Daughters of the Lake(8)

He dialed his cell phone. “Pick up Kevin Bradford. I want to see if that bastard can ID these bodies. No, I won’t take his word for it. I want a polygraph. And I want a sample of his DNA to check against the baby’s. I don’t care, Howard. I want him to submit to it all voluntarily. No warrant, no lawyers, no nothing. Do you hear me?”

Johnny turned his phone off and threw it across the car seat. He wasn’t going to waste any time finding out whether or not his best friend’s daughter had anything to do with this.





CHAPTER FOUR

As Johnny was questioning Kate’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, Kate was setting her rowing shell in the water and climbing into the delicate boat, taking care not to step through its paper-thin bottom. She had tried running for a time in the midst of her problems with Kevin in an effort to shave off the twenty-some pounds she had put on since their wedding, as though a newly svelte body might help things. But running only felt good when she stopped. With rowing, Kate felt just the opposite. Every stroke, every push felt fantastic. She couldn’t get enough of skimming atop the water’s glassy surface, stroking, pushing, pulling her way along. Sometimes she spent two or three hours out on the secluded bay, until her body simply couldn’t take any more. The act of rowing gave Kate a feeling of power and control that she had never known. Not to mention it took care of those twenty pounds.

It was also a way to commune with the lake, alone in a small boat low on the water. Kate loved being so near to it. Kayaking gave her the same feel, the closeness to the lake, but for Kate, kayaking was hard work. Rowing was a meditation, by necessity. Thoughts couldn’t wander to the latest celebrity gossip or to a song played over and over in your head or to an especially cruel word from your beloved as he walked out the door. While rowing, Kate’s mind needed to stay focused on the motion of it or she’d end up face first in the water. The hypnotic rhythm—pull, skim, push—over and over again, cleared the random thoughts from her mind and lulled her into a sense of peace. She needed it today.

She slipped her bare feet into the shoes that were bolted onto the push board, put her oars in the water, and used one of them to ease herself away from the dock.

Legs bent, arms extended, oars as far back in the water as she could reach, the blades were ready to slice into the water at a perfect angle. Kate sat there motionless for a time, feeling the boat bob and sway, breathing in time with the water’s heartbeat. When she and the lake were breathing as one, she found her center, her perfect balance. Kate pushed off hard with her legs, pulling the oars to her chest at the same time, then, skimming the flat blades against the water’s surface, back to their ready position. And again, and again. The rhythm of it, the sameness of the movement, the communion with the lake hypnotized her.

Kate’s memories of the morning’s events were skimming away along the surface of the water. She felt less panicked now, safer here on the water, as she always did. She noticed a deer making its way to the shoreline for a drink. Kate hoped she wouldn’t startle it too much as she passed. It didn’t seem to notice her. Kate always saw wildlife when she rowed; it was one of the things she loved best about the sport. When she reached the end of the bay, where the water streamed into the vastness of the lake, she stopped for a moment to catch her breath before turning the boat around with the awkward circular oar motion that always reminded Kate of the legs of a crab that has been caught on its back.

Kate pulled the oars toward her again, slowly and more methodically this time. She wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the dock. She was enjoying being out here on the water on such a blue, bright day. But suddenly, inexplicably, the weather changed, as it often did on this lake. A mist began to rise out of the water, a delicate fog. It settled like a cloud just above the water’s surface, giving the landscape an eerie feeling. A couple of mallards materialized out of the fog and floated toward Kate; an island in the distance seemed to be hovering just inches above the water’s surface.

She looked down and, through the mist, stared into the water. She was caught by the sight of her own hazy, wispy reflection. Brown-haired, mousy Kate. As her oar glided over the surface of the water, Kate caught sight of something beneath, or thought she did. She skimmed to a stop. It was floating to the surface, rising like a diver out of the deep. A fish? Kate leaned over the side of the boat and squinted to get a better look. She took a quick breath in when she recognized that other woman’s face, the dead woman’s face, floating within her own reflection. Their two faces were entwined—Kate’s eyes opened, the other woman’s eyes closed. Kate stared as the two faces became one.

The eyes of the dead woman’s reflection shot open, those intense, violet eyes staring directly at Kate, her mouth moving, as if trying to speak. The sight of it startled Kate so much that she lost her balance and capsized, gulping a mouthful of water as the lake came into contact with her own gasping face.



On the other side of town, Johnny Stratton was talking to the coroner, Janet Green.

“Drowning, then?” he asked.

Janet nodded. “But that’s not all. She has several stab wounds in the back. My guess is that somebody stabbed her and threw her in the water, or she fell in shortly thereafter, before she was dead.”

“Had she not gone in the water—”

“She’d have bled out without immediate care. There’s no question about the fact that this lady was murdered. But I can tell you one thing.”