SLOANE
The pool house door clicked shut behind us with the soft finality of a vault sealing.
No lock.
No need.
The rest of the house was asleep, the hallway lights off, Victoria and Dad’s bedroom door closed at the far end of the first floor. We’d crept down the back staircase like teenagers breaking curfew—bare feet silent on hardwood, breath held every time a floorboard sighed under weight. Chase had gone first, one hand trailing the banister, the other reaching back once to find mine in the dark. I’d let him take it. Just for the stairs.
Now the door was closed and the only light came from the underwater glow of the pool outside the glass wall—shifting blue-green ripples painting slow, liquid patterns across the teak floor, the built-in benches, the low sectional piled with thr
