Stranger in the Lake(13)
Micah lies on his belly and snaps away, scooting up and down the dock for different angles.
“No scrapes or cuts that I can tell,” he says when he’s done, handing the camera back. “What I can see of her looks intact. Skin has a grayish cast, but that could just be from the water temperature. We won’t know for sure until we haul her out.”
“What does that mean?” When Paul doesn’t answer, I glance over. “Does he think maybe she did drown?”
“Maybe,” he says, but he doesn’t sound at all convinced. I pull one hand from my pocket, slide it around his freezing one and hold on tight.
Micah pushes to a stand, and he and Sam stand there for a minute, discussing the best way to proceed. Micah wants her out of the water, like yesterday, but I don’t see how. There are all sorts of obstacles in the way—the boat, the dock posts and floats, a patch of alligator weed Paul thought he got rid of last summer, spiky fingers reaching up from the water. There’s no direct way to get her on land without going around one of them. Micah eyes the distance to shore, a good twenty feet, debating the flattest, most gradual spot.
Finally, they come up with a plan.
Paul is to let the boat drift far enough away from the dock to not disturb her, then start the motor and steer over to Micah’s dock. Once the boat is gone, Micah will lower himself into the water, swim her as gently as possible to shore and slide her onto an awaiting tarp.
“That lake must be, what—fifty degrees?” I raised a wild-haired brother known up and down these hills for his talent for making dumbass decisions, but not even Chet would dip a toe in the lake this morning. Not in this weather, and not on purpose.
Micah shrugs. “More like forty, probably. And that’s what the wet suit and towels are for, so I can dry off as soon as I get out.”
“That’s crazy. You’re crazy. Even in a wet suit you’re going to freeze to death. You’re literally going to get hypothermia and die.” I look to Paul for support, but he lifts a shoulder. “Excellent. So you’re both completely out of your minds, and now we’re gonna have two dead bodies instead of one.”
“I’ll be fine,” Micah says.
Paul backs him up on it. “Seriously, Charlotte. He’ll be fine. In and out before you know it.”
I shake my head, roll my eyes. “What is it with you Southern men? Y’all aren’t made of rubber, you know. You don’t have nine lives.”
Something catches Micah’s attention at the top of the hill, and I turn to spot two more uniformed officers, new recruits the chief poached last month from the county sheriff’s office, hustling around the side of the house. They’re young, no older than me, which means they’re probably straight out of police academy. I wonder how many crime scenes they’ve worked. How many dead people they’ve seen. They’re about to get on-the-fly, on-the-job training.
Sam pulls a radio from a clip on his belt and calls up to them, rattling off a list of supplies they are to bring down from the cars.
He slides the radio back onto his belt. “Charlie, if you don’t mind, the towels?”
“I’ll get them,” Paul offers. “I need to grab the boat keys anyway.” He turns for the house, kicking into an easy jog up the stairs.
“There has to be a better way,” I say to Micah.
Micah shoots me a sideways look. “If you think of one, I’m all ears.” He sighs, and his voice softens. “Look, Char, I appreciate your concern, but somebody out there is wondering where this woman is and why she hasn’t called home to check in. My goal is to get her back to them as quickly and honorably as possible, while also preserving whatever evidence she’s still carrying. Even if that means I have to freeze my balls off to do it.”
He’s right, of course. If that were Chet or Paul under that dock, I’d want someone to cradle his head and swim him to shore, too. And I’d want him to do it now.
“You’re a good man, Micah Hunt. Crazy, but good.” I step back and let him get to work.
7
The recruits make it down the hill first, arms heavy with equipment and supplies.
Chief Hunt is here, too, an older, paunchier, grumpier version of Micah pacing the shoreline, barking out orders at anybody who comes within hollering distance. The chief’s temper is well-known in these parts, a micromanaging control freak who terrorizes his staff with shouted commands and icy stares and doors slammed hard enough to fall off their hinges.
I’m sitting on a backyard step, watching the activity farther down the hill, when Paul sinks down next to me. A thick stack of towels is pressed to his chest. “Oh, good, you brought the big ones.”
The ones we use on the boat or take to the beach, the ones I can wind three full times around my torso. They’re like blankets, big enough for Micah’s bulk, and plenty warm, too.
Paul studies my face. The wind whips the bare branches on the trees above his head, making an awful clacking sound, like a wind chime made of bones. His gaze dips to my stomach, toasty under the goose down. “You okay? I’m worried about you.”
“Because of Sam?”
Paul tilts his head, solemn. “This isn’t your fight. It’s mine. You shouldn’t let him get to you.”
“I married you, which means it is my fight, and Sam’s always been a sore loser. He needs to let this grudge go, especially when he’s standing in your backyard.”