Stranger in the Lake(70)
“Does this Micah person know how Sienna got in there?” Mr. Sterling says, following me into the kitchen. “Do the police have a suspect?”
I lean the flowers in a pitcher I pull from the shelf and settle in the sink, then fill it with a couple of inches of water. “That’s a question for Chief Hunt, I’m afraid. I’m not up on the latest with the investigation. I only know what I saw on TV.”
Another lie, of course—the latest in a long string of them. But it doesn’t seem like a good idea to be spouting off his questioning of Chet or any of what Micah told me about Sienna’s jewelry, or that I saw her scarf hanging from Jax’s neck. Better to let the police decide which information they want to share.
“They won’t tell us anything,” Mr. Sterling fumes. “What kind of operation doesn’t tell the parents what they’re doing to find their daughter’s killer? This is ridiculous. It’s bullshit.”
It is bullshit, and I’m pretty sure his question was rhetorical.
I fill the teapot with hot water, drop in a bag of Lipton and carry everything over to the couches. “Please, let’s sit down.”
I point Mrs. Sterling to a couch, but the problem with a house that’s built around lake views is that there’s not a seat in the house without one. She sinks onto the cushion facing the kitchen, giving her a clear shot of Micah’s dock farther up the cove, but at least from where she’s sitting, she can’t see ours.
I sit at the opposite end, busy myself with the arranging of cups on the coffee table.
Mr. Sterling has too much nervous energy to sit. He paces along the edge of the carpet. “I told her to let it go. I told her this podcasting business was dangerous. If somebody got away with murder all those years ago, you better believe they’ll murder again.”
“I saw her Twitter feed, all the stuff about Bobby—Skeleton Bob. Why did she think he was murdered?”
“Because of the necklace.”
“John.” Mrs. Sterling flashes a glance in my direction. “We’re not supposed to talk about the necklace.”
I sink onto a chair and shuffle through my memories of the weeks after Bobby and his Camaro emerged from the depths, dripping in mud and gunk. After two recreational divers swam up on Bobby’s car, Micah and his boys brought it to the surface and turned the accidental discovery into a walking advertisement for his company. It was on every front page and television screen in the Southeast, and made Lake Hunters into a household name. Thanks to Bobby Holmes, Micah became a local celebrity.
But I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve read all the articles. None of them mentioned a necklace, and Sienna wasn’t wearing one. I tick off the jewelry Micah told us he’s combing the bottom of the lake for—hoop earrings, a pearl bracelet and watch, a ring. He didn’t mention a necklace. I’m certain of it.
“That necklace got our daughter killed. It’s the reason Sienna is dead.” He is pacing now, in long strides perpendicular to the couches, back and forth across the carpet. “I will shout about that thing in the town square if I have to. I won’t shut up until they find who did this to our daughter.”
His wife frowns. “We don’t know she’s dead because of the necklace.”
He stops abruptly. “Don’t be ridiculous. That necklace is a clue. Sienna always said that necklace was going to make her famous, and it did, didn’t it? Our daughter is famous, but it’s because she’s dead. Because she was murdered.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What necklace, and how did she connect it to Skeleton Bob? Because there are thousands of people on the lake every summer. It could have come off a skier’s neck last decade, or somebody could have flung it out of a car ten minutes ago.”
“Because of Jeremy—he’s the diver who found the car. He took the necklace from the car and hung it around his neck. He wore it like some kind of trophy. But Sienna saw the engraving on the back, and she traced it to here, to the lake. That’s when he told her what really happened.”
I sit very still, a freezing cold finger climbing my spine. How many necklaces are there in the world? Billions, probably. But a necklace she could trace to Lake Crosby? What are the odds?
“What did the necklace look like?”
My voice sounds all wrong. Too high, quivering in my skull like an airplane going down because surely, surely they’re not talking about the same necklace.
“A dog tag with the town’s coordinates,” Mrs. Sterling says, and her words leach to the lining of my stomach. “You know. The intersection of longitude and latitude smack in the center of the lake. It was gold.”
Not just gold. Solid, weighty twenty-four-karat gold. Only the best for Diana’s boys.
Fresh tears are brimming in Mrs. Sterling’s eyes, and she buries her face in her hands. “I just can’t believe this is happening. We made it through childhood without her choking on a marble. She didn’t get shot up at school or die in some fiery crash when she got her license. Every time we reached this big milestone in her life, I thought, whew, we made it through another phase alive.” She looks up, her cheeks slick with tears. “And now this. How did this happen? Mrs. Keller, do you have children?”
I shake my head, try not to throw up. “No.”
“Well, be glad. Being a parent is a constant worry. It never goes away, ever. Not even when they’re grown and gone. It’s the burden of being a mother.”