Stranger in the Lake(49)

“He was here, Paul. Jax, I mean. He was on the back deck.”

Paul’s fingers pause on the terry cloth, and his gaze whips to mine. “He was? What for?”

“I don’t really know. He said he’d seen you—he knew about the cut on your forehead—and he wanted me to know he didn’t put it there. He told me to watch my back.” Paul’s face pales around the bruises and cuts. “Paul, why are you protecting him?”

“Because he didn’t do it. He’s not the reason Sienna ended up in the lake.”

He says it without hesitation, without pausing first to think, which is how I know he’s telling me the truth—or at least his version of it.

But he also said it too quickly to notice the slipup until it was already out there, slithering in the space between us. Or maybe he saw it on my face, in the way I flinched at her name. Because how would he know? The police still haven’t released her name and I haven’t told him.

“That’s what Jax called her,” Paul says. “He told me her name was Sienna, right before he punched me in the face.”

It’s possible he’s telling the truth. But still. The words you don’t say are sometimes just as meaningful, just as deafening, as the ones you do.

“Why do you think Jax will end up dead if you share his whereabouts with Micah?”

“Because Micah will tell Chief Hunt and Chief Hunt will...” Paul shakes his head, and that muscle ticks in his jaw again. “Jax just wants to be left alone, and he doesn’t like feeling caged. If the cops find him, if they point their guns at his head and shout for him to hit the ground, he’s going to get himself killed.”

“That seems a little extreme.”

“There are all sorts of extenuating circumstances here. Things you don’t understand.”

Another flicker sparks in my chest, more at his tone than his actual words, and I push off the wall, moving to the center of the room. Yes, I knew there were circumstances. No, I don’t understand them. But only because Paul likes to shove things into a box and bury them at the back of his brain, never to be thought or spoken of again. And he doesn’t have to say it like that, like my lack of knowledge is because I’m stupid.

“I don’t understand, Paul, because you never talk about it. You’ve told me nothing about your friendship with Jax, about how it ended, about whatever awful thing happened to turn him into Batty Jax. And don’t tell me the awful thing didn’t concern you, because I can see by the look on your face whenever his name comes up that it did.”

“How do I look?”

“Sad. Guilty.”

He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to. His silence tells me I’m right. He wraps the towel around his waist, tucking in the corner so it hangs low on his hips, and leans into the mirror. “Jesus, I look like Frankenstein’s monster.”

I roll my eyes at the obvious attempt to change the subject. “Chet talked to Wade, and Wade said Sienna was asking about you. Not Jax. You.”

Paul frowns at me in the glass. “Wait—who’s Wade?”

“He works at the B and B.”

“Sienna asked this Wade person about me? What about me?”

“I don’t know. Where to find you, I guess. He didn’t give many details.”

Paul shakes his head. “That...that doesn’t make any sense. She stopped me because of my coffee, and she didn’t ask me anything that was even remotely personal. We certainly didn’t introduce ourselves, not until you came along. You’re the one who said the name Keller, remember.”

“Okay, but that’s not how Wade’s telling it. If he told Chet, he’s told everybody else, too, including the police. Sam was already asking where we were yesterday morning from 4:00 a.m. on.”

Paul pulls his toothbrush from a drawer, squirts it with toothpaste. “What did you tell him?”

“That your alarm went off at six.”

His gaze finds mine in the mirror. “You lied for me?”

His words set off an electrical storm in my chest, and the big ball of emotion I’ve been carrying around for two days bursts into flame. “What was I supposed to say, Paul? You left me here to deal with everything, and I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead or what the hell was happening. And then somebody skinned that animal on the back deck and—”

“Wait. What?”

I nod. “An opossum on the back deck. It was disgusting. And when the snow melts tomorrow it’s going to really smell. They also wrote something awful in the snow.”

Paul dumps his toothbrush in the sink and turns to face me. “What did they write?”

“KILLER, in blood. Enough to have come from a cow, according to Micah. I’ve been living in lockdown, terrified whoever killed that poor woman is coming back for me.” I study Paul’s face, the tight skin around his mouth, the way the color has drained from his cheeks again. “What?”

“I’m just... Jesus, Charlotte, I’m so goddamn sorry. I didn’t want any of this to touch you.” He says it quietly, purposefully, like he’s been practicing the words in his head for days.

“Any of what, Paul? That woman was asking about you. You go on an early-morning run around the same time she slides into the lake, and you come back covered in mud and cuts. They pull her out from under our dock, you lie about knowing her, and then you disappear.”