Page 223 of It Happened on the Lake

“Youknow. Come on, Mom, you have to have looked through this. I mean, who wouldn’t?” Adjusting the focus, she gasped. “Oh crap. You can see right into those people’s bedrooms.” Smothering a naughty smile, she said, “Don’t those people ever shut their blinds?”

Rarely, Harper thought but said, “I don’t know.”

“You could be like a cool spy or something!”

“I think it’s called a voyeur. And it’s definitely not cool.”

“Hey, there’s something going on at that end house that kinda looks like a cabin.”

“What?”

“Uh . . . People are moving out, I guess. Hauling stuff out of their attic.”

Harper squinted through the window. “Are they? I guess you’re right.” She picked up the binoculars on a side table and trained the lenses on the last house on the lake. Sure enough, she saw a woman and a man taking bags of things down the outside staircase. At the base, they turned, their faces in profile and she recognized Rand Watkins, grim-faced, dark hair moving slightly as he walked, a younger woman with him.

She wondered what they were doing and remembered her short, pointed interview at the station and spying on him as he’d worked on the old files at his desk in the A-frame. Was it all tied together somehow? And what about the time she’d caught him on a night boat cruise around this island? Or was she making more of it than there was?

Or could it be that despite yourself, you’ve always found Rand Watkins more than a little bit intriguing?

That thought caught her up short.

Dawn, who had lost interest in the activity at the cabin, had moved the telescope, shifting the optical tube, swiveling it slightly on its mount. “Oh, and there’s a guy two houses down not wearing a shirt. Kind of a hunk for an old guy.”

“What guy?” she asked, then saw where the telescope was trained. On the Hunt house where Levi stood on the dock. “For God’s sake, Dawn, he’s my age. Not even forty.”

“Like I said, old.”

Harper trained her binoculars on the Hunt house, where she spied Levi in low-slung jeans and no shirt. His hair was damp, the muscles of his abdomen tight and visible until he pulled on a T-shirt.

For a second the back of her throat went dry.

Dawn asked, “You know him?”

“Uh-huh,” she admitted, clearing her throat. “He was in my class in school.”

“Yeah? Were you friends?”

“Yes,” she admitted with a trace of sadness. They had been friends once upon a time when they were kids full of hope and innocence and a shared love for adventure. “A long time ago.”

“Is he cool?”

“Sure.” There was so much more she could say about Levi Hunt, so much she could tell her daughter, but she said only, “He’s the son of the woman who died in the fire on her boat.”

“That’s the guy? And . . . wait, you dated her son. Is he the guy?”

“No, that one—Levi’s older brother, Chase—went missing.” She hesitated, on the cusp of divulging the truth, but was this the right time? No. She wondered if there ever would be a time that felt right.

But not today.

Harper set down her field glasses.

Dawn was squinting as she watched Levi.

Oh Lord. Something fragile inside of Harper broke. Time to end this. Harper started for the door. “Do you want to see the rest of the house?”

Dawn straightened. “Yeah, but remember, I claim this room.”

“Okay, you’ve got it.” Harper led the way down the narrow staircase. On the third floor, they stopped in Harper’s bedroom.