Summit Lake

by Charlie Donlea

  CHAPTER 47

  Brad Reynolds

  Summit Lake Foothills

  February 17, 2012

  Just after Becca’s death

  The night’s events finally crashed down on him as he sat reading Becca’s letter to her unborn child. Brad was helpless to stop his mind from replaying the image of his hands around her neck. Why had she thrown it in his face? Her pregnancy. It was as though she couldn’t wait to destroy him with it. God, he wanted to do it all again. Go back and talk to her. Ask her about the Business Law test, that was all.

  He sat for hours with these thoughts spinning in his head. Considering different scenarios of how things could have gone, of how it all could have worked out between him and Becca. But in the end, his visit to the stilt house backfired. He had more questions now about the girl he loved than before he went. Married and pregnant and nothing like the girl he loved.

  The rising sun caught him by surprise. It appeared suddenly, draining the blackness from the cabin windows and replacing it with a subtle glow. In one deep breath, Brad looked around the cabin and knew what he needed to do. It wouldn’t be long. Someone would come for him. The police, maybe. His father, he hoped. And if it was his father, God help him. The man would finally get what he deserved.

  He took the entire day to prepare the cabin, spending most of it in the basement. He added final additions to his shrine, then set the cabin up so that anyone who entered would not soon leave. He set a trail of clues starting at the front door. They were unmistakable, with Becca’s purse as the first lure. It was sure to draw whoever came for him into the cabin. And if the purse pulled them in, the rest of the items would keep their attention.

  When he was finished, he climbed into his truck. It was early evening and the sun was just starting to fade. He remembered the last year of his life. For nine full months he had been at his family’s hunting cabin, alone and isolated the way he wanted it. But every day was not the same. Yes, there was a routine he adopted. It allowed him to stay warm and full and bathed. He gathered wood, chopped it, and fed the fireplace. He went to town when he needed food or supplies or propane. As the months passed, he developed an unwritten schedule to take care of his basic needs. But there was something else inside of him that needed tending. The temptation to see her could not always be contained, and when his longings spilled over he took to the road. It was good to get away from the cabin. Therapeutic to see her. Of course, he always meant to confront her. To talk to her. But the sight of her always held him off. Instead, he became satisfied with simply photographing her. Stealing her image and keeping it for himself. He had done this before—jokingly, he told himself—when she slept in his bed. He always meant to share those photos with her. Explain how beautiful she looked when she slept. But she broke his heart before this could happen.

  Becca, too, had a routine during the week, he found. Studying at the law library was one of them. And he knew when his cravings became too great, he could perch on a campus bench and wait for her to walk the path that led up the steps of the library. The photos he took then were easy, he simply blended in as another student. The ones he shot when she entered her apartment were more difficult since these were through the windshield of his truck. And one night, not long ago, he was so close. Waiting for her around the corner of her apartment, hidden in darkness, he had almost earned the courage to step from the shadows and embrace her. Maybe things would have ended differently had he comforted her that cold, dark night. He had wanted so badly to hold her in his arms when she returned from the doctor. He was sure back then that she had fallen ill. And to think now about how worried he was by her frequent trips to the medical clinic. Only to find she was pregnant. He thought again of the disgusting way she blurted it in his face.

  The sun was dying now as he sat in the truck, draining the cobalt from the sky as it melted again to black. It was irony, Brad thought, that such a beautiful day ended by turning to darkness. Staring at the fading sky, he knew no one would understand him. He could explain what he’d been through. Tell the cops or his parents or the shrinks what Becca did to him. About Jack’s betrayal. His law school rejections. He could detail it all, piece by piece, and still no one would understand him.

  He started his truck, put it in gear. He was finally ready to leave his cabin. Leave it for those who would come for him. He pulled away, knowing he still had much to do to prepare. Knowing that when he came back to this place, he would never leave.

  CHAPTER 48

  Kelsey Castle

  Summit Lake Foothills

  March 15, 2012

  Day 11

  The truck’s lights were bright on the landing as Kelsey and Rae ran into the basement. Her phone was soon the only light in the darkened space. They searched for a place to hide, and were ready to settle on a dingy closet before Kelsey saw it.

  “There!” she said, pointing to the corner.

  She and Rae ran to the back of the basement, where three stairs led to a crawlspace. Ten feet farther were coffin-like doors in the ceiling. They climbed the stairs and on all fours crawled through the cobweb-infested space. They both groaned as the silky webs broke across their faces. A truck door slammed outside and footsteps pounded up the outside porch.

  “Go!” Kelsey whispered, pushing Rae from behind. When they reached the doors, Kelsey held her phone while Rae fumbled with the sliding lock. She finally released it and they both pushed open the double doors, finding themselves at the back of the cabin. They clambered out of the crawlspace and into the dying evening light.

  As soon as they did, a rancid smell settled all around them. A sound, too, unidentified at first but after a few seconds recognized as the buzzing of flies. Thousands of them circling the shed at the edge of the property.

  “What is it?” Rae asked, covering her mouth.

  Inside the cabin, the front door burst open.

  “Go!” Kelsey said, and they both ran for the dark woods behind the property, shielding their noses from the rotten odor. Rae let out a short screech as their feet pounded gravel. As they approached the shed, the doors were wide open. The flies were heavy here, accumulating in dense swarms. The air was thick with rot. Kelsey slowed to a jog, Rae heading off in front of her. After a few strides, Kelsey stopped and stared. In the fading light she saw the dark silhouette of a limp body hanging in the shed, the head propped up and slumped to the side like a twisty straw. Finally she stopped, changed direction, and headed for the shed. Rae slowed also.

  “Kelsey! Come on!” Rae was crying now, wanting to run and hide and get away from this haunted place.

  “Wait,” Kelsey said, as she organized her thoughts and pieced together what she was witnessing.

  As she approached the shed Kelsey realized what it all was and what it all meant. The cellar and the photos and his cryptic message. In front of her, Brad Reynolds’s bloated and decaying body hung, unmoving, from the rafters. The noose cinched so tight around his neck that his eyes bulged like a thyroid patient from his sockets. His tongue fat and stiff, like a dried baguette had been shoved in his mouth. Flies feasting, maggots burrowing.

  Rae screamed when she saw the body. Kelsey quickly turned and hugged her, shielding her from the gore.

  “Kelsey!” a man yelled from the cabin. She recognized the voice. When she turned from the shed she saw both Peter and Commander Ferguson, with his revolver drawn, bounding through the cabin’s back door.

  “Here!” Kelsey yelled.

  Rae bent over and put her hands on her knees.

  Peter and the commander ran across the back lawn. Peter grabbed Kelsey in a tight hug.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Just shaken up.”

  As Peter let go of her, Kelsey pointed to the shed.

  “Oh God,” Peter said as he looked at the grisly scene.

  Still hunched over, Rae gagged and dry heaved. Peter crouched beside her. “Breathe. In and out.”

  “Mr. Reynolds, I presume?” Commander Ferguson
replaced his gun with a flashlight that he played over the body and through the shed.

  “That’s my guess,” Kelsey said, covering her nose as she left Rae to Peter’s attention. “And pretty ripe. Wait until you see the basement of that cabin. Disturbing.”

  The beam of Commander Ferguson’s flashlight fell to Brad Reynolds’s feet and highlighted a note that rested on the ground. The commander reached into his pocket and produced a pair of thin rubber gloves, which he stretched over his fingers. He carefully lifted the note, thumb and index finger, and held it up to read. It hung sideways and he tilted his head. It was three sentences:

  I only went to talk. I loved her. Despite everything she did.

  CHAPTER 49

  Kelsey Castle

  Summit Lake

  March 18, 2012

  Day 14

  She spent her last three days in Summit Lake holed up in her third-story room at the Winchester. She gave one morning to Detective Madison, answering questions and giving details. Madison’s boss had made his way to Summit Lake by then, the case having broken so fast and messy and without the slick case-solver having anything to do with it. Madison’s questions, at first asked in a forceful and abrupt manner, soon mellowed. Especially after his boss arrived. Every question Madison asked was one he himself had no answer to. The more he asked, the more clueless he looked. Kelsey gave a quiet smile and quick wink to Commander Ferguson when she left the station. He had been asked back as a special “consultant” to wrap up the Eckersley case.

  After the questioning, Kelsey stopped to see Rae at the coffeehouse. Still reeling from the night at the cabin and the scene in the shed, Rae was not her usual self.

  “You going to be okay?” Kelsey asked, as they sat in the overstuffed leather chairs and sipped lattes.

  Rae forced a smile. “Just have to scrub that image from my mind, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry I dragged you to that cabin, Rae. I had no idea what we’d find.”

  “It’s not your fault. I wanted to go, and be part of this thing.” Another smile. “Got more than I bargained for, right?”

  Kelsey smiled. “Me too.” She stared at her friend and confidante. “I consider you a good friend, Rae. I hope you know that.”

  “I do. And I feel the same about you.”

  “Good. Once I get home and settled, I hope you’ll come see me. Spend a weekend. I’ll show you Miami.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Kelsey stood up. “I’ve got to get going. I should write this up before it all leaks from my head.”

  “Yeah,” Rae said, standing also. “I’ve got to get back to work myself. It helps to stay busy.”

  They looked at each other, then embraced in a long hug. Kelsey whispered into her ear, “Thank you, Rae. For everything.”

  Kelsey wrote the three-piece article in long stretches where time floated by without notice. Hunger never bothered her, and only occasionally did she have the urge to use the washroom. Kelsey never had trouble writing. Throughout her career she was quite prolific with her articles and her book. She had zip drives full of ideas and outlines and stories that would likely never be published in any form of media. Putting words on paper was never a problem for her, but the three days spent at the Winchester after discovering Brad Reynolds’s body were unique. She found herself in a zone she had only previously read about or heard about from snobby writers she knew who wrote novels and considered themselves elite. But now Kelsey finally understood that nirvana. She barely needed to think as she wrote Becca’s story. The ugly draft she whipped up in Rae’s apartment was trashed and she started anew.

  After a beginning hook, capturing the essence of Becca’s death and the terrible way this beautiful girl was killed, Kelsey captured Becca’s early high school days in a short jaunt. George Washington University followed and, with permission from Jack Covington’s parents, Becca and Jack’s love story found the page. Her friendship with Brad came next, and all the highs and lows of the group’s senior year of college. She quoted Gail Moss extensively. The article followed Becca into law school and Jack onto Milt Ward’s campaign. That the two stories were related was astounding and “great luck,” Penn Courtney had said. Kelsey chastised him for such a comment, but knew it was the truth.

  Kelsey chronicled Becca’s secrets, as she knew she had to. They were, after all, the essence of the story. Her pregnancy, her relationships, her marriage. Kelsey wrapped things so tightly in the first two segments that anyone who read them would surely be waiting anxiously for the final installment. That third part, written in one sitting, covered Becca’s impromptu visit to her family’s stilt house in Summit Lake to study for her exam. There was some speculation, of course, but Kelsey was pretty sure she had things straight. She still had in her possession, after all, Becca’s journal. Detective Madison didn’t need to know everything. In fact, didn’t deserve to.

  The town, so special to her now, was covered in a beautiful opening to her third piece. Kelsey even managed to quote two members of the gossip group—the heavyset woman and the forty-year-old. Then, the beginning of the end for Becca, the girl she felt so connected to. From Becca’s arrival in Summit Lake to her visit with Livvy Houston to her return home, Kelsey plotted her path to death. And from the other side, Brad’s presence in the shadows, his life in the foothills, and his arrival at stilt row late that night. Of course there was no forced entry. Of course Becca allowed him into the house. They were once close friends, reunited on February 17 in a sad and tragic ending.

  The final night of Becca Eckersley’s life flowed from her fingertips with no effort at all. Kelsey then chronicled her own two weeks in Summit Lake, concluding with her trek into the foothills and the morbid discovery at the hunting cabin. The photos from her cell phone were an added touch that would make the story.

  At 2:15 a.m., she stuck the entire three days of writing on a flash drive and e-mailed a copy to Penn Courtney. She pulled the cork from a bottle of chardonnay and poured a glass, wandering out to the balcony. Summit Lake was asleep, dark but for the light posts on the corners and St. Patrick’s Church five blocks away, with its V-shaped lights blazing up its façade. She sat for half an hour, drinking wine and remembering the life of Becca Eckersley.

  CHAPTER 50

  Kelsey Castle

  Greensboro, NC

  April 28, 2012

  Two and a half months after Becca’s death

  He pulled into Raleigh-Durham International Airport at 4:18 p.m. She had landed nineteen minutes earlier and the timing was perfect. He took the lanes to arrivals, pulling to a stop at the United terminal. Only a single loop around the airport was necessary to free himself from the traffic nazi who hounded him. When he circled the second time, he saw her standing at the curb with her suitcase next to her.

  Peter rolled down the passenger side window as he approached. “Welcome back to North Carolina,” he said.

  Kelsey smiled. “Look at you. I literally just walked out here.”

  He shrugged. “We’ve got good synergy, what do you want me to say?”

  Peter climbed out, walked around the car, and engulfed her in a giant hug, then leaned back and kissed her cheek. Awkwardly, Kelsey turned in the middle of the gesture and their noses touched. She quickly kissed his lips.

  “Hi,” she said. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “Me too. You sure you don’t mind a road trip?”

  “Not at all. I like that you’re including me.”

  Kelsey shrugged. “I couldn’t have written the article without you; figured I’d include you in this final adventure. Plus, I don’t know how this will turn out, so I might need some muscle.”

  Peter put her bag in the back.

  “Mind if I drive?” Kelsey asked.

  Peter wrinkled his brow. “I guess not.”

  She held up the folder in hand. “I won’t make you wait until it’s printed. The whole story’s here. I thought you could read it on the wa
y.”

  Peter took the folder. “For sure.”

  The Eckersley article comprised twenty-five pages of white computer paper. As Kelsey drove, Peter read slowly and deliberately for forty straight minutes, licking his finger with each page turn. Interruptions came only occasionally from Kelsey, who inquired about his facial expressions. She was always jittery watching someone read her work. When he finished, they discussed the article until they were on the outskirts of Greensboro. The road trip was Kelsey’s final hurrah on the Eckersley article, and the very last bit of money Penn Courtney was going to allow Kelsey to expense. She had no qualms about taking advantage of it. This trip had everything to do with Becca Eckersley.

  They pulled into the parking lot of the Marriott in downtown Greensboro. At the front desk they checked into separate rooms and wheeled their bags to the elevator. Peter pressed the button for the fifth floor, then looked at Kelsey.

  “Three,” she said.

  They stood in silence until the doors opened again on the third floor. Kelsey pulled her bag behind her as she exited the elevator, then turned around. “How long do you need?”

  “Thirty minutes, maybe.”

  “Meet you down there at seven?”

  “See you then.”

  Kelsey took half an hour to clean up. She fixed her makeup and primped her hair, changed into a casual dress, and swiped a streak of perfume across her neck. She took the elevator down to the lobby, where she found Peter waiting for her at the entrance of the hotel restaurant. He, too, had changed from his jeans and T-shirt into slacks and a sport coat with an open collar.

  Seated at a table in the back of the restaurant, they ordered a bottle of wine.

  “I read your book,” Peter said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course. You’re a very talented writer.”

  “Hold on,” Kelsey said, pretending to dial her phone. “Will you talk to my editor?”