Stranger in the Lake(53)



The chief gathers up his papers to a barrage of shouted questions from somewhere off camera. He tosses an annoyed look past the cameras, but he doesn’t lumber off the dais. One of the voices, high and female, rises to the top like cream.

“Chief Hunt, do you have any suspects?”

The chief rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Can you give us their names?”

“Nope. Next question.” He points at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

“Do you have any indication as to the murder weapon, and has any other evidence been recovered?”

“Yes and yes, but that’s all you’re getting out of me on that subject. Anybody else?”

A jumble of voices, then another feminine tone pushing through: “Sir, it’s been reported that the Lake Crosby home where Ms. Sterling’s body was found is the same home where, four years ago, another woman, the homeowner at the time, drowned under mysterious circumstances. Any chance the two deaths are connected?”

The pen falls from my hand and onto the floor, rolling under the refrigerator. Katherine’s name was on the deed? I’m living in her home, not Paul’s?

I stare at the screen, and I recognize the emotion that flashes across Chief Hunt’s expression, the way it crumples his forehead and drags the corners of his mouth toward the floor. I saw it just last night after Paul returned, on the face of the chief’s son.

He leans onto the podium with both forearms, the papers clutched in a fist. “Young lady, who do you work for?”

“WXPT, Channel 19, from Kingsport, Tennessee.”

“Did y’all hear that? This lady here from WXPT in Kingsport is going about, making reckless suggestions on live television, planting rumors that are guaranteed to take on a life of their own. Everybody listen up, because I’m about to nip this one in the bud. We are investigating the murder of Sienna Sterling and only Sienna Sterling. The Katherine Keller case is closed. Anyone who implies anything otherwise is guilty of spreading fake news.”

And with that he stalks off screen. Press conference over.

The cameraman scrambles, and the shot shimmies into a pretty blonde behind a news desk. She rattles off a quick recap of everything we’ve just heard, then follows it up with a longer list of all the things we don’t know, things like suspect and motive and evidence. She doesn’t mention Katherine’s death again, but it’s there, throbbing between the lines, filling up the empty pauses.

Chief Hunt was wrong about nipping things in the bud; that seed has been planted and watered now. It’s already sprouting roots that are twisting around the truth, strangling it like kudzu. I peek around the wall to the front of the house, where people are milling around up at the mailbox. Reporters, staked out at the top of the drive.

I return to the kitchen, fishing the pen from under the fridge and adding to the list. Katherine. Sienna. Pitts Cove. Micah and Jax and Paul. Lies. So many lies. I look at the words, and my whole body tingles with the feeling the universe is laying something out for me. Giving me important pieces to the puzzle, spreading them out on a table for me to see, but there are too many to sort through. The more pieces I get, the more I can’t tell the edges from the middle. Nothing fits together, nothing makes sense.

My phone buzzes with an incoming text—Paul, telling me he’s picked up his car and will be spending the day visiting build sites. I toss it onto the counter, breathing through a wave of anger. An early doctor’s appointment is one thing. Following it up with more appointments means he’s avoiding me.

The tightness in my chest doesn’t loosen as I stare out over the lake. The sun is good and high now, the sky a cloudless dusty blue, bright against the still-shaded water. Lake to the back, wall of reporters to the front, trapping me in this place. I spot movement down the shoreline, a flash at the far end of the cove. I recognize the lazy gait, those long legs and broad shoulders. Chet, right before he disappears into the pines.

My baby brother was so easy to fall in love with, velvety pink and squirming in that grubby blanket, blinking up at me with those pretty eyes. The first time my mother shoved him in my arms, my heart squeezed and soared at the same time. I remember thinking it strange that love could come in such a tiny bundle.

When it happened again with Paul, falling in love felt as easy as slipping into a warm bath. I gave him my heart, and I saw it as a sign. See? I remember thinking. You are not your mama. Your heart has room for more. I thought loving him made me a decent person. I thought it made me better than her.

I never stopped to think about what turned her love ugly. I never wondered about all the things that could make love flip over to show its underbelly, cold and dark and dangerous. I never considered how easy it might be, or how once love slips away, if it’s possible to ever get it back.

But as I stare out the window at the glittering lake, these are the things I’m thinking about now.

  “Helloooo.” Diana’s voice echoes off the foyer walls, slicing through the weatherman’s chatter on the TV. I hit Mute as the front door closes with a thud. “Anybody home?” Her heels click on the hardwoods.

I’ve lived here long enough to know that she does this, lets herself into her son’s home, treats it like it’s her own. Who knew a big house surrounded by woods could come with zero privacy because Diana could walk in any minute? I shove a smile up my cheeks as she comes around the corner, her arms holding a giant white basket wrapped in cellophane.

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