My stepmother called just as the day was folding into evening, her voice dripping with a satisfaction so sharp I could almost see the smile stretching across her face. She told me, with deliberate precision, that I would never set foot in the family beach house again—that every lock had already been changed.

She had been smiling when I pulled into the driveway of the beach house just after sunrise, a soft blue-gray light stretching over the dunes and the Atlantic beyond them. The porch boards still looked weathered silver under the salt air. The hydrangea bushes my mother used to fuss over had gone a little wild around the front walk, pale blooms heavy with dew. There was a police cruiser parked to one side, and Diana stood in the middle of the porch in a cream cashmere sweater, perfect hair, gold hoops catching the early light, one hand resting possessively on the railing as if she had personally carved the house from driftwood and sea breeze.

She had always loved that pose.