Rich Blood (Jason Rich #1)(5)

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, let me do it. Why don’t you be a dear and fix me a bagel? Or some cereal?”

“Are you joking?”

Jana began to walk toward the stairs with Nola on her heels. “Is that so much to ask? To make your mom a little breakfast?”

Nola didn’t respond as they reached the foot of the stairs and opened the door to the outside. As they walked across the grass, Jana put her hand over her eyes to shield her face from the harsh, glaring sunlight. She heard a horn coming from the lake.

“There’s Burns,” Nola said. She was walking side by side with Jana, and they both waved at a man passing by in a small bass boat. “No one’s with him,” Nola added.

Jana heard music coming from the dock and recognized the voice of Darius Rucker, Braxton’s favorite singer. As they walked down the wooden pier, she saw the golf mat, the bucket of balls, and the knocked-over pint glass. No, she thought again.

“Dad!” Nola shouted, and Jana winced as her head pounded and heartbeat raced. Nola took off in front of Jana and walked into the boathouse. As Jana reached the structure, Nola came out. “All three Jet Skis and both boats are still in there.” She frowned. “Why’s the music still on?”

Jana edged her way to the green mat. She turned and saw the golf club and, next to it, the kegerator. On the wooden floor, a bottle of tequila, almost empty.

“Mom?” Nola’s voice came from behind her.

When Jana turned, her daughter’s hands were shaking as she pointed down at the dock. “What’s that?”

Jana approached, and when she saw the red substance below her, she dropped to her knees. She knew exactly what it was. What it had to be.

“Is that blood?”

Jana gazed up at her daughter. Nola Waters had reddish-blonde hair like her father and Jana’s own sky-blue eyes. Her light skin was even paler than usual in the glow of the early-afternoon sun.

“Mom?” Nola pressed, taking a step backward. “Is it?”

“Baby, I don’t know—”

Nola’s gasp interrupted whatever Jana was planning to say. The sixteen-year-old pointed toward the water, her arm wobbling.

Jana wheeled and saw a cap in the water about ten feet away. It was navy blue and had GL inscribed on the front in red and, underneath, in smaller text, Gunter’s Landing. Braxton wore this hat when he was playing golf.

No . . .

Jana felt her breath catch as she managed to get up and walk toward her daughter. Nola was shivering. Jana tried to put her arm around her, but the girl shook it off.

“Honey, give me your cell,” Jana said, trying to keep her voice calm.

Nola managed to take out her phone from her shorts pocket, and Jana clasped both hands around the device. Her hands quaked. “Nola, look at me, honey.”

The sixteen-year-old crossed her arms and glared at Jana. The girl’s bottom lip trembled. “Do you think Dad is . . . ?” She pointed at the cap and covered her mouth as tears flooded her eyes.

“No,” Jana said, forcing calm into her tone as adrenaline coursed through her veins. She looked to the blood on the dock floor and the cap in the water and pressed three digits on the phone. Seconds later, Jana heard the dispatcher pick up.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“My name is Jana Waters, and I live on Buck Island.” She cited the street address and sucked in a breath. Nola stared out at Lake Guntersville. “My husband is missing,” Jana managed. “It looks like he was down on our boat dock last night or this morning, but . . . we can’t find him.”





6


A rescue team and four sheriff’s deputies arrived in less than ten minutes.

The officers asked Jana and Nola to wait inside, but mother and daughter wouldn’t abide. Instead, they watched from the backyard. Nola sat in the grass and rocked back and forth against her knees, while Jana paced back and forth across the lawn.

Jana felt jittery and took a Xanax. She offered Nola one, but the teenager refused, glaring at her mother once again until Jana broke eye contact.

The sedative did nothing to calm Jana’s nerves. As the search continued, she had to cross her arms to keep her limbs from shaking. She forced herself to mention other possibilities to Nola. Perhaps Braxton had nicked himself trying to cut some rope in the boathouse or attempting to change the pony keg in the kegerator. He’d gone for a swim and his cap fell in the water. Or he was on a boat ride with another friend that he hadn’t bothered to tell Jana about. She and Braxton barely communicated anymore, so that wouldn’t be a stretch.

But Nola said nothing. There was no hope in her eyes, and Jana knew why. Her father’s cell phone was on the dock. His car was in the garage. All their boats and Jet Skis were in the boathouse. Jana had called Burns and all Braxton’s other friends, and none of them had seen him or been with him last night or this morning. She’d reached out to Marshall Medical Center North and South, but no one had heard from Dr. Waters since yesterday morning.

He’s dead.

Jana knew it. She’d known it since seeing the blood and hat, same as Nola.

After an hour and a half of dragging the lake bottom, one of the rescue divers emerged from the water and yelled something to the officers on the dock that Jana couldn’t make out. There was a discussion with the members of the emergency team in the small police boat, and then two of the officers leaned over the stern toward the diver in the water, who’d been joined by two other divers holding something in their hands.