Daughters of the Lake

by Wendy Webb

  Kate felt the motion of the boat on the waves. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t turn her eyes, or her head. Addie was slipping away. Was she bleeding to death? Kate wasn’t sure. She tried with all her might to move her hands, even her fingers, but it was no use.

  “You are so beautiful, so perfect. Jess, that bastard. He had the most perfect wife a man could hope for.”

  Kate was undulating with the waves as the boat traveled farther out into the bay.

  “It’s too late for you now, and it’s too late for Hadley, but your little girl is still alive. You understand, Addie, nobody can know my wife is insane. Nobody can ever find out she did this to you. It would ruin us. I promise you, Addie, that we will take good care of your baby just as I know you will take good care of ours.” More crying then.

  Kate felt a bundle being tucked tightly under her arm, the folds of her nightgown wrapped over its lifeless face.

  It wasn’t Addie’s baby that we found with her, after all. It was Harrison and Celeste’s.

  “May God forgive Celeste for what she has done, may God forgive me for what I now do, and for what I will do. Rest in peace, Hadley Connor. Rest in peace, Addie Stewart. May this lake never give up our secret.”

  And with that, Kate felt herself being shoved over the side of the boat and into the lake, where an enormous wave—there suddenly, from a glassy, calm surface—engulfed her. Undulating up and down, up and down in the soft, velvety water, taken with the whims of the wind and the tides. She was a seashell, a piece of driftwood, a loon floating lazily on the surface of the Great Lake. Nothing can hurt you here. You are with me now. I will keep you safe, here, with me, my daughter of the lake, until it is time. Kate was enveloped in loving arms and held close, wrapped in a watery blanket, falling down, down, down. Sleep, my daughter, sleep, until it is time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Wharton, 1910

  As Addie’s body was enveloped into the arms of the lake, many things were happening on land.

  Harrison had left Celeste murmuring and cooing into the baby carriage on the lakeshore and dashed into Addie and Jess’s house, not sure what he was doing once he found himself inside. He was panicked, repeating Addie’s name, over and over again, in a whisper. The sight of her body sinking under the water would haunt him for the rest of his life. Damn that Celeste. How could everything have gone so wrong in just a moment? How could this possibly be happening?

  His decision to switch the babies was, perhaps, ill conceived, but he did it in a moment of terror. A live baby for a dead one. How could the existence of Addie’s baby be explained without the mother? How could he possibly have found the baby without having murdered Addie? So many questions would be asked. Could Celeste be trusted to keep her mouth shut? No, it was easier this way. Both mother and baby gone. A clean break. Nobody, not even the household help, knew that Hadley had died that afternoon. An easy switch, no loose ends. It was as if fate had set things up perfectly.

  Evidence. He should look for anything that might implicate Celeste in this crime. Was there any blood in the house? Where was the knife? He dashed around in a panic. Nothing. The house looked calm and peaceful, as though Addie and Jess might come walking inside at any moment. Nothing was out of place.

  “Addie, your child will want for nothing,” he promised her, there in the darkness. “I will spend the rest of my life making up for what my wife has taken away.”

  All this took just a few moments. Outside once again, he pushed past the still-murmuring Celeste and grasped the handle of the carriage. “Let’s go, Celeste,” he said, and the three of them walked into the fog, looking for all the world like an ordinary family taking a stroll together, instead of a woman who had lost her mind with grief, a misguided, deluded man who had committed, and would subsequently commit, the biggest sins of his life, and a baby who would go to her grave adoring a man who had stood by and watched her own father be convicted of a crime he did not commit.

  When they reached their house that night, Celeste simply went to bed in blissful ignorance, remembering nothing but their delightful family walk on a cool evening. Harrison, after putting the wriggling baby into a crib where another had died just a few hours before, walked slowly up to the third-floor ballroom and into the turret. He closed the door and, satisfied that none of the household help would hear him, he sunk to his knees, finally allowing the unimaginable horror of what he had seen and done to wash over his body like a wave. He cried out with a primal sound of such desperation, need, and futility that his very being, every cell in his body, threatened to burst apart with the force of it.

  Harrison did not know that at the very same moment, Jess Stewart had come home to an empty house. He would spend hours looking for his missing wife that night and the next day, knocking on Harrison’s door, running all over town in an increasing state of panic, sending cables to her parents and his, talking to everyone they knew and finally to the police. Jess Stewart would make the very same sound alone in his bedroom as the sun went down on the first day without his wife, taking his hope and will to live with it.

  Harrison also did not know that Jess, who was consumed with guilt about his brief, ill-advised, alcohol-fueled affair with Sally Reade, at first suspected that his wife had left him because of it. He imagined that, in his absence, Sally had come to Addie with proof of the affair. But as the days passed and Addie was still nowhere to be found, Jess became more and more frantic that something terrible had happened to her. Was Sally involved? That woman, despite all the fun and life in her, was unstable. He confessed his affair to the police—in retrospect, not the smartest move—in the hopes that they would look to Sally Reade for answers. They did, briefly. When her father and her best friend confirmed that she was in Europe for a short vacation, the police looked instead in one direction for Addie’s killer. Directly at Jess Stewart.

  Harrison hadn’t intended to implicate Jess in this mess, though he did nothing to stop it. He knew about his friend’s affair with Sally Reade and despised him for it. How could he possibly cheat on Addie? He deserved to lose his wife and child—just not that way. Harrison was simply consumed with covering up his wife’s crime. When the investigation began to focus on Jess, Harrison had to choose. He chose his wife, or more exactly, the life he had carefully cultivated.

  Harrison didn’t count on, and indeed, did not know, that Celeste was beginning to remember things about that night. Snippets came back to her, a voice here, a scene there, as though she were remembering a dream. She became convinced that one of them, either she or Harrison, had killed Addie. She was not so unlike her husband, because she, too, chose to cover up what she suspected. So she called upon one of the dockworkers who had always provided similar “services” for her father, a man she could trust to do her bidding, and paid for his testimony implicating Jess Stewart. Not that Celeste had anything particular against Jess. But it wouldn’t do to have Harrison go to jail. Let alone herself. They had a baby to care for. They were the richest couple in town. The largest employer. She would not betray her father’s memory, erase all his hard work and sacrifice, with that kind of scandal. No. Jess had to take the blame for this. It was the only way.

  During the trial, Jess Stewart became so despondent that his lawyer didn’t dare put him on the stand. He did not know what became of his wife, he did not know how she died or who had killed her. He did not know that his baby was the gurgling, cooing bundle in Celeste’s arms every day at the trial. He only knew that Addie and the baby were gone, his life was gone, his reason for living was gone. He felt that he was the cause of it all. In some sort of morality play of retribution for wrongdoing, his ill-fated affair, his betrayal of his best friend and soul mate, had somehow set this in motion, causing Addie and the baby to simply disappear, to vanish into the fog, taken away from an undeserving husband, never to be seen again.

  When Marcus Cassatt confronted him on the courthouse steps, Jess was relieved to see the man and his gun. He turned his chest toward his murde
rer so Addie’s father could get a clear shot, and he smiled. One moment after his body hit the ground, he was in Addie’s arms.

  “I will right this for you, my love,” she whispered to him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Kate opened her eyes with a start. She sat up and reached around to her back—and exhaled. It had seemed so real that she wasn’t quite sure if she, herself, had been stabbed.

  She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, pushed her feet into slippers, grabbed her robe, and tied it around her as she ran down the main staircase toward the dining room.

  Not seeing her cousin at his usual breakfast table, she called out for him. “Simon!”

  He emerged from the kitchen with a pot of French-press coffee and two cups. “Kate, my God, what—” But she held a hand up, stopping his words.

  “I know what happened,” she said as the two of them sat down at a table and Simon poured.

  Kate took a deep breath and began to talk. She told him all about the dream—Addie’s death, Celeste’s insane, terrifying voice, Harrison’s panic, the final push out into the lake, a dead woman holding a dead baby that wasn’t even her own, locked together in a watery grave.

  “Addie was our great-grandmother,” Simon whispered. “And Jess Stewart was our great-grandfather.”

  “He was innocent,” Kate said, her voice trembling. “He was an innocent man, framed for his wife’s murder.”

  “Why would Harrison do such a thing?” Simon asked. “He framed his best friend. Or, at the very least, stood by and watched him go down for a murder he knew the guy didn’t commit. I can’t believe it.”

  “I know, it’s pretty low,” Kate said. “I guess in the end, his wife and family and business and reputation were too much to lose.”

  “So, what did Harrison do?”

  “To me, it seemed as though he panicked. Even if Addie and the baby had washed up the very next day, there would be no evidence whatsoever tying him or Celeste to their deaths.”

  “It’s all so pointless,” Simon mused. “Addie’s husband wasn’t guilty of anything but having an affair. They got away with it. What a nightmare. You know, our family will go insane when they hear about this,” Simon went on. “Will they even believe us?”

  “I know one way,” Kate said, softly. “If we really want to see this thing through to its bitter conclusion, we should test our DNA with Addie’s. By now, the police have probably figured out that the baby isn’t hers. Nick didn’t mention anything about it, but I was still a suspect until recently.”

  Simon was staring out toward the water. “That’s one hell of a reason for Addie to come back from the dead,” he said. “To set things right. To make sure people—her people at least—knew what really happened.”

  “And who they—we—really are,” Kate said, hoping that was all there was to it. But the knot in her stomach told her there might be more to come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  After she and Simon ate breakfast, Kate retreated to her room to shower and change. When she came downstairs again, she found Nick sitting with Simon in the living room, a fresh pot of coffee and two cups between them.

  “Hi,” she said to him, her stomach doing a flip at the sight of their grave expressions. “Is something wrong?”

  “I called him,” Simon admitted. “Kate, he really needs to hear this. From you.”

  Kate settled onto the sofa next to Nick while Simon retrieved a cup from the sideboard and poured.

  “Jess didn’t kill Addie,” Kate said to Nick. “I saw it all last night in my dream. Nick, I saw her murder. I was there. It wasn’t her husband, even though he was convicted of the crime.”

  And then she told him the whole story, everything she saw, and experienced, in her dream. After hearing it, he whistled, long and low. “That’s quite a tale.”

  Kate bristled at this. “Do you believe me?”

  “Every word,” he said. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. But I believe you, Kate. I think you’re right about how that murder went down. It certainly explains one of the myriad of puzzling things about this case.”

  “That the baby’s DNA doesn’t match the mother’s?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Exactly. We’ve been wondering about it from very early on. And we knew the baby didn’t die from drowning, so that only added to the mystery.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she wanted to know.

  “It’s called police work,” he grinned. “We don’t tell people everything.”

  “I guess I can see that,” Kate chuckled. “But I’d sure like to know whether my DNA and Addie’s show a relationship.”

  “Are you saying you want me to run your DNA against hers?”

  “I would really like to know, once and for all.”

  The results of the DNA test were conclusive. Addie was indeed related to Kate and Simon. The baby was not. Now there was no doubt that the events Kate had dreamed about for the past several weeks were real.

  Armed with this information and her stack of newspaper articles about the trial, she and Nick sat down with Johnny Stratton for what she knew would be a rather strange conversation. He had agreed to Nick’s request to run the DNA test for Kate without an explanation as to why she had requested it—on the condition that they tell him everything once the results were in.

  “In all my years on the force . . . ,” he murmured, shaking his head as he paged through Kate’s articles. He looked up from the newsprint and held her gaze for a few moments as if he were trying to see through her eyes and into whatever place had brought this hidden secret from the past to light. “It does seem to add up. These photos do indeed look like our lady, and there’s no doubting those DNA results. It’s just . . .” He sighed. “I have no idea what I’m going to write in my report to close this case.”

  Kate gathered up the articles that were strewn across the tabletop. “I know the feeling.”

  “Told your father any of this?” Johnny asked.

  Kate thought of the conversation she would soon have with her dad. “I’m on my way there now. Finding out that Grandma Hadley—his mother—was actually the child of someone else and a stolen child at that? I’m not sure how he’s going to take it. Simon hasn’t told his dad, either. We toyed with the idea of just keeping this to ourselves. Letting sleeping dogs lie, as it were.”

  “Those sleeping dogs have a way of waking up and biting you when you least expect it,” Johnny said, patting Kate’s hand. “Honey, you’re doing the right thing. The truth needs to come out, no matter how painful or confusing that truth might be. Otherwise, what was the point of it all? You’ve been through quite a lot so this lady’s story could be told. Now all that’s left for you to do is tell it to those who need to hear it.”

  Kate stood up and held the file of articles to her chest as Johnny enveloped her in a bear hug. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment in police work.”

  She and Nick exchanged a quick glance, and she was out the door.

  A week later, Kate and Simon, along with Kate’s parents, Simon’s parents, and Jonathan stood with Nick Stone and Johnny Stratton on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, more than a mile offshore in the greatest of lakes. Kate hugged an urn close to her chest.

  “Does anyone want to say a few words?” Johnny asked.

  Simon nudged Kate. “He’s talking to you, if there was any doubt,” he whispered.

  Kate cleared her throat.

  “I’m not quite sure what to say,” she began. “But I know Addie better than anyone here. In my dreams, I saw an incredible love story between Addie and her husband, Jess, I saw my great-grandfather in his heyday, I saw insanity, and, finally, I saw a murder. I was with Addie during the last moments of her life. I learned that her beloved husband was the victim of justice gone wrong. I learned that everything we thought about our heritage was wrong. I learned that she and her husband live on, through our family.”

  Her father slung his arm ac
ross his brother’s shoulders and squeezed, as her mother dabbed at her eyes.

  “Thank you, Addie, for coming to me in my dreams,” Kate went on. “Thank you for putting right the wrong that was done to your husband all those years ago and letting me get to know him like you did. And thank you for letting us know that we’re your family. We will never forget you.”

  And with that, Kate sprinkled the ashes over the side of the boat. They floated for a moment before a small whirlpool appeared on the lake’s glassy surface and swirled the ashes down toward points unknown.

  “Rest well, Addie,” Simon called out. “We heard you. Please know that your photograph will hang in our house, where your daughter grew up. She knew nothing about you, but her children do. And so do we.”

  Kate’s father, Fred, and her uncle Harry both fought back tears.

  Simon wrapped his arm around Kate’s waist. “You did good, kiddo,” he said, and they gazed out over the lake’s calm surface, which reflected the clouds hanging in the late autumn sky.

  He squinted into the distance where a dark figure poked its head out of the water and slapped its tail against the surface, creating enormous ripples that extended in concentric circles all the way to the boat. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It couldn’t be a beaver, way out here,” Kate mused. “Otter?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Winter came. Kate stayed on in Wharton, helping Simon and Jonathan publicize the inn. Her divorce came through, uncontested by Kevin, who had already moved on to another job in a new town. And, no doubt, another woman. He and Kate met at Harrison’s House to sign the papers, against Simon’s advice. But she was strong enough to do it, over the initial pain, and secure in the knowledge that it was, indeed, best to go their separate ways. Not only because of Nick, to whom she was getting closer and closer, but also because Kate and Kevin’s relationship was not right for either of them.