There’s a strained silence for a moment at Becky’s outburst. Then Suzanne says, her voice tinged with something like awe, ‘It’s too creepy.’

‘The husband could be perfectly innocent,’ Zoe suggests.

‘But isn’t it usually the husband?’ Suzanne says.

‘If he killed her,’ Becky says, ‘then why would he tell the police to look for her?’ Becky obviously doesn’t want to believe that the handsome, lonely man next door may be a murderer.

‘Well,’ Olivia says, ‘he would have to report her missing, wouldn’t he? He couldn’t just ignore it. He has to play the part of the worried husband, even if he killed her.’

‘God, you’re morbid!’ says Glenda.

‘Think about it, though,’ Olivia says thoughtfully. ‘It could be the perfect murder. He kills her, reports her missing, and tells the police she said she was going off with a friend for the weekend when she wasn’t. Then when she doesn’t turn up, the police will think she just left him and won’t actually look that hard. It’s brilliant, really.’ They all stare back at her. She adds, ‘Especially if they’d never found her car in the lake. He’d probably have gotten away with murder.’

‘I’m not sure I like the way your mind works,’ Suzanne says.

Becky gives Olivia an annoyed glance and says, ‘For the record, I don’t think her husband did it.’

Suzanne stands up and starts refilling everyone’s wineglasses. She shudders visibly. ‘God, remember how gorgeous she was? Remember the party last year? That was the first time any of us really got a look at her. She had all the men wrapped around her little finger.’

‘I remember,’ Becky says. ‘She was too busy being fascinating to help clean up.’

‘Maybe she had a stalker or something,’ Glenda says. ‘A woman like that—’

‘She was such a flirt. I don’t know how her husband put up with it,’ Zoe says. Zoe had been at the party, too, Olivia remembers, looking around the room. They’d all been there.

‘Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was jealous, and he killed her,’ Jeannette says.

They all glance at one another, uncomfortable.

Zoe abruptly changes the subject. ‘Have any of you heard about the break-ins and the anonymous letters?’

Olivia feels her stomach clench and deliberately avoids looking at Glenda. Shit. She really never should have written those letters. She reaches for her wineglass on the coffee table.

‘What break-ins? What anonymous letters?’ Suzanne says.

‘I heard it from Carmine Torres,’ Zoe says. ‘She’s my new next-door neighbour. She told me she got an anonymous letter this morning from someone saying that her son had broken into her house and that they were sorry.’ She adds, ‘It was slipped through her mail slot overnight.’

‘Seriously?’ Jeannette says. ‘I haven’t heard anything about this.’

Zoe nods. ‘She knocked on my door to ask me if I’d got one, too, but I hadn’t,’ Zoe says.

‘Was anything taken?’ Suzanne asks.

‘She didn’t think so. She said she’d had a good look around but nothing seemed to be missing.’

Olivia dares to take a quick look at Glenda and a flash of understanding passes between them. She’ll have to talk to her after book club. She hadn’t told Glenda about the letters.

‘Who else got broken into?’ Suzanne asks. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘I don’t know,’ Zoe says. ‘The letter says that there were others. Carmine showed it to me – I read it.’

Olivia feels slightly nauseated, and puts her glass of wine down. This is not what she meant to happen, not at all. She’d only wanted to apologize. She didn’t want other people reading the letter! She didn’t want someone trying to find out who had written it! She certainly didn’t want people gossiping about it. She should have left well enough alone. How could she have been so stupid? The lawyer was right – all she’d done was stir things up.

‘You should have seen this letter!’ Zoe exclaims. ‘The poor woman who wrote it. Apparently the kid went through people’s computers and get this – he even sent prank emails from their email accounts!’

‘No!’ Suzanne says, aghast.

‘What did they say?’ Jeannette asks, appalled and entertained in equal measure.

‘I don’t know,’ Zoe says. ‘Carmine says she didn’t find any on her computer. That must have been at somebody else’s house.’

Glenda says, in a no-nonsense voice, ‘Sounds like some teenage stupidity to me, and the mother’s doing the decent thing, apologizing. It’s the sort of thing that could happen to any of us with kids. You know what teenagers are like.’

Olivia notices a few rueful, sympathetic nods from some of the other women. She feels intensely grateful to Glenda at that moment but is careful not to show it.

Suzanne says, ‘I guess I should be more careful about locking the doors and windows. I don’t always check them at night.’

‘It’s so creepy to think of somebody going through your house and getting into your computers when you’re not there,’ Jeannette says in a hushed voice. ‘And to think – if this woman Carmine hadn’t got that letter, she would never even have known.’

There’s silence as they all seem to contemplate that for a minute.

‘Maybe some of us have been broken into,’ Zoe says.

‘But then we would have got a letter,’ Suzanne says.

‘Not necessarily,’ Zoe says. ‘What if the kid only admitted to some of the houses, didn’t tell his mother the full extent of what he was up to? That’s what Carmine thinks. There could be lots of houses this kid’s broken into, and people wouldn’t necessarily know. Maybe we should all be worried.’

Olivia looks around at the women in the circle, all of whom appear to be genuinely alarmed at the idea of having been broken into without being aware of it. Could Raleigh have lied to her about how often he’d done this? Her stomach feels queasy and she wants to go home.

‘I guess we should talk about the book,’ Suzanne says at last.

Chapter Eight

OLIVIA FOLLOWS GLENDA out the door. It’s chilly now, and she’s glad it’s dark as the other women slip away. Glenda waits for her and they talk quietly at the end of the driveway, pulling their jackets closed.

Olivia waits until the others are out of earshot and says miserably, ‘Thanks for not saying anything.’

‘Why would I say anything?’ Glenda replies. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’ She snorts. ‘Awfully smug of Zoe, if you ask me. She’s got two girls, she doesn’t have any boys. She has no idea.’ Then she asks, ‘How did it go with the lawyer?’

They turn down the sidewalk toward Glenda’s house. Olivia tells her about the visit to the lawyer. Then she adds anxiously, ‘I shouldn’t have written those letters.’

‘You didn’t tell me about that.’

‘I know.’ She glances at Glenda. ‘I haven’t told Paul or Raleigh either. Promise me you won’t tell. If Paul finds out, he’ll be furious. I never should have sent them. Now everyone’s going to be trying to find out who wrote them.’