The House Across the Lake(88)

I look forward to the moment he realizes that’s not going to happen.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come along?” Eli says.

“No,” I say. “But I am sure I need to do this alone.”

Eli insists on a hug before letting me get into the boat. An embrace so tight I think he might never let go. As it goes on, I whisper into his ear: “Tell Marnie and my mother anything you want about what happened. Whatever you think will be easiest for them to handle.”

He pulls back and searches my face, his own features going slack as he realizes I’m not going to follow the plan I laid out for him.

“Casey, what are you going to do?”

I can’t tell him. I know he’ll try to talk me out of it—and that he’ll likely succeed. A risk I’m unwilling to take. I’ve avoided paying for my sins long enough. Now it’s time to atone.

“Tell them I’m sorry for putting them through my bullshit,” I say. “And that I love them and hope they can forgive me.”

Before Eli can protest, I give him a peck on the cheek, pull away from his embrace, and step into the boat.

The last thing I do before pushing off the dock and starting the motor is free a length of rope knotted around a cleat on the boat’s rim. Still attached to the other end of the rope is the anchor.

I’ll need that for later.





We set off just before sunrise, with a mist rolling over the rain-swollen lake. The fog is so thick it feels like we’re in the clouds and not on the water. Overhead, the predawn gray is beginning to blush. It’s all so beautiful and peaceful that I allow myself to forget what I’m about to do, just for a moment. I tilt my face skyward, feel the chill of a new day on my cheeks, and breathe in the autumn air. When I’m ready, I look at Len, seated in the front of the boat.

“Where?” I say.

He points to the southern end of the lake, and I tug the motor to life. I keep it on low—a slow glide over the water that gives me a dizzy feeling of déjà vu. This situation is just like the first time I met Katherine, right down to the blanket over her shoulders. Making it all the more surreal is knowing that nothing, not even Katherine herself, is the same.

I’ve changed, too.

I’m sober, for starters.

A refreshing surprise.

Then there’s the fact that I’m no longer afraid. Gone is the woman so terrified of having her dark secret exposed that she couldn’t sleep without a drink or three.

Or four.

The freedom of confession I’d so wanted back in the house finally arrives. With it comes a sense of inevitability.

I know what’s going to happen next.

I’m ready for it.

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me yet,” Len says, raising his voice to be heard over the motor’s bubbling hum.

“Asked you what?”

“The question that I know has been on your mind. This entire time you’ve been wondering if I ever intended to kill you when I was alive. And the answer is no, Cee. I loved you too much to even consider it.”

I believe him.

Which sickens me.

I hate knowing that a man like Len—a man capable of killing three women without remorse and then dumping them into the lake we now float on—loved me. Still worse is the fact that I had loved him in return. A foolish, hopeful, naive love that I refuse to subject myself to again.

“If you loved me at all,” I say, “you would have killed yourself before killing someone else.”

Instead, he was a coward. In many ways, he still is, using Katherine Royce as both shield and bargaining chip. He knows me well enough to assume I’ll refuse to sacrifice her in order to get to him.

The reality is that he has no idea how much I’m willing to sacrifice.

As we get closer to the southern tip of the lake, Len raises his hand. “We’re here,” he calls.

I cut the motor and everything goes silent. The only sound I hear is lake water, whipped into waves from the boat, lapping against the hull as it settles, calms, quiets. In front of us, emerging from the mist like the mast of a ghost ship, is a dead tree poking out of Lake Greene.

Old Stubborn.

“This is it,” Len says.

Of course he would choose this spot. It’s one of the few places on the lake not visible from any of the houses on shore. Now the sun-bleached log juts from the surface like a tombstone, marking three women’s watery graves.

“All of them are down there?” I say.

“Yes.”

I lean over the side of the boat and peer into the water, naively hoping I’ll be able to look beyond the surface. Instead, all I see is my own reflection staring back at me with eyes widened by fearful curiosity. I reach out and run my hand through the water, scattering my reflection, as if that will somehow chase it away for good. Before my reflection collects itself again, my ghostly features sliding into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, I get a glimpse of the dark depths just beyond it.

They’re down there.

Megan and Toni and Sue Ellen.

“Happy now?” Len says.

I shake my head and wipe away a tear. I’m nowhere near happy. What I am is relieved, now that I know the three of them aren’t lost forever and that their loved ones will finally be able to properly mourn and move forward.