
    “I said to come early so Will could show you the house,” Eleanor said with careful emphasis. She touched the shoulder of a young woman standing nearby. “This is our new neighbor, Leanne.” I wondered if she could hear the invisible quotation marks around her name, Eleanor’s way of letting