Stranger in the Lake(47)
“Way to be cool about it, asshole,” Jax muttered, but he was only half-serious, the other half-impressed Micah actually pulled it off.
He strutted with the bottles across the gravel lot, dodging cars and tromping on trash, and Jax smiled despite himself. A lot of the time Micah was insufferable, but all that screaming earlier had loosened up something in Jax’s chest, made the night a little more bearable. Micah was a blowhard, but only a real friend would know what Jax needed at the exact moment he needed it. Jax couldn’t help but love the guy a little for it.
He reached across the passenger’s seat and popped open the door. “What’d you get?”
Micah grinned, wagging the bottles. “Do you prefer your tequila with a worm or without?”
Paul grimaced. “I prefer beer.”
“Quit your bitching, man. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. Besides, liquor’s quicker.”
Jax wasn’t going to argue with that. He started the car and Micah dropped in, passing a bottle to the back seat, tugging off the bag on the second, holding it up so Jax could see. Tequila. Fast and cheap and dirty.
Micah twisted off the cap with a click. “Happy Saturday, gentlemen. Let’s get plastered.”
21
“Are you okay?” I push past the others lined up next to me along the railing and step to the mouth of the stairs. Paul is hunched at the bottom, loosening the laces on his boots. “Do you need help?”
“I’m fine. Just beat.” He kicks off his shoes and glances up.
I gasp. Paul’s face is a horror show. The cut on his brow is angry and infected, a purple scab pushing up from skin that’s swollen and rash-red. Dark stubble has sprouted on his chin and cheeks, and it’s clumped with dirt and grime. One of his eyes is sunken into skin bruised a dark purple; the other is swollen shut.
I rush down the stairs. “Oh my God, what happened to you?”
“You’re lucky he didn’t do worse,” Micah says from above our heads. “He could’ve put a bullet in your head and buried you somewhere we’d never find you, you stubborn moron.”
Paul ignores him, shedding clothes as he comes up the stairs. His coat, two thermal shirts stiff with dirt and sweat, his woolen cap and fleece neck warmer. He drops the filthy pieces to the ground as he heaves his body up, pulling himself up by the handrail. He reeks of blood and sweat.
I give him an arm, and he looks over with a tired smile. “I missed you. Everything okay?”
I’m not entirely sure how to answer this. Everything’s pretty much the opposite of okay, but this also isn’t the best time to sift through all the things that are wrong. Not with an audience. I nod, wrapping my arm around his waist and nudging him up the stairs. “Everything’s fine.”
Of all my lies, this one’s the most absurd.
Paul moves in slow motion, each step an effort when on a normal day he bounds up them by twos and threes. I scan his body for more injuries—wounds pushing through the fabric of his clothes, spots soaked with blood—but there’s nothing but hard muscle and sharp bone, more angular than usual. He’s lost weight, a good five pounds at least.
Micah shakes his head, staring down the staircase in sturdy silence.
“Did you sleep at all?” I say, counting new lines around his eyes and mouth, everything deeper than it was a couple of days ago. Or maybe that’s just the dirt smeared across every inch of him, shoved into every wrinkle. He’s like a charcoal drawing of an old man, black and white and defined.
He tries for a smile, but it comes up a wince. “For about five minutes. I’ll be fine. I just need some food and a bed.”
“On it,” Chet says, pushing away from the banister.
“You better hope you didn’t muck up this investigation,” Micah says. “If you stepped even one foot in that cabin, if you polluted the space with your DNA, then you’ll not just be an idiot but a suspect.”
Paul pauses halfway up the stairs. “He didn’t do it, asshole. Jax wasn’t anywhere near the lake when that woman went in, but I sure do appreciate your sympathy.”
We reach the top, and Paul is panting like he just sprinted up Clingman’s Dome. He elbows past Micah and collapses onto a counter stool with a groan.
“And you know this, how? Because Jax looked you in the eyes and pinkie-promised?” Micah laughs, a harsh sound. “Why are you always such a sucker where that man is concerned? Hasn’t anybody ever told you not to believe the madman in the woods?”
“You know,” Chet says, clutching a loaf of white bread and a peanut butter jar he fetched from the pantry, “Jax and I once had a twenty-minute conversation about the traffic light they put in at Fringe Tree Street. He said roundabouts were a lot safer, and then he spewed off all sorts of statistics to back him up. That dude’s smarter than he likes people to believe, and a lot less crazy.”
Paul shoots Micah a told you so gesture, but he’s too busy glaring at Chet to notice.
“Does Jax have an alibi?” Micah asks, turning back to Paul. “Of course he doesn’t, because he was there. Multiple sightings in town the afternoon before that woman fell into the lake. Multiple witnesses saying she was asking about him, and then her things were found in his cabin. He lied to you again, Paul. You fell for his bullshit, again.”