Stranger in the Lake(52)
But also, memories of her French-braiding my hair, her fingernails tickling my scalp. Of clomping around the trailer in her favorite boots, the hot thrill when she’d gloss my lips or spritz me with her perfume. There, she’d say when she was done. Now you’re prettier than me. In the space between her words, I understood: pretty can get you a man. Pretty can snag you a better provider than your father.
Stop.
Maybe it’s the hormones, but the memories suddenly sting more than they used to, a hot poker pang that throbs for hours. I banish the woman from my thoughts and step into the shower.
Paul’s return last night conjured up more questions, especially after my middle-of-the-night peek into the safe. More than once, I considered marching into the bedroom, shaking him awake and demanding some answers. Why Pitts Cove? What happened with Jax, really? I try to think about it logically, to shove aside my feelings for Paul and examine everything with clinical detachment, but I can’t. I’m too emotionally entangled.
In the kitchen, I stand for a moment at the window, looking out at the lake. In the few months I’ve lived here, it’s become a morning ritual, watching the sun climb up the trees, golden flashes that light up like a sea of stars. Most of the snow is gone now, only an occasional white patch in the shaded spots—down by the dock, under the trees, a big smudge on the opposite shore.
No, not snow. A boat.
Micah and his crew, I think, except...
I lean into the glass and squint. Pointy bow, beefy hull, deadrise sharper than usual—a boat made for water sports. Even from here, even in the dim morning light, I can see there’s no one at the helm or hanging over the sides.
It’s Paul’s boat. Unmanned and adrift—or at least it was, until its draft got caught in the rocky shore. It’s sitting all wrong in the water, pitched at a sharp angle.
“Shit.”
I think back to yesterday, when I slid the boat up to Micah’s dock. By the time I climbed out, Chet had already tied two lines, but since I didn’t know how long the boat would be there, I made him tie up two more. The spring lines were good and tight, the slipknots solid. I checked. There’s no way that boat could have gotten loose, not without someone helping it.
Shit shit shit.
I grab the keys from the mudroom hook and run down the stairs, flipping on lights as I go. “Chet? Chet, wake up.” I rap a knuckle on the guest room door, open it a crack. “Somebody untied the boat and set it adrift.”
His groan comes from the larger room behind me, from a lump on the far end of the couch. “Go away. It’s not morning.”
“Did you hear me? I said the boat’s loose. It’s caught in the rocks on the other side of the lake.”
The lump moves, and he lifts his head. “For real?”
“For real. Get dressed. I need you to hike around the lake and bring it back.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now.” I toss him a sweatshirt hanging inside out over the back of the couch. “And hurry, before it gets really stuck.”
His grumbling is muffled as he pulls the hoodie over his face. “You do know it’s not actually my boat, right? If anything, you’re the one who should be traipsing through a freezing lake to bring it back, not me. I’m just the houseguest.” He shoves his feet in his jeans and hauls himself off the couch. He steps into his boots with a sigh. “You owe me for this.”
I hand him the keys, disarm the system and shove him out the door. “I love you. I’ll make it up to you. Now go.”
I head up the stairs, ticking off the incidents in my mind. The opossum. The boat. The snapped branches and planted footprints Paul told me about last night. None are exactly life-threatening, unless you happen to be an opossum. Still, it was a targeted threat, and Micah agreed. If he peeks out his back window and sees the boat, I already know what he’ll say: Batty Jax, at it again.
In the kitchen, I tune the television to a local channel, dropping the last bagel in the toaster on my way to the fridge. Not much there other than yesterday’s leftovers stacked in clear Tupperware containers. I’m working on a grocery list on the back of an envelope I dig from the drawer when the chief’s mountain twang, thick as paste, fills the air. My fingers freeze on the pen.
“...update on the investigation up to this point. Early Wednesday morning, November 20, at sometime before 7:00 a.m., a Lake Crosby citizen discovered the body of an adult female, floating in the waters of Lake Crosby. The police were called to the scene, as was a unit of underwater crime investigators from Asheville, divers trained in both body and evidence recovery. The body was removed, then transferred to the medical examiner at Harris Regional for autopsy and processing.”
Oof. No mention of Micah and the Lake Hunters by name, an intentional slight. I think about Micah watching on the big TV in his kitchen, and I can just about hear his fist punching through the wall.
“The ME has determined the official cause of death to be drowning, but also informed us that the victim had a contusion to the head that preceded her death. This contusion would have rendered her unconscious, and we’re working under the assumption that it was not an accident. To be clear, folks, this is a murder investigation.”
He pauses as a murmur works its way through the crowd.
“Though I appreciate the public’s need for information, I am not prepared to discuss the details of this investigation at this time. The only thing I can tell you is that we’ve identified the victim as Sienna Anne Sterling, age twenty-nine, from Westerville, Ohio. Her family has been notified, and they ask you to please give them space and privacy during this difficult time. Thank you.”