Stranger in the Lake(11)
“What happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Are you?” He takes me in with wide, bulging eyes. “I saw the cars outside and I thought...” A tremor makes its way up his spine, and he slumps against a table, leaning on it with a filthy palm. “Jesus.”
Paul’s reaction might seem extreme, if he hadn’t been here before, returning from a run to find a horde of cops fishing a body out of the water. Only the last time it happened, it was summer and the body belonged to his wife. She drowned during an early-morning swim.
“Are you okay?” I say, moving closer. “That cut looks—”
The words dissolve into a squeal when he snatches me to him, jerking me against his body, hard with cold and fear. “You could have warned me, asshole,” he says to Micah over my head. “Those cars out there about gave me a heart attack.”
I press my palm to Paul’s chest, where his heart thumps hard against the skin. His remark may have carried a hint of jest, but his tone didn’t. It came out sharp and angry, but Micah doesn’t take the bait. That’s another great thing about Micah Hunt; he never takes the bait—except maybe with his father.
His voice is calm and matter-of-fact. “I had my father send someone out looking for you, but I’m guessing by your reaction they didn’t have much luck. Take your phone with you next time like a normal person, so people can reach you in case of an emergency.”
Paul’s eyes narrow on the last word. He releases me, sending me a look heavy with meaning.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I smile to let him know I understand he’s not just asking about me. He’s asking about the baby, too. I push up on my toes, leaning in for a better look at the cut, dirty and oozing fresh blood down his brow. “Honey, this looks bad. It’s deep, and it needs to be cleaned.”
“It’s nothing. It barely hurts.” He dabs a sleeve to his brow, winces when it comes away red.
Micah steps closer, squinting at Paul’s forehead. “Charlotte’s right. That looks like it could use some iodine and a stitch or two. What happened?”
“The trails were icy, and I slid straight down Fontana Ridge. Looks worse than it is. Somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Paul says, losing patience. “What’s the big emergency?”
“Charlotte found a body under your dock.”
It’s not how I would have delivered the news, so abrupt and matter-of-fact. Paul should be sitting down first. He should get a warning that what’s coming is bad, that it will reopen old and aching wounds. As Paul’s best friend, Micah should know this.
Paul doesn’t blink. He looks at me, then back to Micah. “Who?”
It’s the question all of Micah’s earlier ones were leading up to, the one he didn’t get to ask before Paul busted through the door. Who is the stranger in the lake?
“I don’t know,” I say, my gaze bouncing between the two men. “When I found her, she was facedown. All I could see was her back and hair. It’s long and blond.”
Which could describe half the women in this town. Fewer when you add in the dead woman’s build—thin, petite—but still. I can think of a dozen possible names, right off the top of my head, and that’s not even taking into account all the tourists who come through this place. It’s no longer high season, the summer and fall months so busy you can’t get a table at the restaurants in town, but the winter is still bustling. Floridians, mostly, traveling north in search of some snow. That woman down there could be anyone.
“Could it have been an accident?” I say, my mind scrambling for an explanation. “I mean, it’s too cold for her to have been swimming, but maybe she was boating and fell over the side. Maybe she just...I don’t know...hit her head or something and drowned.”
Micah’s eyes fix on mine, and they almost seem to glow. They probe into mine like searchlights, slamming me with the message he doesn’t say aloud.
Not an accident.
She didn’t drown.
And that’s when I feel it. The bottom opens up, the earth drops out from under me. I think about who could have put her there and why, and my skin tingles with dread. Something very bad has happened, right outside our door.
Again.
I look at Paul, and he feels it, too. “Show me.”
6
Paul and I march down the back steps in silence, our coats pulled tight against a mean kind of cold, one that doesn’t typically happen until months from now, with gusting winds and temperatures stuck in the teens. The kind of cold that chafes the skin and burns the inside of the nose.
Above our heads, a thick layer of overstuffed clouds spits an occasional spell of swirling snow, dousing the mountain’s browns and greens and golds. My gaze tracks to the lake, churning silver peaks on water that’s a gloomy, bottomless black. I think of the poor woman under the dock and shiver.
He pulls me to a stop on the last step. “Are you okay with this?” He tips his head to the lake, white clouds whirling from his lips. “With seeing her again, I mean. I can clear things with Sam if you don’t think you can handle it. You don’t have to be here.”
The truth is, I’m not looking forward to seeing her again. It was bad enough the first time, and the closer we get to the dock, the more the presence of her lodges underneath my ribs, gnawing at me from the inside. Honestly, I’m barely holding my shit together.