Stranger in the Lake

by Kimberly Belle

  “Fine. Then let your brother answer.”

  I fold my arms across my chest, but I don’t move out of the way. “Fine.”

  From behind me, Chet says, “What was the question again?”

  “Oh my God.” I whirl around, my hands flying up at my sides. “The last time you spoke. When did you last talk to her?”

  “That night. She paid her tab and went upstairs, at well before last call. She didn’t even drink that much. Said something about needing to be sharp the next day. She made it sound like she had a big meeting.”

  Sam squints. “Did she say with who?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. She was alive and eating breakfast the next morning when I left, around eight or so. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since. I swear.”

  Sam scribbles everything onto his notepad. My heart thuds as I stare across the island at the paper, trying to read the words upside down. Something about the security cameras—a reminder to check the feed? I look at Chet, who’s turned back to the pans.

  “She had a blow to her head,” Sam says, “a good-sized lump and a fresh concussion. It wasn’t what killed her, but it was hard enough to knock her out. Her lungs were full of lake.”

  “Which means?” I say.

  Micah answers for him. “Means she was still breathing when she went under.”

  Sam confirms it with a nod. “The official cause of death was drowning.”

  Micah’s gaze latches on to mine, and I must look as traumatized as I feel because he says, “She wouldn’t have felt anything, if that makes you feel better. She would have been unconscious.”

  No, it doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it’s almost worse. That woman was alive when she slid into the lake. Somebody could have fished her out, given her mouth to mouth. She didn’t have to die.

  “Micah’s looking for a murder weapon with a long, flat surface,” Sam says. “Most likely an oar.”

  Micah makes a frustrated sound. “Good thing there aren’t many of those around here.”

  Sam gives him a tight smile, but I can’t find an ounce of humor in Micah’s wisecrack. Whoever killed that poor woman did it twice—first with a whack to the head, and second by watching her sink. Whoever did it must have really wanted her dead.

  My gaze creeps to Chet, but it’s just not possible. Flirting, I can believe. Clobbering her upside the head and shoving her into a freezing cold lake? No way.

  I look back and Sam’s watching me. “What about Mr. Keller? Is he home?”

  “No. He’s out scouting properties.” It’s an excuse I come up with on the spot, mostly for lack of anything better. Vague enough it could mean anywhere, realistic enough to be believable.

  “He’s not answering our calls.”

  Welcome to the club. “He’s probably out of range or something. If it makes you feel any better, he’s ignoring me, too. But I’ll make sure to tell him to give you a call the next time I talk to him.”

  Chet grabs a fistful of berries, drops a few in his mouth. “I don’t get it. If she was staying in town, how’d she get all the way to Skeleton Cove?”

  Sam shrugs. “Wind. Currents. Some combination of the two, maybe, but that’s up to Micah to figure out. Probably too many factors for us to ever know for sure.”

  “By the time I’m done in the water, I’ll know for sure,” Micah says. “I need for this weather to clear. Then give me another day or two and I’ll know.”

  Sam’s gaze flits to mine. “Those security cameras on the back of the house. Are they working?”

  “I think so. Paul said something about them being motion-sensitive, so they only record when they’re activated. I don’t know how to pull up the footage, though.”

  “I’ve already started the process for a warrant.”

  I bristle. “I said I don’t know. Not that you couldn’t see.”

  “The warrant is procedure,” Micah says, “mostly to cover all the bases. Defense attorneys love to use any little missed step to eliminate evidence.”

  Sam confirms it with a nod. “And that’s something I want to avoid. We’ll be asking for anything the cameras picked up starting on Tuesday evening and up until the moment you spotted her. Time of death was somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m.”

  His words send a billow of heat to my skin, and the room hollows out, the smell of bacon and vanilla burning like acid in my lungs. That means she hadn’t been in the water for all that long when I found her. The numbers on the nightstand clock flash across my brain, crimson as fresh blood. It was 6:04 when I woke up to an empty pillow next to me.

  What time did Paul leave? When he reappeared, covered in sweat and mud and blood, was it really from a fall down Fontana Ridge? I sink onto a stool and remind myself to breathe.

  “God, poor Sienna.” Chet’s voice is tinny, ringing in my ears. “Did you figure out where she’s from? What she was doing in Lake Crosby?”

  “We did, but we’re not releasing any details, not until we get ahold of her next of kin. The folks down at the B and B are under a strict gag order, but you know Piper.” Sam shrugs, more resigned than unconcerned. His tone is as serious as ever. “We threatened her with jail time. We’ll see how much good it does.”

  None, probably. Nothing keeps in this town, not in the bed, not at the dinner table, not at the bar or B and B. And especially not with Piper.

  Chet settles the platter on the island, bobbing his spatula between us. “Who wants the first?”

  “Sam.” I push the stack of plates his way, pass him the sugar and jam, which I know he’ll choose over butter and syrup. I know where this conversation is going, and I can’t even think about food.

  He dumps on the jam, smearing it around as he asks the next question. “But since she was found on your property—”

  I stop him right there: “It’s Paul’s property.”

  The irony is not lost on me. This past year, I’ve tried so hard to think of this place as home. To not cringe when I come up on a framed photo with another woman in it, to not fret that all my belongings, every stitch of what I own, could fit in the hallway linen closet. I tell myself I don’t care that the pantry shelves are too high and the pillows too soft and I’m not supposed to eat on the white linen couches, or that I’d made myself small and unobtrusive so I’d fit in Paul’s preexisting life. Now, as soon as this place turns into a crime scene, it’s not my home but his. I only live here.

  Sam puts down his fork. “Since she was found on the property where you currently reside, I need to ask where you were the morning of November 20, say from 4:00 a.m. on.”

  My heart stops for a full second, like a slow-motion crash. “Okay.”

  Sam waits. Shakes his head. “Okay what?”

  “Okay, ask away.” I sit completely still, reminding myself to breathe. In my head I’m doing the math. Fontana Ridge is a little over three miles from the front door. The timing is doable but just barely, and only if Paul sprinted.

  Sam rolls his eyes. “Where were you from 4:00 to 7:00 a.m. on the morning of November 20?”

  “Upstairs asleep.” I say it without blinking, with so much conviction that I almost believe it myself, but I can feel myself dipping into panic because I know the question that comes next.

  “And Mr. Keller?”

  And Mr. Keller. A liar and a secret-keeper, maybe, but not a killer. No way.

  My heart gives three telltale thuds, boom boom boom, but I manage to keep my face calm. “In the bed next to me.”

  But Sam was here when Paul ran up yesterday morning, saw the blood and mud from his supposed tumble down Fontana Ridge. Good thing Paul’s a fast runner.

  “His alarm went off at six,” I say before Sam can ask.

  A lie and an alibi, wrapped into one.

  16

  June 12, 1999
>
  8:17 p.m.

  Jax’s car reeked of weed.

  Correction: his dead mother’s car reeked of weed, three puffs from the remnant of a crumpled joint Micah produced from his pocket, one toke apiece before it singed Jax’s fingertips and he flicked it into the wind. He had to admit, it took some of the edge off his anger, but he didn’t like the way it turned her car, a fully loaded Jeep Cherokee his dad gave her for her last birthday on this earth, into something out of Wayne’s World. The 38 Special blasting from the speakers wasn’t helping matters either.

  But Paul drove a two-seater, so it was either this or Micah’s Acura NSX, a gift from his mom the day he got his license. Micah’s dad might be a cop, but the money came from his mom’s side, thanks to her great-great-granddaddy’s tobacco fields. But Micah’s Acura had a back seat built for a duffel bag, and it was a stick, something only Micah knew how to operate. Jax’s car was the obvious choice.

  He hit the button for the windows to air the cab out and took a sharp right. Fast-food wrappers and empty bottles rattled around on the floorboard.

  “Where are we going?” Paul said, pointing behind them. He was seated smack in the middle of the back seat, the seat belt straining as he leaned his upper body over the console. “Town’s that way.”

  “I’m taking a detour.”

  Micah twisted on the passenger’s seat. “This ain’t a detour, man. This is the wrong way.”

  “Would you both just shut up and enjoy the ride? Listen to the music and just...chill. I know where I’m going.”

  His friends were just high enough to let it go, and chatter turned to the most likely place to score some booze. Jax sank into silence. US 64 was a sloppy two-laner lined with gorges and dented guardrails under a canopy of trees, obscuring everything in darkness. It was hypnotic, the way the road dipped and disappeared just beyond the headlights, how it was the yellow lines that seemed to be whipping by instead of the car shooting forward. Jax laid on the gas, leaning into the curves in a way that had even Micah grabbing for the ceiling handle.

  Jax looked over with a laugh. “Stop being such a pussy.”

  “Stop driving like you have a death wish.”

  “Pull over,” Paul said from the back seat. He was flush to the bench now, the seat belt tight across his chest, his hands gripping the seat on either side of his legs. “Let me drive for a while.”

  It wasn’t the worst idea. Everything about Paul was neat and precise, including the way he drove, like Jax’s great-aunt Eleanor. Both stuck to the speed limits and kept their hands at ten and two. They liked order and craved control. He’d be a lot safer with Paul behind the wheel.

  But Jax wasn’t looking for safety. He was looking for something that made him feel alive. The road stretched on, rising and switching back, rising again. Paul and Micah fell still.

  At the end of a straight stretch, Jax veered onto the shoulder and slammed the brakes, his tires fishtailing in the gravel.

  “Holy shit,” Paul muttered, slumping against the back seat. “You really could use some anger management. Has anybody ever told you that?”

  Jax laughed despite himself.

  Micah leaned into the windshield, frowning. “Rhodes Overlook, are you kidding me? It’s summer, not to mention nighttime. There’s no way we’re seeing the bear.”

  It wasn’t a bear but a bear shadow, one that only appeared in the fall. Months from now, people would flock to this spot from all over, leaf watchers waiting for the sun to dip behind Whiteside Mountain and cast a bear-shaped shadow on the treetops below, rippling branches of red and orange and russet. His mom used to bring him every October.

  Jax killed the engine and marched across the road to the outlook.

  A flashback, to those late afternoons with his mom. Eating sandwiches and chips out of a cooler in the trunk, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers on the edge of a lichen-crusted ridge, cameras dangling from their necks. It was something they did every year, just the two of them, a mother-son tradition that lasted until long after he stopped giving a shit about the shadow. Good thing it was dark, because he never wanted to see that stupid bear again.

  He stepped over the railing. Jax knew from all the times his mother would pull him back by his shirt that one more foot and the ground would drop out beneath him.

  What would happen if he took that step? Just...walked out onto the air? He’d have to crash through the branches and needles first, but eventually he’d hit something solid. At the thought of what that would feel like, blood pulsed through his veins, infusing his organs and bones with life, which was really messed up since the only thing he could think about lately was death. His mother’s. His own. One small step and it would all be over.

  Behind him, a car door swung open to a rhythmic dinging.

  “Jax, man, come on. Let’s go.” It was Micah’s voice, but Jax knew without looking that those were Paul’s shoes crunching in the gravel. He stopped right behind him, a silent, supportive presence.

  What Jax needed was a sign. A butterfly landing on his arm, maybe, or a twinkling in the nighttime sky like his mom winking at him from that fluffy cloud. He looked up, and all he saw was blackness. No stars. No movement. Nothing but Jax, standing at the highest, loneliest point on earth.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Paul said, his voice low and quiet enough that Micah across the street couldn’t hear it. “I’m serious, Jax. Take one step and I swear to God I’ll murder you myself.”

  Jax puffed a laugh. Leave it to Paul to both sense his gruesome thoughts and try to turn things around with humor. That was one of the things Jax loved best about his oldest friend, that he always knew what Jax was thinking without him having to say the first word. It was why they were such good friends, because neither of them ever felt like he had to explain.

  But it was Micah, with his wild hairs and coal-dark streak, who surprised Jax the most. Micah stepped up beside him, toes flush to the edge, leaned his upper body over empty air and screamed. He just...opened his mouth and let loose. He screamed like Jax did when he reached the top of Balsam Bluff, long and loud and hard enough to make his ears ache and his eyes water. And then he filled his lungs and screamed some more.

  Jax exchanged a look with Paul, who grinned.

  The two of them joined in on the third go-round, Jax clenching his fists and giving it everything he had. He pictured his dad back at the house, his fingers stabbing the computer keys, and Pamela on her knees upstairs, clutching a Bible to her chest. To stand here, screaming with his friends into the vast, hostile wilderness, felt sad and pointless and stupid.

  But for once, for however long the moment lasted, Jax didn’t feel so alone.

  17

  Chet and I use the rest of our snow day wisely: stretched out on opposite ends of the buttery sectional in the basement, binge-watching an ancient season of Naked and Afraid. If Paul were here, he’d be catching up on emails or working on a sketch upstairs in his study, away from the noise. Paul likes schedules. He likes crossing off his to-do lists, the charting and mapping of his goals. He is physically incapable of doing nothing.

  The McCreedys, however, are masters.

  “Ten bucks says that dude is going to get eaten,” Chet says, gesturing to the potbellied and bearded man on the screen. “And what kind of idiot chooses a fire starter in a jungle? You need a knife so you can hunt for food and fight off all the wild animals. Duh.”

  “What was she like?” Chet glances over with a frown, and I add, “Sienna. Was she nice? Did you have a real conversation with her?”

  “Sure, we talked. She was sweet. Funny.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Good tipper.”

  “What’d the two of you talk about?”

  “I don’t know, all sorts of things. She asked me if I liked living here, what I did for a living, stuff like that. It wasn’t anything serious. I got the feeling she just
wanted to relax and have a good time.”

  I nudge him in the ribs with my toe. “You didn’t give her one, did you? Because I heard you say she was hot. Please tell me the two of you didn’t swap more than stories.”

  Chet snatches the remote from the table and hits Pause. “Seriously? You seriously want me to talk about my sex life with my sister?”

  “Did you?”

  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Chet has sweet-talked his way into some pretty girl’s panties, a tourist looking for adventure with a handsome local. He’s everything you’d look for in a town like this one—a little rugged, a little dirty, a lot charming. The female tourists love Chet, and Chet loves the female tourists.

  “No. Now can we please just shut up and watch the show?”

  He pushes Play and rolls onto his side. Conversation over.

  We’re deep into the fifth episode when my phone rings. Gwen, and I push her to voice mail. The second and third time, too, mostly because I have no idea what I would say to her. Gwen has access to Paul’s calendar, which he updates with maniacal obsession. Whatever “work thing” I’m supposed to be using to excuse his disappearance won’t be listed on there, and Gwen would call me out on it. And it doesn’t make any sense for him to have gone anywhere with all this snow.

  The phone screen lights up, and I tilt it toward my face. Gwen again, with a text this time.

  SOS answer the goddamn phone!

  It’s followed by another call. With a sigh, I kick off the blanket and carry the phone to the hallway.

  “Where the hell is Paul?”

  No “hello.” No “how are you?” Just this angry demand, one that I wish I knew the answer to.

  “Scouting a property.”

  What worked just fine for Sam and Micah hasn’t a chance in hell with Gwen. Gwen has worked for Paul since long before I came on the scene. She knows Paul scouts potential properties all the time, but she also knows he puts the trips on his calendar and makes sure he’s reachable by cell. And he always checks the forecast before he goes so he won’t get stuck in whatever weather is brewing between the mountaintops.