Page 80 of Someone in the Water
‘That makes it worse.’
‘I didn’t plan it,’ he says. ‘My life was … boring. I was an estate agent, selling big pads in Surrey to feed my ex-wife’s spending habits. But I couldn’t stop thinking about this place. Remembering our season.’
‘But that summer was hell, Dom! Losing Archie. Then Izzy. God, what I would give to forget it all.’ I fall quiet and wonder if I mean that. The truth is, I don’t know what my life would look like without those memories.
‘Yes, I know,’ Dom says. ‘But it was a shared hell. We went through this thing together – and there was good as well as bad, you know that – and I guess I felt less whole without it.’
‘So you moved out here.’
‘Yeah, when I could. But before then, I started a side hustle selling Corsican artwork – I’ve loved art since my university days – and that’s how I came across this article in an online magazine. I promise it was the pictures that grabbed my attention at first.’
I think about the interview I gave and how I insisted on the magazine only using my initials. I thought it would be enough, but of course it would be a shiny clue for Dom. Especially with all the other details I shared. Spending time in Corsica as a teenager, coping with a personal trauma. ‘You worked out that it was me,’ I say.
‘I suspected. Enough to look for you online. When I found out that you were an art teacher, it all fell into place.’
‘But instead of contacting me in a regular way, like Harriet did with you, you catfished me.’
Dom flinches. Then he pushes his palms together and looks down, like he’s praying. ‘I didn’t think of it like that.’
‘You manipulated me, Dom. I trusted you with my deepest, darkest secrets.’
‘I’m sorry. It just never seemed like the right time.’
‘That’s bullshit! There were loads of opportunities to come clean!’ I take a breath. ‘Is it because you wanted to find out what I knew about Izzy’s death? Whether I’d remembered something incriminating over the years?’
His face screws up. ‘What? Why would I do that?’
‘Because you …’ My words float away. Dom didn’t kill anyone. Of course he didn’t. ‘Did you want to punish me for humiliating you?’ I ask instead. ‘Did you put notes under my door because you knew it would freak me out?’
Dom’s face softens. ‘I moved on from that night a long time ago, Frankie. Yes, I was hurt in the moment. But I preferred to remember you for the hundreds of good moments we shared instead of the one bad one.’ Dom opens his palms. ‘And I still don’t know what notes you’re talking about.’
I want to read his expression, to be sure he’s telling the truth, but the lighting is low, and there’s a fog of body heat in the air. ‘Someone is putting notes under my door,’ I finally say. ‘Calling me mazzeri, threatening to kill me and Lola.’
Dom’s eyes widen. ‘Fucking hell. You can’t think I’d write that?!’
I rub my palm against my forehead, then sigh. ‘I guess I don’t – not really. But you have been lying to me for six years.’
Dom winces. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t admit who I was because I valued our new friendship too much. And it always felt like you needed a faceless confidant whose opinion didn’t factor. It’s the same reason I think you needed to come tonight, to Sartène, to this gathering for Salvo. To face your fears head-on, not hide away from them.’
I look away. It’s true that writing those emails felt like the difference between sanity and insanity some nights.
‘And I was making sure your art went to people who really loved it, and at a good price,’ Dom goes on. ‘When Jack called me, told me that you’d shown up at the hotel with your daughter, I nearly didn’t come. I was scared that you’d read the truth on my face. But I also couldn’t give up the chance of seeing you.’
‘So you could gloat in secret?’ I ask, but there’s no strength in my anger now.
‘So I could find a way to tell you the truth.’ He sighs. ‘But you seemed so on edge. Looking over your shoulder the whole time. It never felt like the right moment. I understand why now.’
I stare at him. He sounds so genuine. Lola has me to protect her, and Patrick now too, but I have no one. And I feel so alone. I wish I could lie down, sleep, hear someone tell me that everything is going to be okay, and believe them. ‘It’s the darkest night tonight,’ I murmur.
‘The anniversary of Izzy’s death, you mean?’
I nod. Why do I keep bringing up the mazzeri stuff? Why do I keep forgetting it’s not real?
‘I think someone’s stolen Lola’s new travel documents too. I’m worried that whoever’s doing these things wants to trap us here.’
Dom’s expression shifts to concern. ‘Where’s Lola now?’
Frankie
