Stranger in the Lake(69)

The bad thing is there’s no hiding from the two strangers, peering through the glass.

A man and woman, both in their late fifties or early sixties, their faces far too grim and somber for a sunny Saturday afternoon. They could be anyone, and yet my gut knows exactly who they are.

I freeze at the edge of the foyer, taking in the woman’s white-blond hair, her birdlike build, her full lips and pale skin behind dark sunglasses. She clutches flowers to her chest, a spray of big white buds that falls over an arm.

Funeral flowers.

I open the door, and she nudges her husband with an elbow.

“My name is John Sterling, and this is my wife, Sharon. We’re looking for the owner of this house. I understand his name is Mr. Keller?”

He has an accomplished air about him—a doctor, an accountant, the owner of a chain of shoe stores—but with clenched fists and a sharp, angry edge. Grief in the form of fury, and I don’t blame him. If I were in his shoes, standing on the doorstep where my daughter washed up dead, I’d be pissed off, too.

“His name is Paul. He’s my husband. I’m sorry but he’s not here.” Neither is Chet, and I wish he was because I am not emotionally prepared for this. I’m not sure I’m equipped to comfort grieving parents on my own. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

The last sentence is the one I should have led with, I realize too late.

“Thank you,” Mr. Sterling manages with a jerky nod. His face is grim and rock hard. “Were you...were you here when it happened?”

I nod, trying not to wince at the memory of her pale skin, that one glass-blue eye staring into the sky. “I’m the one who found her. I called the police.”

Mrs. Sterling gasps, whipping off her glasses and staring across the pavement like I’m her daughter’s savior. Like I am the one who rescued her from the lake, except that I didn’t. By the time I got to her, she was already dead.

I stare into eyes the color of a weak sky, just like her daughter’s.

It’s to her that I make the offer. “Would you like to come inside?”

  The Sterlings step across the threshold and pull up short, planting their shoes at the edge of the foyer rug and staring with obvious shock. Not at the house, at the size of the place or the way it looks ripped from a design magazine, but at the lake, glittering on the other side of the plate glass.

Mrs. Sterling sees it and bursts out crying. She clutches the flowers to her chest and just lets loose, a continuous sobbing that racks her body so hard I worry she might pass out. Her husband stands next to her, both hands shoved in his pants pockets, glaring out the window in grim silence.

I give them space, shimmying my cell from my back pocket, and text Chet.

OMG the Sterlings are here. Where are you?
Three little dots dance around at the bottom of my screen, and then:

Still in town. Want me to come home?
My gaze creeps to the Sterlings, lit up golden by the setting sun, and I wonder what Chief Hunt has told them. I wonder if they’ve already been to the B and B, if they’ve talked to Piper. If they’ve heard what their daughter was doing on her last days in Lake Crosby...or more specifically, who. My thumbs fly over the keyboard.

Actually, prob better if you stay away. Wait there until I give the all clear.
“Chief Hunt said she was under the dock.” Mr. Sterling turns away from the glass, and for a split second, his expression matches his tone, glittering with accusation. As if I was the one to drag his daughter up from her watery grave like some kind of lake monster. He squints, watching me from across the room. “Is that true?”

His wife gives him a pleading glance over her shoulder. “Hush, John. I can’t do this right now.”

I slip the phone in my pocket and reach for the teapot, settling it on a tray with some cups and saucers.

“When, then? When would you like to do it? That lake out there was our daughter’s final resting place. It’s the reason we’re here.” His face is purple and his voice a cold, hard slap. I don’t blame him for being furious, but his anger seems more than a little misplaced. His wife didn’t do anything. She’s suffering, too. And clearly, she’s in need of some comforting.

He aims his animosity at me. “I need to know where she was exactly.”

Mrs. Sterling shakes her head, clapping her free hand over her ear. “I don’t... I can’t hear this right now.”

“I need to know, Sharon.”

“John, please.”

Chet and I are used to heated arguments. We’re used to slamming doors and loud voices and cuss words shouted over our heads. We’ve learned the best way to not get beaned with a plate is to stand still and keep quiet, and fade into the background.

But there’s no background here. Not in a house that’s basically one giant room, not with two grieving parents looking to me for answers.

“You should know that they handled your daughter with the utmost care. Especially the lead diver, Micah. He’s our neighbor, and a dear friend.” I don’t mention he’s Chief Hunt’s son, as that would only muddle things that have no business being muddled. I think of how he refused to bring her to shore any other way than by doing it himself, by plowing through the ice-cold water, even though he knew his father would refuse to give him any credit. “He could not have been more gentle.”

Mrs. Sterling is crying again, dabbing at her eyes with a sleeve. I eye the drooping roses in her other hand, the buds fainting over the crook of her arm. “Here. Let me put those in water.” I gather up the flowers, and she doesn’t protest.