This is WAR

Willa Ames-Rowan never thought she would die. She firmly believed white should be worn before Labor Day, champagne was best enjoyed on an empty stomach, and sleep was for the weak. If it weren’t for the inky black water tugging at her limbs, clawing its way into her mouth, she might have welcomed the dark solitude of Hawthorne Lake. She might have floated on her back, counting stars, dreaming about what it would be like to wake up next to her future husband. What it might be like to marry James Gregory
.

But not tonight
.

Tonight, Willa Ames-Rowan was drowning
.

As luck would have it, she’d just read an article recounting a tsunami survivor’s near-death experience in a tattered copy of
Reader’s Digest
while waiting for her acupuncture appointment earlier in the week. Willa took comfort in the survivor’s story because just before he passed out from lack
of oxygen, he felt a moment of peace. He gave himself to the water, accepted his fate
.

So Willa knew she couldn’t be dying because there was nothing peaceful about her struggle to determine which way was up, down, left, or right. The moment she went under, she’d decided to decline death’s invitation—with the socially acceptable level of regret, of course. She knew enough to remain calm, tread water, back float until someone noticed she was missing. Contrary to her sister’s judgy texts, Willa was a fighter. She would never let her life slip away in a Hallmark movie moment of blissful surrender
.

She’d only had a couple of drinks, but her head was cloudy and her limbs sluggish and heavy. She’d been raised on the water—boating trips, beach vacations, the Club pool—she should have been above the surface, not under it. Earlier in the afternoon, Willa had taken a dip in this very same water while the girls lounged on the beach. Madge had yelled at her not to swim out too far, brown hair swirling around her face in the wind, her fair skin shielded by layers of sunscreen and a long, gauzy cover-up. Next to her, Lina was burying her nose in a magazine, all boobs and legs, doing her best impression of not giving a shit. And then there was Sloane with her pin-straight hair and black almond eyes, looking like a tiny beacon in her bright pink bikini. She stood next to Madge, shielding the sun with her hand. Even from the distance, Willa could see the smile tugging at her lips. If Sloane weren’t so self-conscious, she might have been cheering
.

And so it was her friend’s silent encouragement that pushed Willa on as brief bursts of light shone in the dark sky overhead, fireworks guiding her toward the surface. She scissored her legs toward the red, white, and blue explosions.
Her lungs burned, the muscles of her arms wept for a break. But still, she fought
.

Images of the Gregory brothers bubbled to the surface of her consciousness. She couldn’t think of them now. She couldn’t think of the look on Rose McCaan’s face when Rose saw her kissing James Gregory
.

Willa knew Rose had a thing for James Gregory
.

She knew but she didn’t care, and now she couldn’t help but wonder if that kiss had somehow landed her here in this water. Willa would take it back if she could. She’d take a lot of things back. And for a moment she thought she might actually have the chance. She finally broke free of the lake’s slippery grip. Her head bobbed into the cool night air. But she opened her mouth too early and choked on the stagnant water. Hacking and sputtering, she was able to keep her head up long enough to drink in gasps of oxygen between coughs. The agony in her lungs slowly faded, and for the briefest of moments, she thought she was going to live to write a much more accurate drowning survival story, preferably for
Teen Vogue.

Willa never saw the hands that pushed her head back under
.

She never felt the water fill her lungs
.

And she was completely unaware of the champion-sized trout grazing her lifeless arm
.

Willa Ames-Rowan never gave up and welcomed death
.

Willa Ames-Rowan simply died
.

Chapter 1

Rose stared at the water and whispered the Hail Mary in Spanish, the way her grandmother had taught her. She wasn’t sure if she believed in God, at least not the one the nuns at St. Agnes ranted and raved about, but Mary was a different story. Every summer she’d spent with her grandmother, she’d been reminded that Mary watched out for good little girls, especially good little girls with the middle name Marie. And something about the way her grandmother clutched the Rosary to her chest, blue beads tinkling against the silver cross, her knuckles white beneath papery skin, had always made Rose want to believe.

The repetition calmed her. She understood why people prayed in the face of tragedy. Praying provided the illusion of control. And of course, there was the niggling possibility that the prayer might actually work. A miracle like the ones her grandmother had read to her from the back pages of Spanish tabloid magazines.

Rose shivered in spite of the humid air. It looked like every
member of Hawthorne Lake Country Club was on the beach. The women stood in tight circles, whispering and crying, while their husbands rushed around trying to look useful. Their movements seemed designed to look important. If they walked with enough authority and spoke in quiet, reassuring tones, they might be able to bring Willa Ames-Rowan back to life.

But it was all a lie. Like everything else at Hawthorne Lake.

Willa was dead. The ambulance had screamed off in a blaze of sirens twenty minutes ago. Even in the darkness, Rose saw the blue of Willa’s lips and the way her arm dangled off the side of the stretcher before it was gently placed back at her side. Now there was nothing left to do but pray to her grandmother’s Mary.

“Rose! Thank the lord.” Her mom wrapped her thin arms around Rose’s body and squeezed too hard. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” She was dressed like all of the other women on the beach that night, but with her jet-black eyes and café au lait skin, she might as well have been wearing a Club worker’s uniform. As Hawthorne Lake’s event planner, Pilar McCaan was afforded most of the same privileges as members, but she was still considered “staff” by everyone who mattered. Despite her efforts to suppress it, the accent that snuck its way into a handful of her words didn’t help.

Rose stiffened in her mom’s arms. She wanted to forget everything she’d seen over the course of the night. To un-know all the secrets. But she had watched Willa stumble around the yacht. And she’d seen her mom navigate the party as if social climbing were an extreme sport. The past six hours ran on repeat in her brain like some kind of terrible movie. But there was no director calling scenes or strategically fading to black when images grew too intense. No Oscar award-winning
makeup artist had perfected the blue of Willa’s lips or added silicone strips to mimic the bloating of her skin.