Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(70)

Sincerely yours,

Wesley Patterson

P.S. DON’T TELL ANYONE!

Kate’s lips parted as she read it. She realized she’d been holding her breath and finally made herself exhale. It didn’t help. She felt light-headed.

She looked up at Wes.

“No,” he said, reading her expression. “It’s not your fault.”

“You set the fire. Because of me.” She looked around wildly, at the bare spot where his cabin had once stood.

“No,” he said again. “I did it because I wanted a new life, another life. That was true long before you showed up.” He made her look him in the eye. “Kate, it’s not your fault.”

Kate gave him a jerky nod and handed him back the letter. He looked at it one last time before putting it back in the box. He closed the van door, and the sound echoed over the clearing.

“I didn’t even know my father was at home that morning,” Wes said, his hand still on the door handle. “I heard what I thought was his truck pulling away, going to work like usual. I even looked in the garage, and the truck was gone. I didn’t know that he’d gotten so drunk the night before that he’d left his truck at the bar and someone had given him a ride home. The sound I heard was him being dropped off that morning. He was passed out on the floor on the far side of his bed, and I had no idea. And Billy … I didn’t tell Billy what I was going to do. I’d packed our stuff the night before and hidden it in the woods. I doused the house with gasoline from a container my father kept to burn stumps. I picked up Billy—he was still sleeping—and I threw down a match as I reached the front door. My God, the sound it made. My ears popped. I ran into the woods, and Billy had woken up by this time. I remember him looking around, trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. He trusted me. He always trusted me. I told him what I did, and he got this worried look on his face. He started going through the things I’d taken from the house. He was looking for something.”

“The Alligator Box,” Kate said softly.

Wes nodded. “I’d looked everywhere for it in the house the night before. It wasn’t there. I know it wasn’t there. When you grow up with a father like ours, you learn to hide the things you love very well. Billy had hidey-holes all over the place. I knew where all of them were in the house, so I’d assumed he’d hidden it in one of his secret places in the woods. I can still see him taking off toward the burning house. He caught me off guard. I ran after him, but I slid in the dew and fell. I knocked one of my teeth out. I looked up to see him race into the smoke without the slightest hesitation. Completely fearless. I ran up to the porch, screaming his name. The smoke was black, and it was so hot the air singed the hair on my arms. I backed in, covering my face. I remember the explosion, and I remember the feel of the fire against my back. I remember being airborne and landing on my face again in the grass. And that’s it. I woke up in the hospital. They told me that my father set the fire, and I was too shocked to correct them. I’ve never corrected them.”

“That’s why you asked about the letter that first day on the dock,” Kate said, stunned. “You thought I knew.”

“I hadn’t thought about it in years. Not until I saw you again.”

Impulsively, she drew him into her arms and held him tightly, fiercely, the way Eby would, wanting to save him from what had happened, even though it was too late. “Your secrets were always mine,” Kate whispered. “I never would have said anything. Not then, not now.”

Wes smiled at her with complete understanding when she stepped back. He knew the emotions she was going through. He’d been living with them for so long that it was like a second skin to him, like the scars on his back. “I know. That’s why I sent it in the first place. Or thought I sent it. I don’t know how it ended up in the Alligator Box.” He walked back to the front of the van, and she followed. “I put the letter in the mailbox by the road. I clearly remember doing that.”

Kate thought about it for a moment. “If the box was in the lake, why did Billy go back into the house?”

“I think it was in the house,” Wes said. “You saw it. The box had been burnt. But by the time I got out of the hospital, what was left of the house had been torn down.”

“So you think someone must have taken it from the rubble and put it in the lake.”

“Yes. But who?” Wes shrugged helplessly. “I’ll never know.”

Kate thought about Devin and the alligator, and suddenly something clicked into place. Maybe Kate had grown up and lost her ability to see it, but she hadn’t lost her ability to believe in it. “Devin told me something after she found the Alligator Box, and it got me thinking.” She turned to him. “Do you want to hear a story?”

Wes looked at her curiously, just like he’d done when he was a boy.

She smiled though her heart felt old and heavy. “One last story, for old time’s sake.”

“Okay. Sure.”

So she told him.

“Once upon a time there was a little boy named Billy. He loved alligators. He loved them so much that he wanted to be one. He thought about it every day. He dreamed about it every night. There was no doubt in his mind that it was going to happen. One thing Billy knew that most people don’t know is that the longer you have a wish, the closer you get to it becoming true. Most people never get what they want because they change what they want, change it to something more practical or reachable. Billy never looked to the future and saw himself as a grown-up. He saw himself with alligator skin and alligator teeth, swimming underwater and sunning himself on some soft grass somewhere. Billy felt sorry for other people who gave up their wishes so easily.