Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(62)

Wes approached them. He’d been on the periphery for a few minutes now, watching what was going on, taking in the worry on all their faces. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Devin just ran away, into the woods,” Eby told him.

“The cypress knees?” he asked Kate. He looked ready to run.

Kate shook her head. There was no taste of lake water in her mouth, no silt on her skin. Devin was dry and hot, in sunlight. Kate didn’t know how she knew these things, just that this place seemed to want to let her know. “No, the other direction.”

“Let’s go,” he said, heading for the lake. Kate followed. Eby, Lisette, and Jack brought up the rear.

“Kate? What’s going on?” Cricket said, trotting up to her. “Where are you going?”

“Stay here, Cricket. Devin ran into the woods when she saw you.”

“This is no place for a child. If you can’t even keep an eye on her—”

“Don’t.” Kate stopped and spun around to face her. “Don’t you dare.”

Kate caught up with Wes. Cricket hesitated, then followed them anyway, because heaven forbid someone else could be right for a change.

Wes was walking fast, studying the trees along the lake path.

“Shouldn’t we divide up?” Kate asked Eby. “Wouldn’t that be better?”

“Of course it would be better,” Cricket said. “Why are we trusting this person? Does he know where he’s going?”

Eby gave Cricket a passing glance, but one that could see right through her. She almost seemed to pity Cricket. “Wes’s ancestors are people from the swamp. They know these things. They’re all like that, the people in Suley. They never get lost.”

“This way,” Wes said, ducking under some brush where there were a few broken limbs.

It took about ten minutes. They were all calling out Devin’s name and making enough noise in the leaves and twigs that she could probably hear them coming a mile away. They were sweaty and scratched from the whip-thin limbs of new shoots, when finally Wes stopped.

“There she is,” he said, pointing to an incline, where part of Devin’s tattered tutu could be seen from the tree she was unsucesfully hiding behind. She was sitting on some moss, her back to the trunk. The trees were thick here, and the canopy of limbs above dappled the light around them. Kate took a moment to steady herself, to swallow the panic and anger. Devin didn’t need anger. She needed someone who understood, and Kate was that person. She used to be Devin.

The rest stayed behind as Kate walked up to her.

Devin had her legs pulled to her chest, a sad, angry ball of tulle. “I’m not going back,” she said.

Kate crouched in front of her. “You can’t stay in the woods all night.”

“No, I mean I’m not going back with her,” Devin pushed herself up and faced the others. She pointed at Cricket.

“Devin,” Kate said.

“It’s wrong,” Devin said to her mother. “Her house is not the right place to be. You can’t just let people take things from you. You’ve got to fight it. Why aren’t you fighting it? This is a good place. This is the right place. Why doesn’t anyone see that? Do something!” Devin said, her voice growing louder. She looked at all of them accusingly.

They just stood there. Devin faced her mother. “You let her talk you into things you didn’t want to do,” she said. “Why did you do that?”

“Do something!” she shouted again.

Lisette looked away from the intensity of Devin’s stare. Jack put his arm around her.

Kate shook her head, emotion thick in her throat at this wild, delicate creature, this painted child in her bright colors and glasses, in the middle of nowhere, trying to fight for something that wasn’t her fight. “I was sad, sweetheart.”

Devin, starting to cry, turned desperately to Cricket. “I love you, Grandma Cricket, but I don’t want to live with you. Mom and I can make it on our own. Mom just thought she needed you, but she doesn’t. She was just confused.”

Cricket’s lips pinched and she pivoted and walked away. She hated for me to cry, Matt once said about his mother. Cricket Pheris is worse at grief than she is at love. She doesn’t know how to “move on.” She knows how to turn away.

“It’s okay, Devin,” Kate said quietly, and she lifted her crying daughter into her arms.

“We’re not going back, are we?” Devin asked, her arms tightly around Kate’s neck.

“No, sweetheart.” Kate rocked her back and forth. “And if you had just asked me, instead of running away, I would have told you.”

Cricket had started walking in one direction. But Wes headed in another. “This way,” he called to her, and she reluctantly changed course. Slowly, they retraced their steps back to the lake, Kate carrying Devin the entire way.

They emerged from the trail, and the party was still in full swing, a hot mass of music and laughter and smoke from the grills. No one seemed to notice their battered group except Lazlo, who walked down to meet them, just as they reached the dock. His lawyer hurried after him, briefcase in hand.

At first, Kate had an odd impression that he was worried about them. But that notion was quickly dispelled when he said, “Eby, there you are. It’s getting late. Let’s go in the house where it’s cool and sign these papers, shall we?” Lazlo’s eyes slid to Wes. “Wes, son, have you changed your mind?”