Stranger in the Lake(51)

The Le Corbusier is what I look for first, running a finger down the spines on the bottom shelf until I find the right one, bloodred with golden lettering. I pull it out and flip it open on the floor.

Paul’s neat handwriting is on the inside flap. “AIA Design & Honor Awards, Atlanta, GA 30319.”

I leave it on the carpet and step to the far shelf, to the row of hardback novels at eye level, moving them into neat piles on the floor. Not the most clever place for a safe, maybe, but Paul always jokes that thieves would be sorely disappointed in the contents anyway—a couple thousand bucks if they’re lucky, but no real valuables.

He told me in case I needed money, but I happen to know that cash is not the only item in here. Important papers and documents—that’s what I’m here for.

I tap in the zip code on the digital pad, tug on the handle, and the lock slides open with a metallic thunk.

In the dim study light, I survey the contents: a gun, a box of bullets, a neat pile of papers and files a few inches thick, stacks of crisp bills held together with green rubber bands, and a small red box, the kind that contains jewelry. I peek inside and find two matching gold bands—one hers and the other his—then shove it to the back of the safe with the cash. I pull out the paper files and carry everything over to the desk.

I flip on the desk light and start at the top, moving through the files one by one. The first is marked Personal, and its contents are exactly what you’d expect: Paul’s birth certificate, Katherine’s death certificate, a copy of our prenup and Paul’s last will and testament, updated to list me as sole beneficiary this past March. I close the file and move on.

The rest of the files are filled with property deeds, grouped together according to their location. For years now, Paul has been buying up lots under PJK Real Estate Investments, LLC, clusters of individual properties that, grouped together, make up a subdivision. It’s a brilliant strategy, one that with minimal investment—a paved road, a fancy sign and a big iron gate at the entrance—more than doubles the value of a lakeside lot. If you’re the investor, all you need is patience and a butt-ton of money. Apparently, Paul has both.

My fingers pause on a file labeled Pitts Cove.

I flip it open and it’s more of the same, property deeds for the land lining the northernmost finger of Lake Crosby. Uninhabitable land, as the cove’s waters are bordered by cliffs, muddy swampland and a curvy state road. There’s no flat spot for Paul to put a subdivision on, and even if there was, nobody would ever plunk down money for a house there. Pitts Cove is rumored to be haunted, thanks to the Camaro filled with human bones those recreational divers accidentally swam up on earlier this year, buried for two decades under a hundred feet of water. Skeleton Bob, the ghost shows dubbed him, and the nickname stuck. There’s not a soul in a hundred miles who would ever want to live there.

And Paul owns it all, every square foot.



22


The rest of the night is filled with dark, sticky dreams. Of Skeleton Bob, doing doughnuts across the silty bottom of Pitts Cove, one bony arm dangling out the window of a rusted-out Camaro. Of Jax, flitting in and out of the waves above his head while Micah circles him like a shark. Of Paul at the water’s edge, hollering for them both to quit goofing around and come on shore.

A buzzing on the nightstand pops my eyes open on a gasp, and I snatch my phone up and silence the ringer, even though I needn’t have bothered. Paul’s already gone. His side of the bed is cool, the goose down comforter flattened like a rumpled snowdrift. I roll onto my back, my hair fanning prettily on the pillow—silk, a gift from Diana. For your hair, dear. So the blowouts will last longer. The time on the screen says 8:47. The text was from Paul, an FYI he’s on the way to the doctor for the cut on his brow.

I lie in the flickering morning light, processing that Paul left without waking me for part two of our conversation. I picture him slipping out of the bed silently, carefully, so as not to wake me. I see him dragging clothes up his battered body in the closet, cringing at the noise of the zippers and snaps, tiptoeing across the carpet, and I’m caught between anger and amazement.

My stomach lurches, its daily morning protest propelling me to my feet. I make it to the toilet just in time, dropping to my knees on the cold tile as the bile surges up my throat.

It’s not like I haven’t dragged the internet enough to know that I’m one of the lucky ones. My morning sickness is mostly confined to the morning, and once I choke down a cracker or slice of dry toast, my stomach typically settles. Mama used to brag about how she puked for nine months straight when she was pregnant with me, so sick she begged the doctors to induce her at six months—though that was also around the time people started giving her dirty looks in the bar, so her motivation wasn’t entirely pure. Still, as much as she hated being pregnant, I’m pretty sure she hated being a mother even more.

I sit on my heels and flush with a shaky hand, my throat burning. If only I could flush my thoughts of my mother, too, watch them swirl like last night’s steak dinner down the drain. I hate the way this pregnancy has cleared new space for her in my brain, allowed thoughts of her to bubble up more and more often.

Sunning in a banged-up folding chair in the yard, her skin slick with baby oil. Smoking cigarette after cigarette while Chet and I run wild, pelting us with the butts she’d fling into the yard. Every time I spot a cigarette stub smeared with lipstick on the ground, I think of her.