Daughters of the Lake(27)

“What brought you here?” Kate wanted to know.

“This,” he said, gesturing out toward the lake. “The outdoors. And I thought life at a slower pace might be just the thing for me for a while.”

Stone didn’t tell her about the face of the fifteen-year-old boy who had pulled a gun on him and his partner one snowy night in Minneapolis and had paid for that mistake with his life, nor did he tell her about the face of the boy’s mother, whose searing, abject grief over the body of her dead son had taken up residence in Stone’s heart and refused to leave.

“You wanted a slower pace, but you got a crazy lady dreaming about murder victims,” Kate said, grinning. “Sorry about that, Detective Stone.”

“Nick,” he said. “You can call me Nick.”

Two hours later, Kate’s head was pounding after looking at countless mug shots, viewing every male face they had on file. None of them even slightly resembled the handsome man Kate had seen in her dreams.

Nick shook his head and sighed audibly. Seeing his disappointment, Kate winced. “I’m sorry I wasn’t of more help.”

“I knew it was a long shot,” he said. “More than a long shot. No, I was thinking about something else, another bit of information I found out today.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” she asked him.

Nick took a minute to think about this. He wasn’t in the habit of sharing information about a murder case with a suspect, but at the same time, Kate was the only lead they had, albeit a strange, supernatural one. Maybe sharing a bit of information would jar something loose in her brain, or make her say more than she intended.

“We did an autopsy, but it raised more questions than it answered,” he said. “When we don’t have an ID on a body, we use things like dental work, clothes, scars, evidence of surgery, broken bones, anything to tell us any little detail about who the person was.”

Kate nodded. She had watched enough crime shows on television to know the basics.

“First of all,” Nick went on, “they found no evidence of surgery of any kind. No scars, nothing like that, except for stab wounds. Usually, people have some evidence of modern medicine, whether it be a broken bone that was set or a pin in their hip or a scar from a cesarean section.”

“A nip and tuck around the jawline,” Kate joked.

“Exactly,” Nick confirmed. “But she didn’t have any of that. And her teeth weren’t in the greatest shape, either. No fillings, no bridges. No evidence of any kind of dental work.”

“That’s odd.”

“That’s not the half of it. We started investigating where her clothes came from,” Nick continued. “Here’s where it gets really strange. Her nightgown had a tag on the back of the neck. It was made by Anderson Mills, a clothing manufacturer based here in Wharton.”

“That doesn’t sound so strange,” Kate was confused. “Especially if she lived around here.”

Nick leaned in toward Kate and lowered his voice. “Nobody had ever heard of Anderson Mills, so I did some checking online. It shut down ninety years ago.”





CHAPTER TWELVE

Kate had left the police station with a promise from Nick that he’d check in with her soon. After spending some time in the coffee shop processing the day’s events, she walked up the hill to Harrison’s House, her mind running in several directions at once.

She found Simon in front of a blazing fire in the living room. She snuggled in next to him.

“I think I’m going to take you up on your offer to stay in town awhile,” Kate said.

“Splendid,” Simon said, brushing some unseen lint off his shoulder. “I wasn’t going to let you go, so it’s nice I don’t have to use restraints.”

Kate pinched her cousin’s arm. “I’m just bursting to tell you this news. There’s been a development in the case of the woman on the beach, and I think I can find some answers right here in Wharton.”

Kate told Simon about her experience with Nick that day, looking at mug shots to identify the husband she had seen in her dreams.

Simon’s eyes danced. “Nick? Who is this Nick?” The way he said it, the name had several syllables.

“Detective Stone. He’s new in town.”

He squinted at Kate. “Nick Stone. It sounds so utterly masculine.”

“Oh, stop,” Kate groaned.

“Handsome detective, new in the department . . .”

“How do you know he’s handsome?”

“From the look in your eyes when you said his name,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “What’s he like?”

Now Kate could feel her face redden. “He’s . . . I don’t know. Nice, I guess.”

Simon squinted at her. “Is he more Tom Cruise or Tom Selleck?”

Kate grinned. “Neither. Idris Elba.”

Simon’s eyes grew wide. “OMG. Someone’s going to be inventing reasons to scurry down to the police station. And by ‘someone,’ naturally, I mean me.”

Kate gave his arm another pinch, harder this time. “Get me a glass of wine, already, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

Simon hopped up and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.