She stumbles around until she finds a light switch. The darkness is banished. She’s alone in the east bedroom of the holiday house. Not in an underground septic tank.

  Elise has the nightmares almost every time she goes to bed. Whenever she wakes up, at 1, 3, 5 a.m., there’s a moment of utter panic. The fear that getting rescued by Kiara was a dream, and she’s still down there in the dark.

  She blames her frequent awakenings on a small bladder and says she only needs a nightlight to find her way to the bathroom. But she can’t hide this forever. Kiara has seen things on the job that would turn most people to jelly; she won’t want to be in a relationship with someone who’s terrified all the time.

  Elise pokes her head out into the hallway. ‘Kiara?’ she whispers, as loudly as she dares.

  There’s another knock at the front door.

  Elise slips out of the bedroom and runs towards the kitchen. She can hear a male voice from outside the front door, but can’t make out the words over the droning extractor fan—Kiara left it on to clear out the ammonia smell. The tiny blue standby light on the TV provides just enough illumination for Elise to find the knife block. She draws a blade and turns back around, her heart hammering. Now she’s ready to answer the door.

  All the lights come on. Elise squints against the sudden glare. Kiara enters the room, followed by a police officer in his forties, with broad shoulders and ears that stick out.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ he’s asking.

  ‘I hoped I was imagining it,’ Kiara says.

  Elise tosses the knife into the sink. Kiara and the man hear the clatter and turn to face her, looking startled—but less so than if she’d been brandishing a blade.

  ‘Elise,’ Kiara says, ‘you okay?’

  Elise nods warily. Act sane, she thinks.

  Kiara gestures to the man. ‘This is—’

  ‘Constable Seamus Whitmey,’ the man says. ‘Sorry I woke you.’

  Elise crosses her arms over her thin pyjamas. ‘You have a very loud knock.’

  ‘Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. A lot of people buy their doors online these days. Sometimes they’re so thin I can feel them bending.’

  Elise, still waking up, can’t work out if what Whitmey just said makes sense.

  ‘Seamus is an old friend of mine,’ Kiara says. ‘He’s going to help me search for the suspect.’

  ‘Help us,’ Elise says.

  Kiara and Seamus exchange uncomfortable looks.

  ‘Help us,’ Kiara confirms. ‘As soon as the sun comes up.’

  ‘You can go back to sleep,’ Seamus says. ‘I’ll keep watch.’

  Elise pours a glass of water as an excuse to stay out here, listening to their conversation. It’s like being a toddler again, pretending to be thirsty to put off going to bed. Kiara leads Whitmey through the house, explaining the situation. He grunts from time to time.

  After taking the glass of water to the bedroom, Elise sits on the mattress. It’s going to be hard to sleep with a stranger in the house, police officer or no.

  ‘All right,’ Kiara says, when she comes in. ‘Seamus is set up. We can get some rest.’

  ‘You said he’s an old friend of yours?’ Elise asks.

  ‘Friend and colleague.’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned him before.’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘I guess I try not to talk about work too much at home,’ Kiara says. She doesn’t add, Because I don’t want to set you off. But Elise knows she’s thinking it.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Elise lies down on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Kiara asks again.

  ‘When am I not?’ She closes her eyes.

  LAST SATURDAY

  ISLA

  Isla emerged from the bedroom, heart pounding, and closed the door behind her. She looked around. The hall was empty.

  The hollow internal walls hadn’t muffled the sounds much. There had been moaning, whimpering, sobs of pleasure. Thumping and dragging noises, as though someone’s secret kink was rearranging furniture. She’d even heard a scream from one lucky woman, or possibly a very lucky man. But now there was an eerie silence.

  It’s okay, Isla thought. No one will know. She took a second to compose herself, then made her way to the lounge room, trying to keep her face neutral. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Clementine was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, hugging her knees, her blonde hair a curtain around her face. Like Isla, she wore only a robe.

  Isla opened her mouth to say hello, but the sound wouldn’t come. There was a lump in her throat. She ducked back into the hall, hoping Clementine hadn’t seen her.

  She couldn’t stay there forever—soon the men would come out. It was against the rules for her to see which bedrooms they emerged from. Then again, who cared about the rules, after what just happened?

  There’d been a pond in the backyard of her parents’ house, where she often sat on a warm rock and watched the dragonflies. Isla pictured herself there, looking into the still water. She took a deep breath, held it, released. Then she walked back into the living area, pretending to see Clementine for the first time.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  Clementine didn’t look away from the fire.

  Isla went to pour herself a glass of sparkling, but the bottle was gone. She opened the pantry and found an open cab sav, brought back by Cole. Thoughtful Cole.

  ‘Drink?’ she asked.

  No response from Clementine.

  Back in the hall, a door clicked open. Isla kept her gaze on the wineglasses but listened as footsteps padded around. Another door opened, then closed. A shower hissed.

  She brought the two glasses over to the fire. She sat beside Clementine and held one out. Her friend didn’t take it, so Isla placed it gently on the tile next to her. There was an angry red mark around Clementine’s wrist, like she’d been rubbing it.

  Another door opened somewhere, but no one emerged from the hall.

  Isla watched the glowing coals for a minute. The tears were threatening to come back, but the heat seemed to help, drying out her eyeballs.

  The man in her bedroom had made her feel like a goddess. He had kissed every centimetre of her skin, massaged every throbbing muscle. He had escalated slowly, always sensing the moment her frustration became agony. To him, only her pleasure had seemed to matter. She’d never been with a man like that before. He had spent what seemed like hours bringing her to a climax, but then—

  Well, she didn’t want to think about what had happened after that.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked.

  Clementine finally turned to look at her. She usually had the bright, cheerful gaze of a fit person; now, her hollow stare shocked Isla.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Isla asked, alarmed.

  Clementine turned back to the fire, tears brimming.

  Sympathy crowded out the envy. Isla knew exactly what Clementine was feeling, because she was feeling it too. It was okay to be sexually unfulfilled, stuck forever with a half-hearted man. You could allow yourself to forget what real love felt like and convince yourself you were happy. Until you were with someone else, when it all came rushing back—the sensations you’d denied yourself for years and might never experience again.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Isla wrapped her arm around Clementine’s shoulders, pulling her into a sideways hug. ‘I know.’

  Clementine’s mouth fell open. Her voice was raspy: ‘You do?’

  ‘What’s got into you two?’ Felicity said from behind them.

  Isla laughed, but for once, Felicity didn’t appear to be joking. Her smile looked forced. She’d tied her hair back and dressed in oddly formal-looking pyjamas, with a collar and buttons.

  This whole thing was a mistake, Isla thought. It’s done something to all of us.

  ‘Did you have fun?’ she asked.

  ‘Ask me again tomorrow,’ Felicity said. ‘I’m still … unpacking. How about you?’

  ‘Yeah. Same.’

  If anyone was willing to talk about the experience, Isla would have expected it to be Felicity. Apparently not.

  Felicity cocked her head. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  Frowning, Felicity disappeared around the corner to the front door. A key rattled, and the door creaked. A moment later she was back. ‘Thought I heard something outside. Just my imagination, I guess.’ She went to sit next to Isla and Clementine, then paused when she spotted the wine on the bench. She poured, her back to the others.

  Isla wished she could go to bed, but the men were still in the rooms. A flaw in the plan—they all had to confront each other right after the act. A six-person walk of shame.

  Isla had never experienced a comfortable silence, and she certainly wasn’t experiencing one now. She always felt like it was her responsibility to speak, to keep everyone else happy and entertained—unless it was Dom she wasn’t speaking to, in which case his discomfort was the point.

  But what could you say to someone when you’d just slept with their husband, and they knew it? The issue was too dangerous to talk about but too big to ignore.

  Isla was still trying to find a safe path through the landmines when Oscar emerged from the hall, damp from the shower. He looked years younger, his cheeks flushed, his posture erect—but his expression was vaguely mournful. Was he, too, reflecting on his experience and the fact that it would never be repeated?

  An emotion halfway between anger and grief flashed through Isla. Another woman had given Oscar something he used to get from her.

  He smiled at the others, but his smile faded as he sensed the mood. ‘Uh, hi,’ he said.

  ‘Oscar,’ Felicity acknowledged, a bit stiffly.

  Isla just nodded. Clementine didn’t react at all.

  ‘Cole and Dom are still …?’ Oscar jerked a thumb towards the hall.

  ‘Seems so,’ Isla said.

  Oscar found empty glasses and started washing them in the sink, perhaps so he didn’t have to make eye contact with anybody.

  ‘There’s a dishwasher,’ Isla pointed out.

  ‘Seems wasteful,’ Oscar said. ‘Since Cole didn’t buy much powder.’

  ‘What didn’t I do?’ Cole entered the room, wearing a tank top and boxer shorts.

  Isla averted her eyes. The experiment was over; she no longer had permission to ogle him.

  ‘It’s all good, mate,’ Oscar said. ‘I was just saying I didn’t want to waste the dishwasher powder you brought.’

  ‘It’s a self-cleaning oven—maybe we could put the dishes in there,’ Cole joked awkwardly.

  Oscar smirked. ‘If we leave the door open, maybe it’ll clean the whole house.’

  Felicity stood up, apparently sick of the banter. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Wait,’ Isla said. ‘Dom’s not out yet.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So if you see which room he was in, you’ll know whether he was your—’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ Felicity said shortly.

  Isla stiffened. They all looked at one another.

  Felicity made a move towards the hall, but Isla stepped into her path. ‘We agreed we’d wait for everyone.’

  ‘It’s almost midnight,’ Felicity said. ‘Aren’t you tired?’

  Isla was more than tired: she felt like she’d just given birth. ‘I’m sure he’ll be out soon.’

  ‘Don’t count on it. He usually conks out right after. If you wanted to kidnap Dom, you could use sex instead of chloroform.’

  Oscar laughed. No one else did.

  ‘I could go get him,’ Cole suggested. ‘I know which room he—’

  ‘For God’s sake.’ Felicity stepped around Isla and walked into the hall. ‘Dom! Come out! We all want to go to bed.’

  Isla was about to follow but stopped herself, turning her back. She wasn’t supposed to see which room Dom was in.

  ‘Dom?’ She heard Felicity opening the two doors downstairs. Footsteps on carpet. Accelerating. Hurried thumps as Felicity went up the stairs.

  A minute later she came back down. Her eyes were wild. ‘Where the fuck is my husband?’ she demanded.

  FELICITY

  Isla was the first to speak. ‘What do you mean?’

  The panic felt like a cat in Felicity’s chest, shredding her heart with its claws. ‘Dom’s gone!’

  ‘It’s not a big house,’ Cole said. ‘I’ll help you look.’

  ‘I’m telling you, he’s not here!’ Felicity ran to the entryway and pushed the front door open. A cold wind slipped under the cuffs of her pyjama bottoms and crept up her legs. An owl hooted in the distance. She stumbled out into the front yard, scanning the darkness around her. The Tarago was still in the driveway. But no sign of her husband. ‘Dom!’ she screamed.

  Nothing moved in the dense, forbidding bush. Her heart raced. She’d never felt this kind of fear. Not when she was on stage. Not when she was blindfolded in front of a target board, waiting for the knife thrower to take his shot. Not even when the police burst into James’s apartment with their guns. Her husband was everything to her. Where was he?

  She hurried back into the kitchen. She opened the pantry and the broom cupboard. She knew she looked crazy, but she didn’t care. Where could he have gone?

  ‘Dom?’ Oscar yelled from the hall.

  ‘Dom!’ Isla shouted upstairs.

  Clementine hadn’t moved from her position by the fire. What the hell is wrong with her? Felicity wondered. Already a clock was ticking in her head, measuring how long it was since she’d seen her husband and how far he could have gone in that time.

  Her vision tunnelled. She watched her own hands as they opened the back door, then her feet as they ran out onto the deck. She grabbed the railing and peered out at the forest, but the moon was like a spotlight, glaring directly at her and leaving the rest of the world in darkness.

  Someone else came out onto the deck behind her.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Isla said.

  ‘Felicity,’ Oscar said, a warning note in his voice.

  ‘What?’ She tried to turn, but he grabbed her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t look, okay?’ he said. Urgent. Firm.

  Splashing sounds. ‘Dom?’ Cole was saying. ‘Dom! Wake up, mate.’

  Felicity squirmed out of Oscar’s grip and spun around. Isla and Cole were bent over the hot tub. Dom was sitting in the water, still wearing his suit, eyes rolled back. His hand rested on the edge, loosely curled around the stem of a champagne flute, like he didn’t know the party was over.

  Cole grabbed Dom by the armpits and lifted him out. As his body flopped sideways, the moonlight revealed a dent above his temple, a spiderweb of blood filling the cracks.

  ‘How did he get out here?’ Felicity heard herself ask. ‘What is he doing out here?’

  No one answered her question. The others were talking over the top of each other: ‘He’s not breathing.’ ‘Call an ambulance!’ ‘It’ll take them hours to get here.’ ‘My phone has no reception!’ ‘Does he have a pulse?’ ‘He must have hit his head on the side of the tub …’ ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’

  Felicity realised she was falling. Oscar caught her. She found herself looking up into his loving face, and a deep chill swept through her body as he lowered her down, down, down, before the night embraced her.

  OSCAR

  Oscar squatted next to the couch where Felicity lay, her skin pale, eyes rolled back. His sleeping beauty. ‘Will she be okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Will she be okay?’ Isla sounded incredulous. ‘Dom is dead!’

  It was the first time any of them had said it out loud. Cole was still on the deck doing CPR, but presumably even he knew it was hopeless. You couldn’t treat brain damage with chest compressions.

  Clementine was still crouched like Gollum in front of the fire. Her voice was quiet: ‘I heard a story about a woman who shot herself in the head and survived. She wandered off before she collapsed—’

  ‘He’s definitely dead,’ Oscar said. ‘We can’t help him. But Felicity might be going into shock.’

  Isla said, ‘Now that we’ve got her horizontal, she’ll be fine.’

  Oscar had long fantasised about getting Felicity horizontal, but this wasn’t what he’d had in mind. He grabbed one side of the couch. ‘Help me move her closer to the fire.’

  Isla gripped the other side, and they dragged the couch across the room, into the pool of warmth around the flames.

  Oscar examined Felicity’s cheeks, waiting for the colour to return. Even her freckles had disappeared. ‘I’ve never seen her freak out like that,’ he said.

  Isla glared at him. ‘Her husband just died.’

  A fair point, but it troubled Oscar. If Felicity loved him, then why was she so upset? She should be grateful to have her husband out of the picture.

  He started to wonder if he’d made a terrible mistake.

  Clementine spoke without looking away from the fire: ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘He obviously tried to jump into the tub again, and this time he hit his head on the side,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Why would he jump in wearing a suit?’

  ‘Because he’s Dom,’ Oscar said.

  ‘He was Dom,’ Isla said.

  They all let that sink in.

  The sliding door opened, and Cole entered, puffing. ‘I’m sorry. He’s gone. I tried my best, but …’ His voice broke, and he didn’t meet anyone’s eye.

  Isla hugged him. ‘Oh, Cole. I’m so sorry.’

  It struck Oscar that it should have been Cole’s wife comforting him, not Isla. But Clementine didn’t even look at him. Oscar had never been good at reading a room, but this one was particularly inscrutable. He supposed it was natural for everyone else to be acting strangely. They’d all known Dom longer than he had.

  Cole released Isla and wiped his eyes. ‘Have you tried all the phones? Emergency calls sometimes go through. Different providers share phone towers when you dial triple zero—’

  ‘I tried them all,’ Isla said. ‘Upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside. I tried the landline, but it doesn’t work.’

  ‘Well, we need to get an ambulance here somehow.’