Lake Silence (The Others #6)(109)

He finished his shower and reached for a towel when he heard his bedroom door open.

Crap. He’d locked that door. Always did. His service weapon wasn’t in plain sight but . . .

“Grimshaw? Wayne!”

“Captain?” He wrapped a towel around his waist and walked out of the bathroom, beads of water running down his chest. Hargreaves stood in the middle of his room. Ineke stood in the doorway. She seemed to appreciate the view he provided but not the water he dripped on her hardwood floor.

He quickly stepped onto the area rug. Not that that was much better, but at least Ineke’s presence—and the room key she held up for him to see—explained how Hargreaves had entered the room.

He took in his captain’s appearance—hastily dressed and unshaven. Not showing pride in the uniform.

“Get dressed,” Hargreaves said. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

Ah, gods. “What happened?”

“The CIU team found part of a body at The Jumble. On the beach.”

“A floater?”

Hargreaves shook his head. “They think it’s one of Yorick Dane’s business partners.” He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Grimshaw stared at the uniform he had hung on the hook attached to the back of the bedroom door. There were things he hadn’t put in any report, things he wouldn’t put on paper. But he should have told Hargreaves and the Bristol team about the creatures he and Julian had seen in the lake during the trail ride beach party. He couldn’t have told them much, wasn’t even sure what he’d seen. Except whatever lived in the lake probably weren’t the same creatures that had been whispering in the dark the night Constance Dane had been choked by freezing water in her own bathroom.

Five minutes later, he was dressed and heading downstairs. Ineke met him at the front door and held out a large travel mug.

“Coffee,” she said. “Sounds like you won’t want to eat beforehand.”

“Thanks.” He took the coffee and walked out to Hargreaves’s car.



* * *



? ? ?

Seeing what was left of Hershel, Grimshaw felt glad he hadn’t had breakfast and wished he hadn’t drunk the coffee.

“The bites aren’t that much bigger than a human bite, but the teeth . . .” Samuel Kipp, Bristol’s CIU team leader, shook his head. “Not an animal. Some kind of fish? Teeth could have been sharp enough that the victim didn’t feel much more than a pinch or a tug when the creatures bit off chunks of him.”

“Creatures?” Hargreaves asked. “More than one?”

Kipp nodded. “At least a handful of different bite marks. And the marks on the face? Claws maybe. I’ve got a man calling police stations located on the other Finger Lakes to see if they have any record of a similar attack.” He looked at Grimshaw. “Anyone around here who would be the village historian?”

Grimshaw stared across the lake. “The residents of Silence Lodge probably could tell you exactly what did this, but I doubt the Sanguinati will be that forthcoming.”

“Why not?” Hargreaves asked.

“Because they’re close-lipped about the Elders who live on this land—and in the lake.”

All the color leached out of Kipp’s brown face. “Gods. We went swimming last night. Dane and his missus were bitching about us using that general shower area off the kitchen, so we all went down to the lake to rinse off and cool off. We could have—”

“Not likely,” Grimshaw said. “I went swimming here too. Julian Farrow and I saw something out there—just a glimpse—but there was no indication we would be attacked.” A sudden thought made his heart give one hard bump. “Except we were out here swimming when Vicki DeVine was still in charge of The Jumble.”

He shook his head. Vicki was an important factor but not the only factor. “There hasn’t been a lot of downtime since I got here, but I did take a quick look at the reports that were filed at the station. An attack like this would have been reported. If nothing else, there would be a missing persons report or a copy of a DLU form. But people go fishing on the lake all the time. They swim at the public beach. If this had happened before, Ineke Xavier wouldn’t have proposed bringing her guests here for beach parties.”

Activity behind him. Angry voices.

Marmaduke Swinn and Tony Amorella were squaring off with some of Bristol’s CIU team, while Vaughn, Darren, and Yorick Dane were yelling and creating . . . a distraction.

Grimshaw looked around. “Where are Reynolds and Hammorson?” They could be at the main house. The CIU team could be taking statements. Or they could be . . .

A motor turned over, a sound coming from the other side of the dock.

Crap!

Grimshaw ran for the dock. “Reynolds! You can’t put a motor in this lake!”

“The police aren’t doing anything, so we’ll handle this,” Vaughn said, stepping in front of Grimshaw, getting in the way of him stopping those fools before someone—something—noticed them. “Going to make some chum.”

Hammorson backed away from the dock, then headed for the middle of the lake, motor roaring. Reynolds stood braced against the windscreen, a shotgun aimed at the water, ready to shoot anything that surfaced in response to the sound of the motor.