Stranger in the Lake(18)
Jax shook his head. “Still looking.”
He wasn’t looking. The last summer before college, and the only thing he could get even remotely excited about was getting the hell out of this place. Sixty-six days until freshman orientation at Duke University, two hundred and eighty-eight miles of space between there and here. Jax couldn’t wait.
“I’m sure you’ll find something soon,” she said, leading him into the kitchen. “How’s your father?”
“He’s fine.” It was what everybody wanted to hear when they asked that question, but not Mrs. K. She stopped walking to give him a look, and he amended, “He’s a robot. My sister’s a Jesus freak. And they think I’m the one having difficulty adjusting.”
Her expression softened. “Everybody grieves in their own way, sugar. There’s no right or wrong to it, just...different. I realize it’s difficult, but try to remember that they’re hurting, too.” She reached out, patted his arm. “I’ll talk to your father and see if I can’t get him to be a little more supportive.”
The idea of Mrs. K dressing down his father made Jax laugh out loud, even though he was torn between amusement and hope she could actually do something to fix it.
He pointed to the music thumping on the ceiling. “Is that Paul?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’s Paul. Tell him to turn it down, will you? Oh, and here.” She grabbed three Cokes from the fridge, shoved the icy cans at his chest along with a bag of chips from the pantry. “Take these up with you.”
“Who’s the third one for?”
“Micah.” She sighed. “Do me a favor and try not to kill him.”
9
We’re all the way to the top of the yard before Paul pulls me to a stop. “It’s not what you think.”
I laugh—both at the way the climb has me huffing like I’ve just run a marathon, and at the absurdity of his statement. “Paul, even I don’t know what I’m thinking. Like, zero clue. I just watched you lie to a police officer for reasons I can’t figure out, and then you made it pretty obvious you wanted me to do the same.”
“I didn’t lie. Not technically. I said I don’t know her, and I don’t.” He shakes his head, corrects himself. “Didn’t. I don’t know her name or where she’s from. I don’t know anything about her, other than that she stopped me yesterday to ask where I got my coffee.”
“Well, I lied. I said I’d never seen her before.”
He winces. “You said that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. And I’d really like it if you told me why.”
Paul gazes down the hill to where Micah is huddled with the others at the edge of the crime scene. He stands a good head above the rest, his wet hair gleaming in the light. The cops around him stand rapt, nodding at whatever Micah’s saying. The hometown hero.
“I panicked, okay? When they flipped her over and I saw her face, I panicked. Because you know exactly what would have happened if I’d told them the truth. You know what everyone down there would have thought.”
I do know, because I thought the same thing myself: that’s two dead bodies under the same dock. Four years apart, but still. Surely, surely, that must be a horrible coincidence.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not mad about the lie per se. When you grow up like Chet and I did, stretching the truth is pretty much the same thing as surviving.”
Yes, sir, our mama will be home later tonight. No, sir, we don’t live here alone. We’re children.
But this wasn’t my lie; it was Paul’s.
If only it had been anyone other than Sam who was doing the asking. Anybody else, and maybe I would have come clean. I could have reminded Paul of their fleeting encounter and everyone would have brushed it off as a blunder.
But it wasn’t anyone else; it was Sam. Sam with his pursed lips and squinty eyes. With his silent judgment and retracted friendship. A year ago, he was capping off his workday with a glass of iced tea on my front step, and now suddenly I’m Mrs. Keller.
I reach out, touch Paul’s sleeve. “Paul, who was that woman? What did she say to you yesterday?”
He sighs, a rush of breath I can feel on my forehead. “Can we finish this upstairs? I really could use a shower.”
He really could. The cut on his forehead needs a good, deep scrubbing before it scabs over, and I can’t tell if the mud from his slide down Fontana Ridge is dried or just frozen. He smells like cold and earth and sweat.
I point him to the outdoor staircase that leads to the mudroom—the route we usually take to the house. “I’ll meet you up there. I need to open the downstairs first.”
Paul heads for the stairs, and I step around the outdoor furniture and tap in the code on the pad next to the basement door, a feature I’ve never once used until now. This door is one we usually unlock from inside, sliding the glass panels back into deep pockets that disappear into the walls and turn the indoors into outside. This entire level is made for summertime entertaining—a kitchen and fully stocked bar, a TV screen as big as the wall, his-and-hers powder rooms and a walk-in shower big enough for twenty people. In a stroke of genius, Paul painted the ceilings on the overhang a metallic bronze, so when the sun hits the lake just right, it bathes everything in an orange glow.