Such a Beautiful Family: A Thriller(52)

He worried suddenly that he should have gone exploring with Mom. She had Tank with her, but Tank was afraid of everything, too—just like Trevor. They both hated the dark, and they both jumped when startled, but at least Tank could swim—not for extended periods of time, but he could keep his head afloat. Trevor wasn’t even sure if he could do that any longer. He hadn’t been in the water since he’d nearly drowned. It was embarrassing to admit even to himself how often he awoke at night, clawing at the air with the horrible sensation of being smothered.

Only a few months before the incident, he’d gone out on the pontoon with Grandpa. Back when Grandpa knew his name. It made him sad to think that he and Grandpa might never go fishing alone together again. Not because of Grandpa’s mental decline but because the thought of going out on the water, even on a boat, scared Trevor to death.

He shivered as he stared at the large body of dark water outside. The lake looked like a giant watery mouth waiting to swallow him whole. His number one fear was no longer the dark. It was the water.

And his number two fear was Auntie Jane.

That disturbing thought popped into his head out of nowhere. The first time he’d ever met Jane Bell was at their house on Emory Street in East Sacramento, the house his parents had lived in since the day he was born. From a distance, Jane had looked like a princess in a fairy tale: tall and slender with golden hair that swept past her shoulders and a wide smile that he noticed, as she drew closer, did not reach her eyes—sparkling blue eyes he was sure could see right into his soul. The way she peered into his eyes made him feel as if she could read his mind and knew everything he was thinking, which wasn’t a good thing because in the time it took her to walk across the room and shake his hand, he’d decided he didn’t like her, didn’t trust her, didn’t like the way her voice changed when she talked to him, sort of singsong, high-pitched, but without the cutesy, nonsensical words people use when they talk gibberish to a baby. One of his main reasons for wanting to move to Whispering Pines was to get away from her. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was the truth. What he didn’t understand was how much everyone else seemed to like her.

When he’d heard his sister call her “Auntie Jane,” his stomach had felt queasy. Whenever Jane was at their house and Mom wasn’t there, which had very quickly become a regular occurrence, it was as if Jane were in charge. Trevor knew in his gut that Jane recognized his dislike of her. It seemed to frustrate her that she couldn’t buy him with expensive gifts.

He rubbed his arms, then grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. When he went back to the window, hoping Mom and Tank would be on their way back, he saw someone standing at the edge of the lake staring this way. He peered closer, wondering if it was Gillian. No way could Tank and his mom have gotten that far that quickly. And besides, he couldn’t see a dog. He realized he was holding his breath when he remembered packing the binoculars Dad had given him last year. He rushed over to a stack of boxes and started rummaging through them. In the second box, he found what he was looking for. By the time he returned to the window, the dark figure was gone.

Maybe it had been Grandma or Grandpa he’d seen standing there. No. Whoever he’d seen was much taller and wore dark pants and a dark hoodie. He’d never seen either of his grandparents wear a hoodie before. Raising the binoculars to his eyes, he looked toward Gillian’s house. He adjusted the magnification, surprised by how well he could see the front deck and right through the floor-to-ceiling window. Someone was moving around. He wanted it to be Gillian. Because any other option made him nervous. And yet logically, he knew there was no way the person at the edge of the lake could have gotten from the spot across the lake to the house in a matter of seconds. He calculated the distance to be a ten-minute walk, and that’s if they hurried.

He thought about going in search of Hailey and telling her what he’d seen. But he quickly decided against it. She would only make fun of him, call him a coward or wimp, and then tell him he was letting his imagination get the best of him.

Dad would simply place the palm of his hand on top of Trevor’s head, muss his hair, and tell him not to worry so much, adding that the doors were locked at night and there was an alarm system and he would protect him. Trevor couldn’t deny that he’d seen his fair share of shadowy figures over the years, all of which had turned out to be false alarms. One of them being a coatrack with sweaters and umbrellas hanging at odd angles. Another intruder ended up being a tall plant in the corner of the room. But still. Nobody could convince him that the dark figure he’d seen on the other side of the water was anything other than what it was—someone standing at the edge of the lake, watching and waiting. The question was, watching and waiting for what?





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The next day, Nora made breakfast while David went outside to chop wood and get a fire started. By the time Alex arrived, everyone was in high spirits.

This was only the second time Nora had met Alex face-to-face. This time he wore skinny jeans, a crisp white tee, and a dark-green bomber jacket. He definitely had a quiet confidence about him. In her opinion, he resembled a young Johnny Depp. His dark hair had a messy, textured look on top, with a hard part to the side and faded cut around the ears. The first time she’d met him, she’d noticed his tattoo, but now she could see that it was one long word running down the side of his neck in a beautiful cursive. “Wanderlust,” she said aloud, which told her he might have a desire to travel and explore the world.