“Afternoon,” a man said above me.

“Where’s your mother?”

I recognized the voice.

Thomas Hale lived across the lake and had spent thirty years as a rescue officer before retiring.

Derek’s shoes scraped the boards.

“She fell in.

Call for help!”

“I already did.”

Amanda stepped between them.

“Then stop standing there and find her.”

Thomas did not move.

“Why is her wheelchair in the water?”

“The brake failed,” Amanda said.

“Derek tried to catch her.”

“That isn’t what I heard.”

Silence settled over the dock.

Beneath it, my fingers were becoming too numb to hold the post.

Amanda’s voice sharpened.

“You heard a confused conversation.

We were panicking.”

Thomas looked toward the trees.

“Naomi, did you hear that?”

My attorney stepped onto the dock with Deputy Mara Ellis beside her.

Amanda sucked in a breath.

“This is private property,” Amanda said.

“You need to leave.”

Naomi held up her phone.

“Your mother-in-law invited me here.”

“She can barely speak.”

“Mrs.

Lawson spoke clearly when she called me yesterday.”

Derek stumbled backward.

“Mom called you?”

Mara dropped her rescue bag and knelt beside the dock.

“Mrs.

Lawson, if you can hear me, tap the wood twice.”

I struck the post with my palm.

Once.

Twice.

Derek made a broken sound.

Amanda grabbed his arm.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered.

Mara slid into the water and reached under the boards.

Her hand closed around my wrist.

“I have you,” she said.

“Let go of the post.”

When she lifted me into the light, Amanda’s mouth fell open.

Derek sank onto his knees.

I coughed, wrapped both hands around the ladder, and climbed the final two steps myself.

“You can walk,” Derek whispered.

I stood before him with water pouring from my clothes.

“Yes.”

Amanda recovered first.

“She planned this.

Look at her—she deceived us.”

“You put pills in my medicine,” I said.

“That’s absurd.”

“You said it yourself.”

Amanda pointed at Naomi’s phone.

“Recording a private conversation is illegal.”

Naomi’s expression did not change.

“The emergency call was active.

Three people heard you in real time.”

Derek covered his face.

“Amanda told me the pills were prescribed.”

“Be quiet,” Amanda snapped.

I stepped toward her.

“Did you put them in my tea or in the pill organizer?”

“You’re confused.”

“What was the name on the bottle?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mara came between us and wrapped a thermal blanket around my shoulders.

“Mrs.

Lawson needs medical care.

Nobody leaves until my colleagues arrive.”

Amanda reached into her coat.

Thomas caught her wrist before she could throw the phone into the lake.

The screen showed a message she had been typing to someone named Dr.

Vale:

SHE SURVIVED.

DESTROY HER FILE.

Naomi photographed the screen.

“Who is Dr.

Vale?”

“My physician,” I said.

“The one Amanda chose after my stroke.”

Derek stared at his wife.

“You told me he was recommended by the hospital.”

“He was,” Amanda said.

Naomi’s phone rang.

She put the call on speaker.

A woman spoke quickly.

“Naomi, this is Laura at County Medical.

I checked Mrs.

Lawson’s prescriptions.

Dr.

Vale ordered no sedatives.”

Amanda tore free from Thomas.

“Derek gave her the pills.”

Derek’s face emptied.

“You said they were vitamins,” he whispered.

Amanda backed toward the path.

“They’ll believe me before they believe a man who pushed his own mother.”

Sirens rose beyond the trees.

Derek looked at me, then at the message still glowing on Amanda’s phone.

“Mom,” he said, “there’s something in our house you need to see before she gets to it.”

Amanda’s head snapped toward him.

Then she ran.