Before We Were Strangers

by Brenda Novak

  “I’ll have to call you later,” she said and hung up.

  “What is it?” Micah asked when she sank onto the couch next to him, her mind reeling as she tried to remember every detail of her two conversations with Vickie Winters. Vickie had seemed so honest, so nice. Who wouldn’t trust a woman who’d done all she could for a disabled child?

  “I don’t know what to think,” she replied.

  “About what?”

  “Vickie Winters is up to something.”

  “Like...”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Revenge?”

  “For...”

  “According to Randy, she and my father had an affair shortly before my mother went missing. And my mother ran to her house that night, likely to use the phone.”

  “Wait...she didn’t tell you either of those things?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  Sloane couldn’t sleep after her talk with Randy. She listened to Micah’s steady breathing in the bed beside her while wondering if she’d misjudged her father after all. Brian Judd could’ve been driving the car her father claimed to have seen that night. Brian could also have murdered Clara so that his wife wouldn’t learn of the pregnancy—or to get her and the baby out of his life in order to save his marriage. He’d lied about having slept with Clara, hadn’t said a word about the baby, which proved he was capable of deception.

  What else was he hiding?

  Or maybe it was Vickie Winters who’d murdered Clara. She could’ve done it in a jealous rage. Or she could’ve done it to punish Ed for rejecting her, hoping he’d get the blame and go to prison for the rest of his life.

  But if that were the case, why hadn’t Ed ever pointed a finger at either of them? And how did that explain the murders of her grandparents and uncle possibly being tied to her father? Was that photograph from the bar meaningless? A fluke?

  “Are you okay?” Micah mumbled, still half asleep as he pulled her against him.

  He must’ve been able to tell that she was tense. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Brian Judd lied to me—”

  “He might’ve had good reason—”

  “And he might not have. Vickie hasn’t been honest, either. She’s told me a few things but left out other important facts. If she was trying to help, why wouldn’t she be completely up front?”

  “Because you might use what she told you to build a case for your father’s innocence instead of his guilt?”

  “That’s just it. We have no way of knowing. Katrina could’ve had something to do with my mother’s disappearance, too. But that conversation I read between her and my father could’ve been referring to a lot of things.”

  “Like...”

  “Their affair, for one. His womanizing. What he’s said about his wife. It doesn’t have to mean they murdered her.”

  “Or it could mean they did it together. The thought of replacing Clara, of being the next Mrs. McBride might’ve been irresistible, and Katrina’s youth might’ve exaggerated the allure, made it more difficult to realize the permanence of death.”

  She shifted in the bed. “She didn’t seem to be suffering from too much regret.”

  “She’s a shallow person. Killers are often shallow people. They want what they want, and they act to get it, regardless of the consequences to others.”

  “We have to find my mother’s body, have to prove there’s been a murder and work from there.” She propped her head up with one arm. “We need forensic proof if we’re going to get anywhere. Otherwise, I’ll be left wondering, and doubting my own father, for the rest of my life.”

  He slid his hand up to her waist. “We’ll give it our best shot. Tomorrow. Try to get some sleep so that you’re sharp while you’re looking.”

  She fell back and managed to drift off after that but was awakened before seven, when Micah’s cell phone began to rattle on the nightstand.

  Sloane, her eyes feeling puffy from lack of sleep, held still while she listened to Micah’s side of the conversation.

  “What happened?...But why is Trevor with you in the first place?...She never told me about it, and she hasn’t been answering her phone...You can’t reach her, either? I can’t understand why she won’t pick up for you...Right. Yeah, I guess she could’ve lost her charger...Of course. I’ll be right there.”

  He rolled out of bed and started yanking on his clothes. “I’m sorry,” he said when she rose up on her elbows. “We’ll have to put off going to the cabin until later, maybe even tomorrow.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “That was Paige’s parents. She left Trevor with them yesterday at dinnertime. Said she had an opportunity come up at the last minute to attend a trade show in Vegas, and she couldn’t miss it. She told them she needed them to step in because I couldn’t take him.”

  “Why would she say that?”

  “I have no idea why she’s saying and doing anything right now, and, apparently, neither do they. They must not have heard about the complaint Paige filed against me, because they didn’t mention it, and they’re treating me the same as always.”

  “So...where are you going?”

  “Trevor was trying to slice an apple for his lunch and cut his finger. Tracy thinks he needs stitches. They can’t get the bleeding to stop, and neither one of them can drive him to the med center. Burt has already left for a meeting with some investors who are interested in his brewery, and she has a school board meeting at eight.”

  She climbed out of bed. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “I do, but considering what’s happening right now, it’s better if you don’t.”

  She could understand. She felt terrible for all the chaos and upset her involvement in his life was causing. “Then I’m going to head up to the cabin,” she said, reaching for her panties.

  He paused before pulling his T-shirt over his head. “Don’t go without me. I want to be there.”

  “To do what? Watch me dive under the water?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Otherwise, you’ll have to dive from an unmanned boat.”

  “I wouldn’t do that under normal circumstances, especially in the ocean. But I’ll be in the lake, where I wouldn’t have to swim for long even if I did happen to lose the anchor line, which is something I’m cautious never to do. I’ll only go out far enough that I can dive where it’s a bit deeper and come back toward the cabin, fairly close to shore.”

  “How will you notify those boats that might come by that you’re underwater so you don’t get hit? Is there a flag or something like what you hold up for a skier?”

  “There won’t be many other boaters out this time of year. The water’s too cold. But, yes, I have a diver-down flag.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you up there all alone.”

  “I do. It’s better if you stay away. If you were to get caught breaking into the cabin, you’d be in even worse trouble than you are now.”

  “Paige has already ruined my career.”

  “But we’re not going to let this end where it is. We’re going to fix it.”

  “So you’re really going up there without me.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Micah. I’ve done a lot of diving the past ten years.” She loved the peace of swimming under the water. Nothing from the world above, even light, could penetrate if she went deep enough. She’d never dived in a freshwater lake, but she figured it had to be far less dangerous than the ocean. At least she wasn’t going to run into a Moray eel, a shark or a jellyfish. “I’ll be fine.”

  He seemed tempted to argue, but with Trevor hurt, he didn’t have time. She watched him pull on his shoes without bothering to tie the laces, heard his keys rattle as he grabbed them from his dresser. “Call me as soon as you can. I’ll be worried.”

  “I will. I hope Trevor’s okay.”

  “Tr
acy didn’t seem overly concerned, so that’s good. He just needs a few stitches, she said. I’m more worried about what’ll happen when he hears that his mother is claiming I put a gun to her head. The divorce has been hard enough on him. He doesn’t need this.”

  “What do you think Paige is up to? She wouldn’t suddenly rush off to a trade show like that, would she?”

  “No. Leaving was all about signing that complaint. But even her parents can’t get hold of her, so we’re not the only ones.”

  He brushed his teeth, paused to kiss her goodbye and jogged for the door. “Please be careful,” he called back.

  As soon as he left, Sloane tried to reach Paige herself. When her call transferred to voice mail, she disconnected and sent a text message.

  What you’re doing to Micah isn’t right. You need to tell the truth. Think about the damage you’re causing his career, how long this will stay with him. And consider what you’re doing to your son when you lie about his father.

  She shoved her tangled hair out of her face while waiting to see if she’d get a response. Nothing came, so she typed a second text.

  I’m sorry that you’re angry with us. But Micah and I love each other. We can’t change that—not even for you.

  She stared at those words for several seconds before sending them. Was she ready to state it that strongly? Would she stay in Millcreek just to be with Micah even if she couldn’t solve her mother’s disappearance? Could she face bumping into her dad and brother around town? Survive them doing all they could to make her life miserable? Could she honestly see that as her future?

  How could she do anything else? What she’d just written was the truth—it was time she made a stand where Micah was concerned.

  Assuming she’d finally get some sort of response from Paige, no doubt a negative one, she held her breath and pushed Send.

  But, again, she received nothing in reply.

  “What the heck?” Sloane sat there, willing Paige to say something. Sloane wanted to help Micah, make that complaint go away.

  After ten minutes, however, she began to feel the pressure of everything else she was facing. Giving up for the moment, she shoved her phone in her purse and went into the bathroom to pull her hair into a ponytail and brush her teeth.

  When she was finished, she put her toothbrush in the holder Micah used. She’d already started to turn away when the sight of their toothbrushes standing side by side made her pause. Her toothbrush belonged in that holder next to his, just like she belonged with him.

  She should never have tried to give him up. They had the right to be together, to be happy, she decided, and felt Clyde would agree. Clyde had tried to tell her that before. She just hadn’t been ready to listen.

  She smiled as she remembered her late friend. “I won’t let anyone make me leave Micah again,” she whispered to Clyde as if he were there to hear. Then she hurried out of the bathroom.

  It was time to head to the lake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The key wasn’t under the rock where it used to be kept when she was growing up. Sloane was going to have to figure out how to break in, but at least, after she got off the highway, she hadn’t passed anyone on the road who seemed to pay any attention to her. Although there were other lake houses in the area, her father owned a large lot, and he didn’t have any close neighbors. He liked his privacy, so he’d gone one step further and chosen a home hidden by trees even though they obstructed the view. In order to see the water, she had to walk down a narrow path to the slip where he docked his boat under a roof to protect it from the sun.

  The cabin itself was made of brick and natural, treated wood with a steep green metal roof and lots of windows. Sloane had always liked it here. She’d spent many weekends over the summer at Granbury, had been kissed for the first time, at fourteen, by the grandson of the woman who’d once owned the cabin closest to them. But then she’d met Micah and no other boy had mattered after that.

  She walked around the cabin, looking for the best way to get in. She would park her car in the garage to keep it hidden in case someone did happen to come by, carry her scuba gear down to the boat and take it out so she could dive in deeper water. She could always paddle back toward the shore. Given the currents of the lake, she’d have a better chance of finding something in the submerged vegetation and trotlines. Items like clothes—and bones—could easily get caught up there, so she planned to focus her search wherever she saw that sort of natural net.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t find an easy way inside the cabin. All the doors and windows were secure. Either she’d have to break the door leading into the garage, which was only slightly more flimsy than the heavy wooden doors that led into the house itself and could possibly lead to another locked door going into the house, or she’d have to break a window.

  She decided to go with the window.

  Bracing for the noise, she averted her face in case the glass went flying, and struck the main pane of the window in the downstairs bedroom. That room was the most isolated in the house, as far as layout, and faced away from the lake, so she was hoping no one would hear or see her.

  Although she was prepared for the crash, the sound of shattering glass seemed to echo across the lake. Heart thumping, she used a blanket she’d taken from Micah’s house to knock out the remaining shards so she wouldn’t cut herself getting in and managed to climb through in spite of being nervous and scared.

  Once she was inside, she didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment or safety; she felt shaky and emotional. The nostalgia that swamped her was overwhelming. The woodsy scent brought her back to those summers she’d spent in this place, back to a time before she and her father were estranged and she was still hoping, like Randy, to corral her doubts and shove them into the back of her brain, where she wouldn’t have to think about them.

  Drawing a deep breath to galvanize herself, she left the back bedroom, which had always been Randy’s, and walked through the rest of the cabin to see if anything had changed. Over the years, her father had taken down most of the pictures her mother had put up, including all the family photographs that contained Clara. Sloane remembered them disappearing. She’d been offended he’d put them out of sight but she’d been unable to challenge him, since she was so young and this was his house.

  To her relief, she found that they were still stacked against the wall in the walk-in, attic-like closet on the second story. At least he hadn’t thrown them away.

  A lump formed in her throat as she looked at each one. Her favorite was a picture of her mother posing with both her and Randy. Randy was nearly six; she just a baby.

  She touched her mother’s face through the glass, thinking how pretty and kind she’d been, how subdued but thoughtful. Sloane remembered one time, after her father had spanked her and sent her to her room, Clara had come up to make sure she was okay and simply sat and held her until she felt better. That was her favorite memory of her mother. That moment of feeling loved in spite of everything. But it worried her that so many of her other memories of Clara were beginning to fade. It’d been so long, and she’d been so young. Sadly, the memory that remained the clearest was the night her mother had gone missing. Sloane doubted that would ever fade. She’d relived it too many times.

  Feeling the pressure of time—she needed to be sure she got out on the lake while the sun was high in the sky and the weather good—she put that picture back, only to pick it up again. Why couldn’t she take it with her? Her father didn’t care about it. He’d probably never even notice it was gone.

  She put it in her car when she got her scuba gear. Then, just before she took the keys to the boat from the drawer where her father had always kept them and went down to the dock, she took out her phone to see if Micah had texted her. She was worried about Trevor and the situation with Paige.

  Sure enough, she’d heard from him: You there yet? You okay?

&n
bsp; I’m fine. I managed to get inside the cabin but not without some damage to one window. I’m about to head down to the water. How’s Trevor?

  Happy to be missing school in spite of his finger. The doctor should be seeing him soon. We’ve been in the waiting room this whole time.

  But his finger is going to be okay?

  I think so. It’s barely deep enough for stitches.

  Any word from Paige?

  None.

  She hadn’t received anything either. I’m going to the boat now. Wish me luck.

  You know I do, he wrote back, and she slid her phone into her purse and left it on the counter. She didn’t want it in the boat with her; didn’t want it anywhere near the water, since she hadn’t been able to find her waterproof case, what with all of her things packed in storage.

  The water was calm and the weather cool, so she considered herself lucky. Wind and/or a lot of boating activity could stir up the sediment on the bottom, making visibility even worse than recorded by the diver who’d detailed his experience online.

  As she gazed back toward the cabin, past the bulrush and water stargrass, she suddenly wished she’d waited for Micah to come with her. Being with someone would be safer; there was no arguing that. But the lake wasn’t deep enough for her to go down very far. At one atmosphere, or about thirty-three feet, her bloodstream could still get saturated with nitrogen—which, in this situation, was more a function of how long she’d be down than depth—but the shallower the dive, the longer the air in her tanks would last. She figured she should have a good solid stretch of time to search, maybe as much as three and a half hours.

  After she dropped anchor, she finished getting suited up, raised her diver-down flag and took a moment to gauge the distance she was from shore, in case something did go wrong and she had to swim back. She knew where she was. This was the lake she’d played in so often as a kid. And, like usual, she’d be careful to keep her eye on the anchor line so she didn’t get disoriented.

  After settling her mask on her face and making sure she had a good seal, she sat on the side of the boat, put the regulator in her mouth and fell back, letting the weight of her tank pull her over the edge and into the water.