Stranger in the Lake(33)

KILLER.

I gasp and slam the front door.

A prank. A horrible, awful, vile prank. Who would do such a thing?

The answer slices through my mind: plenty of people. Half the town already thinks it. It’s probably a miracle that this is the first time.

Except...

I race down the hall to the laundry room, launching myself onto the washing machine like a gymnast. I sit on my knees and press my face to the window, craning to get a better look. The red letters have bled into the snow, carving out miniature trenches like cherry-flavored syrup in a snow cone.

My gaze scans the footprints. Whoever did it came this way, around the side of the house in the direction of the stairs. Which means he was close—too close. He might still be outside.

I hop down and race back to the kitchen, sending up a silent thanks I’m not alone in the house. I lean over the railing to holler down the stairs. “Chet, get your butt up here. I need you.”

The lower level stays dark and silent. No voices, no movement. If Chet’s down there, he’s still sound asleep.

I pull up Micah’s number on my cell. His phone rings once before his voice pushes through a background of white noise, like he’s got me on car speakerphone. “Hey, Charlotte. What’s up?”

“There’s somebody outside the house. One set of footprints, big ones.”

I creep to the mudroom and press my face against the window, my gaze roaming the deck. There’s snow, lots of it, a perfect fluffy carpet someone just walked through. I jiggle the knob, breathing a sigh of relief to find it locked up tight.

“Could be Sam or one of the cops, coming to finish up something he forgot yesterday. Weather’s not ideal, but—”

“They’re not from a cop.” I glue my gaze to the back window, but all I see is a snowy haze. Either he’s gone, or he’s tucked just out of sight. “Whoever it was wrote something awful in the snow. He rang the bell, then took off before I could open the door. The footprints look fresh. I’m pretty sure he’s still nearby.”

“What’d he write?” Chet’s voice comes from right behind me.

I shriek, whirling around to find him in nothing but cutoff sweatpants, washed a soft, grubby gray. His hair is a ball of frizz and tangles, licked up on one side like a lopsided Mohawk.

I plant my palm in the middle of his chest and shove. “You asshole. You scared the crap out of me.”

“I noticed.” He scratches a hip and leans his face into the glass, looking out on the falling snow. “What’s going on? Who’re you talking to?”

But it’s Micah’s voice, all business coming through the phone, that I concentrate on. “Stay inside. I’m turning around, but I’m halfway to town and the roads are bad. It’s gonna take me a minute.”

More like seven or eight. Maybe longer, depending on if he’s made it across Knob Hill or not, and assuming his truck can make it back over. At the first spit of snow, even four-wheel drives like Micah’s have trouble keeping their tires between the lines of Lake Crosby’s winding roads, and not even a tank could make it down our driveway. He’ll have to park at the top and walk down—another solid minute.

“Is the alarm on?”

“Yes. You told me yesterday to set it.” I glance at the alarm pad to be sure. A red light tells me it’s armed. “Alarm’s on,” I tell Micah, jiggling the mudroom door handle for a second time, “and the back door’s locked.”

“Check the other doors. Windows, too. I’ll stay on the line. If you see anything, somebody in the yard or more footprints, I want to know about it.”

The urgency in Micah’s tone burns like ulcers in my belly. I order Chet to check the doors and windows downstairs, then race from doors to windows back to doors, rattling knobs and inspecting locks. By the time I return to the kitchen, Chet is coming up from the lower level. He gives me a sarcastic thumbs-up on his way to the espresso machine.

“Okay, we’re locked up tight.”

“Good. I’m on Pine Creek Road.” On a normal day, in normal conditions, a two-minute drive. “Put Paul on.”

“Paul’s not here. It’s just me and Chet.”

A pause. “Can you get to Paul’s gun?”

“His gun, seriously?”

Chet turns around, his brows disappearing into his shaggy hair, but I shake my head. Like every good country boy, Chet knows how to handle a gun, but only in theory. He’s too clumsy, much too unpredictable. I can see him now, trudging through the snow in his cutoff sweatpants and a pair of Paul’s snow boots. It would be like handing a butcher knife to a toddler.

I shake my head again. “No. No guns.”

Chet rolls his eyes and turns back to his coffee.

“Put on some clothes,” I whisper, frowning.

He ignores me, digging through the cabinet for a mug.

“You live in the middle of nowhere,” Micah says. “You should know how to use a gun.”

“I know how to use a gun, Micah. I just don’t want to.”

“Because she was at the receiving end of one once,” Chet hollers toward the phone, not helpfully. He knows I don’t like to talk about it, and it was twice, actually. The first by some scumbag who thought our father owed him money, and the second time at the gas station, a meth head who cleaned out the register.