The House Across the Lake(2)

“Listen,” Wilma says after what feels like three whole minutes. “I know you’re worried about Katherine Royce. I know you want to find her. So do I. But I already told you that taking matters into your own hands won’t help. Let me do my job, Casey. It’s our best chance of getting Katherine back alive. So if you know anything about where her husband is, please tell me.”

“I have absolutely no clue where Tom Royce could be.” I lean forward, my palms flat against the table, trying to summon the same opaque energy Wilma’s putting off. “If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to search the house.”

Wilma considers it. For the first time since we sat down, I can sense her mind ticking as steadily as the grandfather clock.

“I believe you,” she finally says. “For now. But I could change my mind at any moment.”

When she leaves, I make sure to watch her go, standing in the doorway while being buffeted by rain slanting onto the front porch. In the driveway, Wilma trots back to her unmarked sedan and slides behind the wheel. I wave as she backs the car out of the driveway, splashes through a puddle that wasn’t there an hour ago, and speeds off.

I close the front door, shake off the rain, and go to the kitchen, where I pour myself a supersized bourbon. This new turn of events requires a kick coffee can’t provide.

Outside, another gust of wind jostles the house. The eaves creak and the lights flicker.

Signs the storm is getting worse.

Tail end, my ass.

Bourbon glass in hand, I head upstairs, into the first bedroom on the right.

He’s exactly how I left him.

Splayed out across the twin bed.

Ankles and wrists tied to the bedposts.

Towel stuffed into his mouth to form a makeshift gag.

I remove the towel, sit on the identical bed on the other side of the room, and take a long, slow sip of bourbon.

“We’re running out of time,” I say. “Now tell me what you did to Katherine.”





BEFORE





I see it out of the corner of my eye.

A breach of the water’s surface.

Ripples.

Sunlight.

Something rising from the water, then sinking back under.

I’ve been watching the lake at a mental remove, which happens when you’ve seen something a thousand times. Looking but not really. Seeing everything, registering nothing.

Bourbon might have something to do with that.

I’m on my third.

Maybe fourth.

Counting drinks—another thing I do at a remove.

But the motion in the water now has my full attention. Rising from the rocking chair onto legs unsteady after three (or four) day drinks, I watch the lake’s glassy surface again break into sun-dappled circles.

I squint, trying to emerge from the bourbon haze long enough to see what it is. It’s useless. The movement is located in the dead center of the lake—too far away to see clearly.

I leave the back porch of the lake house, step inside, and shuffle to the cramped foyer just beyond the front door. A coatrack is there, buried under anoraks and rain slickers. Among them is a pair of binoculars in a leather case hanging from a frayed strap, untouched for more than a year.

Binoculars in hand, I return to the back porch and stand at the railing, scanning the lake. The ripples reappear, and in the epicenter, a hand emerges from the water.

The binoculars drop to the porch floor.

I think: Someone’s drowning.

I think: I need to save them.

I think: Len.

That last thought—of my husband, of how he died in this same deep water—propels me into action. I push off the railing, the movement jiggling the ice in the bourbon glass next to the rocking chair. It clinks lightly as I leave the porch, scurry down the steps, and spring across the few yards of mossy ground between the house and the water’s edge. The wooden dock shudders when I leap onto it and continues to shake as I run to the motorboat moored at its end. I untie the boat, wobble into it, grab a paddle, and push off the dock.

The boat twirls a moment, doing a less-than-elegant pirouette atop the water before I straighten it out with the paddle. Once the boat’s pointed toward the center of the lake, I start the outboard motor with an arm-aching tug. Five seconds later, the boat is gliding over the water, toward where I last saw the circular ripples but now see nothing.

I start to hope that what I saw was merely a fish leaping out of the water. Or a loon diving into it. Or that the sun, the reflection of the sky on the lake, and several bourbons caused me to see something that wasn’t really there.

Wishful thinking, all of it.

Because as the boat nears the middle of the lake, I spot something in the water.

A body.

Bobbing on the surface.

Motionless.

I cut the motor and scramble to the front of the boat to get a better view. I can’t tell if the person is faceup or facedown, alive or dead. All I can see are the shadows of outstretched limbs in the water and a tangle of hair floating like kelp. I get a mental picture of Len in this very position and yell toward the shore.

“Help! Someone’s drowning!”

The words echo off the flame-hued trees on both sides of the lake, likely heard by no one. It’s the middle of October, and Lake Greene, never crowded to begin with, is all but abandoned. The only full-time resident is Eli, and he’s gone until evening. If someone else is around, they aren’t making their presence known.