The House Across the Lake(78)

Back in the boat, I rowed to the middle of the lake. After tossing the hat into the water, I lowered myself into it and swam back to shore. Once inside the lake house, I stripped off my wet clothes, put them in the dryer, changed into a nightgown, and crawled into bed.

I didn’t sleep a wink.

I spent the night wide-awake, alert to every creak of the house, every rustling leaf, every splash of waterfowl out on the lake. Each noise made me think it was either the police arriving to arrest me or Len, somehow still alive, returning home.

I knew which scenario was worse.

It was only once dawn broke over the lake that I realized the horrible thing I’d done.

Not to Len.

I don’t feel guilty about that. I didn’t then and I don’t now.

Nor do I miss him.

I miss the person I thought he was.

My husband.

The man I loved.

That wasn’t the same person I watched sink under the water. He was someone different. Someone evil. He deserved what happened to him.

Still, I’m filled with regret over what I did. Every second of every minute of every hour that I’m sober, it eats away at me. Because I was selfish. I had felt so angry, so hurt, so fucking betrayed, that I only gave a cursory thought to the women Len had killed. They’re the true victims of my actions. Them and their families and the cops still struggling to find out what happened.

By killing Len instead of turning him in, I denied all of them answers. Megan Keene, Toni Burnett, and Sue Ellen Stryker are still out there, somewhere, and because of me, no one will ever know where. Their families continue to live in some horrible limbo where a small possibility exists that they’ll return.

I was able to mourn Len—or at least the man I’d thought he was—at two memorial services, one on each coast. I sat through both racked with guilt that I was allowed to wallow in my sorrow, a luxury his victims’ families didn’t have. They weren’t granted one service, let alone two. They were never allowed to fully grieve.

Closure.

That’s the thing I murdered that night.

Which is why I drink until my head spins and my stomach flips and my mind goes deliciously blank. It’s also why I spend all my time here sitting on that porch, staring out at the water, hoping that, if I look hard enough, at least one of those poor souls will make her presence known.

My single attempt to make amends was to slip on a pair of gloves and dig out a postcard of Lake Greene I’d bought during a visit years before, for reasons I can no longer recall. On the back, I scrawled three names and four words.

I think they’re here.

When writing, I used my left hand. Wilma’s handwriting analyst was spot-on about that. I slapped a self-adhesive stamp on the back of the postcard and dropped it in a random mailbox as I walked to the nearest bar. While there, I had so much to drink that I was shit-faced by the time I showed up to the theater where Shred of Doubt was playing.

It was one p.m. on a Wednesday.

By the time I finally sobered up, I was out of a job.

The irony is that mailing the postcard ended up being worse than useless. It confused more than clarified, convincing Wilma and Boone that Katherine Royce had sent it—and that Tom was the man who’d committed Len’s crimes.

And I had to pretend I thought that, too. The only other option was to admit what I’ve done.

But now, as I watch a man who is definitely not my husband but also definitely is, I realize I’ve been granted an opportunity to right my grievous wrong.

Len is back. He can tell me what he did to his victims, and I can finally help give those who loved Megan Keene, Toni Burnett, and Sue Ellen Stryker the ending I had denied them.

I’m still not clear how or why this surreal turn of events happened. I doubt I’ll ever know the forces, whether they be scientific or supernatural, behind it. If this is some sort of fucked-up miracle, I’m not going to waste my time questioning it. Instead, I’m going to make the most of it.

I take a step toward the bed, prompting an intrigued look from Len. It’s strange how easily he’s replaced Katherine in my mind. Even though I’m conscious that it’s her I’m seeing, I can’t stop myself from picturing him.

“You’re planning something, Cee,” he says as I draw near. “You’ve got that gleam in your eyes.”

I’m beside the bed now, close enough to touch him. I reach out a trembling hand, place it on his right leg, retract it like I’d just bumped a hot stove.

“Don’t be scared,” Len says. “I would never hurt you, Cee.”

“You already have.”

He lets out a rueful chuckle. “Says the woman who watched me drown.”

I can’t disagree with him. That’s exactly what I did, and in the process I’d condemned an untold number of people to a life of uncertainty. They need answers. Just as much as I need to be relieved of the guilt that’s weighed me down for more than a year.

My hand returns to Len’s leg, sliding over the hump of his knee and down his shin, traveling all the way to the rope around his ankle. I reach for the other end of the rope, wrapped tight around the bed frame and capped off with a large, messy knot.

“What are you doing?” Len says.

I give the knot a tug. “Getting you out of here.”





It takes me a while to loosen the knot. So long that I’m surprised Tom doesn’t appear before I’m finished. I do nothing to the rope around Len’s ankle. Like the binds on all his limbs, I plan on using those again.