The People Next Door by Christopher Ransom

saw me fall in. Jesus, Amy, do you think I did something to them?’
    ‘Of course not.’ But she sounded like she was considering just that.
    ‘Right. Did someone call the police?’
    Amy nodded. ‘Coach was talking to Terry Fielding before the ambulance took him away. Terry will be by to see you in the next
     day or two, to get a formal statement.’
    Sergeant Terrance Fielding of the Boulder Police Department was a former friend and classmate of Mick’s from their CU days.
     They had circled some of the same parties together as undergrads, and Terry used to stop by the Straw for a beer every couple
     of weeks before he quit drinking. Mick hadn’t seen the small but intense cop in a year or so, and he didn’t want to see him
     now.
    ‘He wants to question me,’ Mick said. ‘There’s going to be an investigation.’
    ‘And you’re not going to be a suspect in it,’ Amy said. ‘Don’t start down this road and get yourself all worked up. It won’t
     help, so just don’t.’
    ‘Two people are missing and I’m the last person who saw them. Kyle said there was a struggle and I drowned and Roger and Bonnie
     are probably having their eyeballs eaten out of their heads at the bottom of BoulderReservoir right now, but I’m not a suspect. That’s a relief.’
    ‘
Stop it
.’ Amy’s voice was shrill, not quite a scream. ‘It was an accident.’
    ‘But you don’t know that.’
    ‘Why would you want to hurt Roger?’ she said.
    ‘Maybe he was doing something to Bonnie. Maybe I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.’ He was suddenly very tired of talking
     to her.
    ‘No one found any blood,’ Amy said. ‘His boat was clean. Kyle probably saw them fucking and got excited. He plays too many
     video games and watches those awful movies.’ She returned to her post at the doorway, folding her hands together. ‘I’m sure
     Roger will turn up and, when he does, this will all seem ridiculous.’
    ‘You’re not sleeping in here,’ he surmised.
    ‘I’ll be in the guest room. I have a big day tomorrow and you’ll sleep better without me tossing and turning beside you.’
    He guessed that Myra Blaylock escaping from his lips had something to do with it, but not all of it. Amy was disturbed by
     the entire episode. He had scared her and was still scaring her, in a number of ways.
    ‘I’ll be back at work tomorrow,’ he said with more hope than promise.
    ‘Don’t worry about it. Just call me if you need anything.’
    He eased back on top of the sheets, still dressed in his sweats, and admitted to himself that he was afraid to close his eyes.
     The thought of
going under
again, in anyway, made his stomach queasy, as if he were standing on line to ride the roller coaster at a shoddy amusement park.
    Eleven to eighteen minutes, he kept thinking. I might have been clinically dead, gone, out of this world for eleven to eighteen
     minutes. He didn’t know what to make of that, there was no context for it. It was just a new fact, a piece of trivia that
     had been inserted into his life without his permission, like learning he had a felonious third cousin somewhere in Indiana.
     He wasn’t worried, but he wasn’t about to invite it over for a reunion, either.
    He watched the enormous window they had cut into the bedroom’s south-facing wall, a six-by-four-foot postcard view of the
     Foothills, half of his backyard and, in the far left corner, somewhere behind the lamp’s glare, the mansion that had been
     constructed.
    He thought about the shadowy figure he had seen on the terrace. The house had looked empty yesterday and this morning, before
     the accident. Why hadn’t he asked Amy when they had moved in? Told her about the man he had seen on the terrace? It seemed
     important in the moment, but he felt foolish, like maybe he was imagining seeing the guy up there.
    You’re worried there’s something wrong with you, that’s why. But you’re fine. Walking, talking, thinking clearly. Why wouldn’t