"And you," he said. "Sign these."
For a moment nobody on the deck seemed to understand what had happened. The guests looked at Celeste, because Celeste was the one he had been talking to, the one in the green dress, the birthday girl. It took them a beat to follow his eyes down the table to the slim tanned woman in the expensive glasses, who most of them had met for the first time an hour ago and had taken for another friend from tennis.
Renée Albright looked down at the papers. She did not touch the pen.
"I'm sorry," she said, with a small professional smile. "I'm not sure what you think this is. I'm a consultant. Your wife retained me to help your family. I'm not a party to any of your domestic—"
"It's a declaration," Grant said. "My lawyer drafted it. It says you never met my daughter. It says you never observed her or interviewed her. It says the assessment you wrote, the one you sent to Cedar Hollow and the one my wife sent to Skyler's school, was based entirely on what Celeste told you. It says Cedar Hollow was going to pay you nine thousand dollars when Skyler arrived, and that you didn't tell me. It says you withdraw the assessment, in writing, from both places. And it says you'll refund the three thousand five hundred dollars you charged to my credit card in August."
"I conducted a thorough—"
"You wrote that you spent ninety minutes with my daughter in this house on September nineteenth. Four to five-thirty." He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. "Sky. Where were we on September nineteenth?"
Skyler did not have to think. She had written it down. "On the dock," she said. "We caught six crabs on chicken necks. I netted four. You netted two and you dropped one back in and said a bad word."
Somebody at the table, one of the tennis women, made a sound that was almost a laugh and then stopped herself.
"I was off that day," Grant said. "The pilots' association logs every hour I work, and that log will hold up anywhere you like. I was home all afternoon. So was Skyler. Celeste wasn't. And neither were you." He nodded at the papers. "You don't have to sign that. Nobody can make you. But the version that isn't signed goes to the Idaho licensing board on Monday, and to the consumer protection division of the Maryland attorney general, along with a copy of your website, and the email about the marketing fee. They can ask you about September nineteenth. Up to you."