The House Across the Lake(68)

I can no longer trust Wilma.

And I certainly can’t trust Boone.

I am, I realize, completely on my own.





I don’t step outside of the house until night has fallen, and even then I only go as far as the porch. There’s a heaviness to the air that’s unnerving. Thick with humidity and turmoil. Last night’s wind is gone, replaced by eerie stillness.

The calm immediately before the storm.

Slouched in a rocking chair, I take a drink of bourbon.

My fourth or fifth or sixth.

It’s impossible to keep count when I’m drinking straight from the bottle.

During the afternoon and early evening, I was either in bed, trying in vain to get some rest; in the kitchen, chowing down on whatever food took the least time to prepare; or roaming the rest of the house like a bird trapped in a cage. As I walked—from library to den to living room—I thought about what, if anything, I can do now.

It didn’t take long to suss out the answer.

Nothing.

That’s what Wilma wants, after all.

So I picked up my old friend bourbon—the only thing I can trust at the moment. Now I’m buzzed and careening toward drunkenness. All it will take to push me over the edge is one or two more swigs from the bottle.

A tantalizing option.

Because I want everything to go away.

My concern about Katherine, my suspicion of both Tom and Boone, my loneliness and guilt and grief. I want all of it gone, never to return. And if that requires drinking myself into oblivion, so be it.

Gripping the bottle’s neck, I tip it back, ready to empty the damn thing.

Before I can do that, though, I notice a light brightening the kitchen window of the Royce house. Like a moth, I’m drawn to it. I can’t help it. I put down the bottle and pick up the binoculars, telling myself that it’s fine if I watch the house one last time. According to Wilma, I’ve already ruined everything. Spying on Tom now isn’t going to make things any worse.

He’s at the stove again, heating up another can of soup. When he gives a disinterested glance out the window, I don’t fear that he’ll again catch me watching. The porch, like the rest of the house, is pitch-black. As are the lake and the surrounding shore.

Other than the kitchen at the Royce house, the only other light around is a large rectangular glow on the lake’s rippling surface to my right. The Mitchell place. Although I can’t get a good look at the house from where I’m sitting, the bright patch tells me everything I need to know.

Boone is home.

I’ve got a possible wife-killer on one side of me and another possible wife-killer directly across the lake.

Not a comforting thought.

I swing the binoculars toward Eli’s house. It’s completely dark. Of course the sole person on this lake I can trust is the only one not home. I call his cell, hoping he’ll answer, say he’s on his way back from gathering supplies and will swing by before heading to his house. Instead, the call again goes instantly to his voicemail.

I leave a message, straining to sound both sober and nonchalant. I fail at both.

“Eli, hi. It’s Casey. I, um, I hope you’re coming home soon. Like, right now. There have been things going on around the lake that you don’t know about. Dangerous things. And, well, I’m scared. And I could really use a friend right now. So if you’re around, please come over.”

I’m crying by the time I end the call. The tears are a surprise, and as much as I’d like to chalk them up to stress and bourbon, I know it goes deeper than that. I’m crying because the fourteen months since Len died have been hard as hell. Yes, I had Marnie, my mother, and plenty of others willing to offer comfort. None of them—not even Beloved Lolly Fletcher—could truly understand how I felt.

So I drank.

It was easier that way.

Alcohol doesn’t judge.

And it never, ever disappoints.

But if you drink too much, for too long, all those well-meaning people in your life who try to understand but can’t eventually give up and drift away.

That’s the realization that came over me as I rambled on the phone even though no one was listening. The story of my life. Right now, I have nothing and no one. Eli’s gone, Boone can’t be trusted, and Marnie wants nothing to do with this. I am completely alone, and it makes me utterly, unbearably sad.

I wipe my eyes, sigh, pick up the binoculars again because, hey, I have literally nothing else to do. I zero in on the Royces’ kitchen, where Tom has finished reheating the soup. Instead of a bowl, he pours it into a large thermos and screws on the lid.

Curious.

Thermos in hand, he opens a drawer and pulls out a flashlight.

Curiouser.

Soon he’s outside, the flashlight’s beam slicing through the darkness. Seeing it brings back a memory of the other night, when I noticed Tom do the same thing from the bedroom window. Although I couldn’t tell where he was going to or coming from then, I certainly do now.

The Fitzgeralds’ house.

In an instant, I go from buzzed to hyperalert, suddenly aware of everything. The clouds scudding in front of the moon. A loon hooting a lonely call in an unseen nook of the lake. The flashlight moving through the trees, bobbing and winking like a giant firefly. Another memory returns, pried loose by the sight.

Me against the door, Tom on the other side, shouting things I’d been too drunk and scared to comprehend.