Pine Lake

by Amanda Stevens

  Pine Lake had always been a rowdy school, but right now the building seemed eerily silent. Olive had to fight the compulsion to glance over her shoulder. The hollow hallways seemed haunted by the ghosts of Jamie Butaud, Anna Grayson and all the other students that had been lost over the years. Olive had never thought her imagination overactive, but earlier when she’d returned from lunch, she could have sworn she heard phantom footsteps in the stairwell.

  The faculty meeting had gone so well that she had no reason for the creeping disquiet. She knew most of the staff, had worked with them for the past six years. If anyone resented her appointment, they’d managed to swallow their pride and conceal their disapproval for the sake of an agreeable work environment. So why did she still feel so anxious? Why the sensation of falling when she was wide awake and on solid footing?

  Olive wanted to believe the close call with the truck and the whispering townspeople had rattled her or maybe she was experiencing a sort of PTSD from the terrifying incident on top of the bridge. Not to mention the murder of a young woman who had once been her student and the less-than-forthcoming statement Olive had given to the police. Except for the scare with the dark sedan, all of those events had happened after Jack’s return. She didn’t blame him for any of them. She certainly didn’t think him a killer. But already he’d wreaked havoc on her equilibrium. Already he’d unnerved and jolted her, and now she couldn’t shake the notion that she was perched precariously at the edge of a very high cliff.

  “Olive?”

  She turned from the window with a start. Mona Sutton stood in the doorway, head slightly cocked as she gave Olive a quizzical look. “Are you okay?”

  Olive mustered a smile. “Don’t I look okay?”

  “In my experience, looks can be deceiving. I had to call your name three times before you heard me.”

  “Sorry. I have a lot on my mind these days. And I thought everyone else had gone home.”

  Mona hovered in the doorway. “May I?”

  “Yes, of course. Come in.” Olive motioned her to a chair as she took a seat behind her desk.

  “You’re making this space your own, I see.” Mona’s gaze skimmed the artwork on the walls and the framed diplomas and certificates that hung over the credenza.

  “Trying to.” Olive kept a picture of her dad on her desk and another shot of her and her mother taken last year on a cruise. Other than the photographs and a potted succulent, her work space remained uncluttered. How long that would last was anyone’s guess.

  Mona gave another of those assessing looks. Olive straightened and tried to present a placid demeanor, but from their first meeting fifteen years ago, the guidance counselor had always been able to read her a little too well for comfort. And yet despite all the intimate details she’d gleaned from Olive’s life over the years, Mona Sutton remained a closed book. Beyond her educational and professional credentials, Olive knew very little about the woman’s background, though it was obvious she came from money. Her wardrobe alone would cost at least half her yearly salary and then there was the late-model BMW and the restored house on Primrose Avenue.

  In her early forties, she was still a very attractive woman—tall, blonde and regal. She could be charming and even funny when she had a mind to be, but she rarely socialized in Pine Lake. As far as Olive could tell, Mona Sutton seemed perfectly content to dedicate herself fully to her career. In addition to her position as guidance counselor, she also had a private practice with a few select clients that she saw in an office in her home.

  “I suppose you’ve heard about Jamie Butaud,” she said.

  Olive winced. “Such a horrible tragedy. I would have made an announcement at the meeting this morning, but I was instructed by the sheriff not to say anything. Not that it matters. Most everyone in town probably knows more than I do by now.”

  Mona crossed her legs, displaying the red sole of her high heel. “Instructed by the sheriff, you say. That explains the talk I heard.”

  “What talk?”

  “That you were the one who discovered her body.”

  Olive said in shock, “What? No, I wasn’t. I arrived at the lake after she’d been found. Actually, it was Jack King who discovered the body. Do you remember him? Tall with dark hair and very good-looking.”

  Mona lifted a brow. “Interesting that you would choose his physical attributes to jog my memory rather than the more obvious tag.”

  “You mean his relationship with Anna Grayson?” Olive frowned. “That was a long time ago and what happened to him back then doesn’t have anything to do with his finding Jamie’s body.”

  “It’s curious, though. On the same night he arrives in town, he discovers a body floating in the same lake where his girlfriend’s body was found fifteen years ago. A girlfriend he was accused of murdering.”

  Irritation prickled. “But he didn’t kill her. He was innocent no matter how badly the people in this town wanted to believe otherwise.”

  “Is that what you think? People wanted to believe him guilty?” Mona was staring at her in that way again.

  Olive shrugged. “Maybe not at first. But in their rush to judgment, they treated him so badly the only way to save face was to continue their self-righteous condemnation. They couldn’t admit they were wrong because that would have exposed their own character weaknesses. Easier to blame Jack even after another man was tried and convicted.”

  “Olive Belmont. Champion of the downtrodden.”

  She pretended to take a bow. “I’ll step down off my soapbox now.”

  Mona was silent for a moment. “You said you arrived after Jamie’s body had been discovered. What were you doing at the lake at that hour? And with Jack King, of all people?”

  Olive hesitated. Even as a teenager, she’d trusted Mona Sutton with her deepest, darkest misgivings, but the why and how of her lying to the police was a different kind of secret. She’d never before found herself the potential target of a cold-blooded killer.

  “I couldn’t sleep and went out for a walk. I only meant to take a short stroll to clear my head, but somehow I found myself all the way to the lake.”

  “Somehow? You don’t remember getting there?”

  “I just meant that I lost track of time.”

  “And you happened to run into Jack King?”

  “I heard his outboard. I went down to investigate because I thought someone might be dumping trash in the lake. That’s when he told me that he’d found a body in the water. He didn’t know who she was, of course. It was Tommy Driscoll who identified Jamie from a tattoo.”

  Mona’s voice sharpened. “What tattoo?”

  “The mermaid on her arm. It’s an unusual design and Jamie was always quite proud of it.”

  “I remember the tattoo, but I don’t understand why he needed it to make—” Mona broke off as realization dawned and her hand crept to her throat. “Oh, no. Was it that bad? I heard she was shot. I just never considered...the damage.”

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about that,” Olive hedged.

  “Poor Jamie. She never stood a chance, did she? Deadbeat father, drug-addicted mother. And that boyfriend of hers.”

  “Marc Waller.”

  “I certainly hope Tommy—Sheriff Driscoll—is looking into him.”

  “No doubt he is. A spouse or boyfriend is always a person of interest if not an outright suspect.”

  “Which brings us back to Jack King.” Mona propped an elbow on the chair arm and crooked a finger beneath her chin. “Why do you suppose he’s come back here after all this time?”

  “His uncle died a few months ago. I expect he has loose ends to tie up.”

  “Hmm, maybe.”

  Olive gave her a curious stare. “Why do you think he’s come back?”

  “Loose ends of one type or another. I always suspecte
d he had issues.”

  “Anyone would have issues after what he went through.” Why did she keep rising to his defense? Olive wondered. Jack King didn’t need a champion. He seemed scarily capable of defending himself.

  “You’re very sympathetic,” Mona observed.

  “Anyone with a sense of fairness would sympathize with an unjust accusation. Especially when the accused was barely seventeen years old. His whole life was changed that summer.”

  “You had quite a crush on him, as I recall.”

  Olive was taken aback. “I never told you that.”

  Mona smiled. “You didn’t have to. I saw the way you looked at him when you passed in the hallway. And all those shy glances from your locker.”

  The conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn, not because Olive was embarrassed by a typical high school crush, but because it was unsettling to think about being watched from afar. Maybe that was why Mona Sutton was so good at her job. She noticed things no one else did.

  “He didn’t even know I was alive,” Olive said with a self-deprecating smile. “He had eyes only for Anna. They were very much in love.”

  “He certainly was.”

  A strange little shiver went through Olive at the emphasized pronoun. “You don’t think she loved him?” Then she caught herself. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m not even sure we should be talking about this.”

  “I don’t see why not. There’s no one here but us. Anna worked for me after school a few days a week, but she was never my client. Even if she were still alive, I wouldn’t be violating her confidence by noting that she was a very complicated girl.”

  “Complicated how?” Olive asked reluctantly.

  “She was beautiful, popular, came from a good family. She had all the advantages that poor Jamie Butaud lacked, but there was a side of Anna few people ever saw, including those closest to her. Jack most of all, I suspect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She once told me that she would like to follow in my footsteps. I was flattered at first, but I developed serious reservations about her intent. Anna wasn’t motivated by a desire to help people. She liked knowing things about them. Secrets. I never gave her my password, but I used to wonder if she’d somehow managed to access my files. It was a feeling I had. And then there was a hacking incident. The whole school system was compromised. Grades were changed, scholarships applications deleted. It would have been an explosive scandal if the administration hadn’t managed to keep it quiet. They never found out who did it, but I always suspected Anna was somehow involved.”

  “That’s a very serious charge,” Olive said.

  “I only bring it up as a cautionary tale. These kids are devious and sophisticated and getting more so every year. Which is why I no longer store my files digitally. I’ve gone back to the old-fashioned method of hanging folders and locked cabinets. A bored kid with a laptop can be inside the system in a matter of minutes. These days, it takes far more effort to drive to the school and break into the building.”

  “Point taken,” Olive said. “I’ll be careful.”

  Mona smiled and rose leisurely. “I’ve gossiped too much and taken up far too much of your time. An unseemly pastime for someone in my profession.”

  “Mona—”

  She turned at the door.

  Olive wavered, not certain she wanted to bring up her sleepwalking. “We’ve talked about this before and I think I know the answer. Still, I can’t help wondering.”

  “What is it?” Mona came back into the office and perched a hip on the edge of Olive’s desk.

  “Back when I used to sleepwalk, I never remembered anything when I woke up. You always told me that amnesia was common.”

  “It is, especially in children and teens. Less so in adults.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  Mona settled more comfortably against the desk. “I suspect by now you know more about sleep disorders than I do, but to put it in simple terms, non-REM sleep has three stages. Stage one is that drowsy, half-awake, half-asleep sensation. Stage two is light sleep and stage three is deep sleep. Children experience amnesia so completely because they spend more time in deep sleep. As you grow older, sleep is more fragmented. You spend more time in the first two stages when the brain is still somewhat cognitive.”

  Olive conjured an image of herself on top of the old Pine Lake Bridge and suppressed a shiver. She had been up there when Jamie Butaud’s killer had thrown her body off the bridge. If a single bit of her brain had still been awake, what might be hidden in her memory?

  “If the brain was partially cognitive during a sleepwalking episode and yet the person can’t remember the event upon awakening, would there be a way to trigger those memories? Say, through hypnosis?”

  Mona shook her head. “Hypnosis would be unreliable at best. Memory is too prone to suggestion and distortion.”

  “So you wouldn’t recommend it?”

  “Never for the situation you just described. But I can’t help wondering why you’re asking.”

  “No particular reason. I always found it so disconcerting to wake up somewhere other than my bed and have no recall of how I got there. Even glimmers of memory might have helped.”

  Mona frowned down at her. “You’d tell me if you were sleepwalking again, wouldn’t you?”

  “You’d be the first person I’d come to if I needed help,” Olive dodged. “But other than a few dreams, my sleep is fine.”

  “The falling dreams again?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You know from past experience those dreams won’t go away until you find the root cause.”

  Olive smiled. “I know the root cause. I’m afraid of falling on my face as the new principal.”

  “Sometimes dreams are just that straightforward,” Mona agreed. “And sometimes they’re like an intriguing puzzle.”

  * * *

  JACK SPENT THE rest of the morning at the cabin sorting through some of his uncle’s paperwork and belongings, but he could only take so much of the monotony. Restless and bored, he headed back into town for a late lunch and then afterwards, he drove over to Nathan Bolt’s office on Commerce Street.

  The law firm was housed in a hundred-year-old building that had once been a button factory. The exterior had been painstakingly restored to the original red brick facade and the interior designed to take advantage of the exposed ductwork, beamed ceilings and polished concrete floors. It was the kind of urban setting one might expect to find in Houston or Austin, but the upscale design seemed out of place in a town like Pine Lake.

  A well-dressed young woman at the front desk informed Jack that Nathan was in court and not expected back for at least another hour. Could she take his name and number or perhaps schedule an appointment for later in the week? Her demeanor was polite and professional, but she seemed distracted and Jack couldn’t help but notice her reddened eyes. The whole office seemed somber and uneasy. Evidently, word of Jamie Butaud’s murder had reached her coworkers.

  He departed without leaving his name and as he headed across the parking area at the side of the building, he caught a glimpse of a black truck cruising by on the street. He couldn’t be certain it was the same vehicle from that morning, but the flat black paint was unusual.

  Instead of another reckless display, the driver coasted along as if he were searching for something, almost coming to a stop in front of the law office. Jack watched the truck for a moment before climbing into his own vehicle. He pulled onto the street, trying to keep enough distance not to be spotted. But the truck was going so slowly he found it difficult to maintain the sedate pace without drawing attention.

  A few blocks down, a traffic light stopped Jack. While he waited for a green light, the truck picked up speed and disappeared. When the light changed, Jack drove through
the intersection, keeping his eyes peeled as traffic became heavier. Commerce was one of the busiest streets in Pine Lake, with banks, businesses, the post office, the county courthouse and the municipal police department all situated around a crowded square. The Caddo County Sheriff’s Office was one street over on Center Avenue and Pine Lake High School a few blocks in the other direction on West Pleasure, an irony that had never been lost on the student body.

  As Jack took in the familiar but long forgotten sights, a strange nostalgia settled over him. Before Anna’s murder, he and his family had been happy in this town. His parents had been respected members of a close-knit community. His father had owned the local hardware store and his mother had worked at the First National Bank. Jack had once mowed the lawns of the same people who would later look at him with open suspicion and who had gone out of their way to cross the street when they met him on the sidewalk. Just like his onetime friends had avoided him in the school hallways and had refused to sit with him in the cafeteria.

  Jack had learned the hard way that a small town could be a cruel, lonely place. By the time graduation had rolled around, Wayne Foukes was behind bars and some of Jack’s classmates had begun to make overtures, but it was too late. He wanted nothing to do with any them. He hadn’t even gone to his graduation ceremony, preferring instead to pack his belongings and move three hours away to an apartment near Sam Houston State University where he would pursue a major in criminal justice rather than the pre-law degree he’d once dreamed about.

  None of that mattered now, of course, and Jack berated himself for his sentimentality. He had come back to Pine Lake for one reason only—to find out why his two best friends had lied about their whereabouts on the night of Anna’s murder. Emotion had no place in his investigation. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, too.

  At the end of the business district, traffic thinned and the buildings grew seedier as he neared the city limits. Jack figured he’d lost the black truck for good. He started to turn around and head back toward town when he spotted the vehicle parked at the end of an alley that ran between an old tire store and an abandoned building that had once housed the Masonic Lodge. He drove on by, found a place to park and then doubled back on foot.