Stranger in the Lake(66)
“Oh my God. Really? I saw your face when I told you about the opossum. You didn’t say a word. I had to hear about the skunk from Sam.”
Paul frowns. “Okay, but did he also tell you they caught the guy? Some asshole who confused Katherine’s car for his cheating wife’s. The opossum was meant to scare you, yeah, but the message was intended for me. Micah told me what they wrote in the snow.”
A headache starts up at the base of my brain, a low-slung throbbing of confusion. Paul always has an answer for everything, which means he’s either telling the truth or is exceptionally good at lying. I study his face, the light illuminating him in shadowy patches. The spiderweb of fine lines around his eyes, the deeper ones on either side of his mouth, the way the thinning scab is pulling on his brow. He looks at me, his eyes flecked with gold, and God help me, I want so desperately to believe him.
But I don’t.
“What about Jax? Why have you been helping him all this time?”
“I already told you. I owe him my life. I owe him everything.”
I’ve heard the story multiple times. Jax dragged Paul out of the lake by his ankles when they were kids. It’s why Paul won’t stick a toe in the lake, because he almost drowned, and Jax saved him. “Because he pulled you out of the lake? I know it scared the crap out of you, but—”
“That’s not the time I’m referring to. I’m talking about another time. After Katherine.”
He pauses, and I brace for whatever new bombshell he’s going to drop on me now. All this time I’ve been waiting for him to bring her up, and now here we are, and I’m not sure I want to hear it. This is the scary part.
“Jax was there for me in a way no one else was. Not even Micah. You know how people were looking at me back then. God, like they’re looking at me now, at this dump of a restaurant. Like I’m pretty sure you’re looking at me, too.”
I shake my head, hard, then stop myself. The denial happened automatically, like an old instinct, that instant before I realized that he was right. I have been looking at him like that. “I know you loved Katherine. I know that. But you never talk about her, and then I saw the files on your laptop. The pictures and the other stuff. The finances. Her infertility. And then I hear that all this time, I’ve been living in her house—”
“The ownership was just a technicality. Our accountant suggested we put the house in her name, but I designed it. I laid the first brick. It’s just as much mine as it was hers.”
“And yet I’m just hearing about this now.”
“What do you want me to say, that I loved her? I did. I loved her. I’ve loved her since we were juniors in college. That’s why it is so infuriating that people would think I had something to do with what happened. Yes, I got a lot of money after she was gone, but I’d pay ten times that to have her back.”
Even Paul looks shocked at the words that just tumbled out of his mouth. His back slumps and his face goes apologetic. He smothers my hand in his. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I didn’t want her to die. I certainly didn’t cause it.”
It’s true I don’t know everything about this man, but I know when he feels something deeply. Paul loved Katherine. If she were still here, I wouldn’t be. It’s as simple as that. And honestly, haven’t I known this all along?
The food turns solid in my stomach. “Micah said you were fighting before she died.”
Paul jerks in surprise. “He told you that?”
“No, he told Sam.” I don’t have to add that’s even worse.
Paul goes still, hurt and anger coloring his cheeks along with something else—confusion? He shakes his head, but he won’t quite look me in the eyes. “I mean, sure, we argued now and then, but nothing... Why would Micah say that, and to Sam, of all people? Micah had to have known what he would think.”
“And Pitts Cove?”
“You mean the deeds?” Paul pauses to receive my nod. “I own dozens of lots on multiple coves. It’s no secret that Pitts is one of them. Gwen knows it. The people down at the Register of Deeds know it. Those are public transactions subject to public knowledge, available for anyone who asks. It’s an investment, not some nefarious scheme to...I don’t know...bury some old bones.”
“State Road 32 is the one Bobby Holmes used to drive into the cove.”
“I know that. But Walsh Capital was petitioning the county to reroute 32 away from the lake. Walsh is basically the Walmart of developers. Fast. Flashy. Cheap. In and out like a plague of locusts. They wanted to scoot the road back and plop down a time-share. The kind with prefab condo buildings and a miniature golf course. Paddle boats shaped like swans and sunset lake cruises. Do you know what that would do to a place like Lake Crosby?”
It would turn this town into a tacky resort destination and attract the wrong kind of tourists—the kind looking for cheap lodgings and fast food. The shops in town wouldn’t have customers plunking down hundreds of dollars for Chanel sunglasses, and the restaurants and country clubs and golf courses would sit empty. Everyone, from the business owners to the people scrubbing their floors and toilets, would suffer.
“Seems the town council wouldn’t allow such a thing. You didn’t have to buy up all the land.”
“I didn’t say rerouting 32 was a bad idea. Done right, it would create a big, flat, lakefront parcel accessible by a brand-new four-lane road. In someone else’s hands, someone committed to maintaining the look and feel of Lake Crosby and its surroundings, it could be a gold mine.”