Stranger in the Lake(86)
It was Chief who fetched Jax’s car from the trailer park and covered up the tire tracks leading into Pitts Cove. Who made arrangements, quick and dirty, so the case was closed before any witnesses could step forward to say the man who was about to become police chief had a murderer for a son. For twenty years Chief Hunt sat on the truth, not to protect his son but to cover his own ass.
Jax meant what he said. It was a relief to finally tell, to clear Bobby’s black stain from his conscience. Only his confession got a woman killed. Not by Jax’s hands, just like Jax isn’t technically the reason Bobby ended up at the bottom of Pitts Cove.
Jax came so close to shooting Micah out there on that hill. His finger was taut on the trigger when it occurred to him that blowing a hole through Micah’s chest would be a gift, that it would serve him in the same way the woods had been a relief for Jax. Alone and unseen. Ignored. Jax fooled himself into thinking it was some kind of penance, when really it was an escape. When people stop looking at you, do you really exist? Fading away was the only way he knew to survive.
Stupid fucking Micah. Jax will never forgive him for what he did. To Bobby, to Jax and Paul. He can hear Paul crying in the next cell for his beloved Katherine. For Charlotte and their unborn child. The cruelest punishments don’t always come behind bars.
But Jax is still guilty. He still has to pay.
Maybe that’s what his sister, Pammy, means when she says everybody has their own cross to bear, a heavy burden that burns like a thorn in their flesh. Pammy’s thorn chased her to the church, Jax’s into the woods, his solitude a salvation and a damnation at the same time. In the quiet of the forest, Bobby only grew larger, louder in his mind. His laughter echoing in the trees, his shadow lurking behind every log. Every time Jax closes his eyes, it’s Bobby’s face he sees, floating behind the bubbles of his final scream. The desperation, the pleading, the terror when Jax went for Paul instead. The images will stay with Jax for the rest of his miserable life.
There’s a rattling at the door, a chinking of keys against the metal bars. Sam, coming for a statement.
Sacrifice.
Penance.
Atonement.
Justice.
In the end, we all reap what we sow.
38
Two days later, on a crisp Monday afternoon, Diana summons me to her house, a sprawling cottage of stone and shingle on the outskirts of town. She doesn’t tell me what for, or ask if I’ve been to see her son, languishing in the jail cell next to Jax’s. “I’ll explain once you get here” was all she would say, so here I am—too curious for my own good.
The door pops open, and I look back at Chet, watching with one hand draped over the steering wheel of the still-running Jeep, his fingers tapping against the dash. Chet thinks I should wash my hands of the Kellers, let them sort out their own drama.
But like I told him before he dropped me off, I’m not here for Diana or for Paul. I’m not even here for myself.
I’m here for another Keller, the one it is my duty to protect.
“Charlotte, thanks for coming.” The caramel-colored Pomeranian on her arm barks like we’ve never met before, and she gives him a little jiggle. “Dolly, hush. She’ll settle down once you’re inside. Can I get you something to drink?”
I give her the best smile I can muster. “I go by Charlie now.”
Diana seats me on an overstuffed chair in the sun porch, a glass-walled, terra-cotta-tiled room at the back of the house. Paul once told me this is why he became an architect, because of these cramped, low-ceilinged spaces connected by narrow hallways, every inch of it crammed with fussy antiques and complicated decor. It made him yearn for open spaces and clean lines, and I can see why. Even without the sun beating through the windows and Diana a few feet away in the kitchen, gathering refreshments, the room feels stuffy and oppressive.
“I just want to start by saying I’m sorry.” She settles a tray onto the table between us. Peppermint tea and raw honey and a porcelain plate piled with cookies she’ll never touch. “About Micah, I mean. What he did to you and Katherine. I had no idea he was that evil.”
She passes me a steaming cup, but I leave it on the table. “Like father, like son, I guess.”
“I suppose.” She sinks into her chair, scooping up the dog at her feet and settling it on her lap like a fuzzy pillow. “Still. I always thought those crazy stunts of Micah’s were some kind of...I don’t know...misguided attempt to prove his worth to his father—that man has never been nice, and you can quote me on that.” She strokes her dog with a hand, raking the fur with her fingernails. “It’s funny when you think about it. Micah spent his whole life trying to act so brave, when really he was a big ole scaredy-cat. Scared his daddy wouldn’t love him, scared of what people would think if they knew what he did. And in the end, scared to face up to his own sins. He took the coward’s way out. Of all the awful things he did, that one’s the worst.”
I don’t really know what to say to that, so I say nothing at all. I could point out her son lied, too, that he sat on secrets so monumental it cost him two wives, but Diana already knows these things. I press my lips together and wait for whatever it is she brought me here to say.
“Paul says you haven’t been to see him yet.”
“I’m not ready to talk to him.” I lift one shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”