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“Meaning?”
He shrugs again. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
I don’t know, either. The state police? The FBI? Earlier this year, when a couple of recreational divers swam up on a rusted-out Camaro containing a skeleton on the other end of the lake, Chief Hunt’s team got sidelined by state investigators. But that was because the divers called the media before alerting the cops, and some reporter had already connected the body to a decades-old missing persons case. Who are the big guns for a murder case?
I haven’t thought of that skeleton in months, even though for three weeks this past spring, it was all anybody could talk about. We’re a town that’s used to things living and dying underneath us, but the idea of a human trapped under our waters, a person rotting away in a car we didn’t know was there...well, it freaked us way the hell out.
I stare out the window into the fading light, watching shadows dance on the surface of the lake. That’s three back-to-back bodies the water has sent up from the darkness, three mysteries since I’ve lived near Lake Crosby’s shores. Decades apart, but still.
If I were a superstitious person, I’d call it an omen.
I don’t know what time it is when I come downstairs, only that it’s good and dark, the hills and the lake a smudge of blackness on the other side of the glass. Light from the kitchen shines on the back deck boards sparkling with frost, and I think of Paul, freezing in his hammock.
The dishwasher is already going, water humming through the pipes along with the shower under my feet—Chet in the guest bathroom downstairs. I’m cleaning up the last of the dinner mess, wiping down countertops and scrubbing cooked-on grease from the stove, when I feel it—a body stepping onto the back deck. A distinct but subtle vibration on the floorboards under my feet, there and gone in an instant.
I whirl toward the window, thinking about who it could be. Not Paul, who’s not been gone a day. Micah, maybe, swinging by for the promised check-in. Definitely not one of the cops; they left ages ago, and even if one of them came back, he’d ring the doorbell like a proper visitor.
More vibrations, more movement. My gaze tracks to the far end of the glass, bumping up against a wall between me and the stairs. Another ten steps at least. I wait, the footsteps sparking shivers of alarm up my spine.
I’m patting the counter behind me for my phone when it happens. A passing figure at the far corner of the window, a person stepping into view on the deck. A slip of mud-spattered pants, the cuff of a filthy sleeve, and then: Jax. Dirty, shaggy, bedraggled, batty Jax, lit up by the porch light. I feel a stab of relief, and then...fear.
Not fear for my safety, but for Paul’s. That something’s happened to him.
“Is Paul okay?” I say, shouting so he can hear me through the glass. “Did you see him?”
Jax frowns, the skin of his forehead crinkling up like ancient leather. The past twenty years have not been kind, the wind and sun and living outside. He looks old—ten years older than Paul at least.
I stare at him through the thin pane of glass, taking in every detail. His blond beard threaded with pine needles and leaves but otherwise surprisingly clean, the way his big shoulders seem sharp under his Georgia Tech sweatshirt, the hiking boots that look just like the ones Paul claimed to have thrown away. A hand-me-down scarf, creamy fringed wool and too dainty for his big frame, is wrapped around his neck. He watches me with eyes that are a pretty, bright blue. Is this the face of a killer?
A memory hovers just out of reach, somewhere beyond my fingertips.
He leans into the glass, cupping a hand to his ear. I point to the mudroom, a silent signal to meet me there, then beat him to the door. I was wrong before, when I said he reeked. He smells like earth and pine.
“Is Paul okay?”
“There’s a cut on his face.” Jax waves a finger above his eye, on the same spot where Paul has a lump. “I didn’t put it there.”
“I know you didn’t. He fell down Fontana Ridge.”
“Oh. That’s good, then.”
I pause, confused. It’s good that Paul fell and hit his head? Or Jax saw Paul but they didn’t talk?
Jax holds up two fingers. “That’s twice now.”
“Two cuts?”
“No.” He gestures behind him, to the black smear glittering in the darkness. “Two women in the lake. First Katherine, then Sienna.”
I pull in a sharp breath, and my heart bounces against my ribs. Jax knows the woman’s name. I want to ask how he knows—did hetalkto her?—but I’m more traumatized by his message. This horrible, awful thing he’s implying.
“Paul didn’t hurt those women, Jax. He loved Katherine, and he was with me all last night. He couldn’t have hurt either one. Hewouldn’t.”
Jax doesn’t look convinced. “But Micah...” He frowns.
“Micah what?”
Jax looks to his left, to Micah’s porch lights flickering through the trees, and I wonder if he came from there, if he maybe banged on Micah’s door first. But then Jax turns back, and his expression sends an uneasy feeling climbing up my spine. He looks jittery again, and I don’t know what’s changed. I don’t understand any of this.