Page 27 of It Happened on the Lake

I t was barely three in the afternoon, but already the sky was darkening, cloud cover thick though sunset was still a few hours off.

Harper was still pissed. She left her car on the street near the station, then walked several blocks to tamp down her temper and stopped at a café where once there had been an Italian restaurant.

Thankfully the café was nearly empty, the lunch crowd having dispersed.

But it was warm inside and smelled of hot coffee and fragrant spices.

Music was playing softly, and the café was decorated for the season with pumpkins on the counter, twinkling lights around a large chalkboard menu on the wall, and a life-sized papier-maché witch on a real broomstick that swung from the high ceiling.

Unfortunately, Harper hated Halloween and anything associated with the holiday. She found it macabre rather than lighthearted and fun. Ever since that awful night on the terrace . . .

Don’t go there.

She found a booth in the back corner and turned her thoughts to the present, such as it was. She needed time and space to cool off after her heated exchange with Rand Watkins—oh, excuse me, Detective Watkins—whatever that was all about.

Dealing with Rand had never been easy, not since grade school. Now that he was a cop—a full-fledged detective, no less—one with obvious suspicions about her, she was certain that dealing with him wasn’t going to get any easier.

Well, too bad.

She’d given her statement.

She was done.

She did feel horrible about Cynthia Hunt, though. The woman may have despised Harper, even blamed her for Chase’s disappearance, but the way Cynthia had died had been horrendous. And there was Levi, now having lost his brother and both his parents. Alone in the world.

Her heart was heavy at the thought. She ordered a glass of Chardonnay from a passing waitress, a slim redhead whose name tag read TAMI.

The wine came, and when pressed, Harper ordered the first thing she saw on the menu, a Caesar salad and cup of soup.

She was still thinking about Chase and his family when her order was delivered and, though she ate, she barely tasted anything. Her thoughts moved from the Hunt family tragedies to the interrogation—because that’s what it felt like—with Rand Watkins. She was still bugged by their heated exchange.

So, really what had she expected when she’d gone to the station? That it would be all hearts and flowers? “Rand was right,” she had to admit as she dipped her spoon into the clam chowder. They’d never been friends. Not twenty years ago and obviously not now.

But back then, in high school, he hadn’t been an enemy.

Now, she feared, that had changed.

She conjured up images of Rand as a youth, when he’d hung out with Evan and Chase, then later became a soldier.

You can never go back.

The wayward thought echoed through her mind.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered and saw the approaching waitress react, suddenly backing away from the table.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I was just . . . talking to myself.” Geez, she probably looked like a mental case. Her face was bruised and bandaged, and here she was muttering to herself.

“You want another glass of wine?” Tami asked.

Though it was tempting, Harper shook her head. One more might well lead to another. “Just the check, please.”

Dear God, she needed to turn her head around.

She had to deal with real life, and the day had nearly slipped away.

She planned to pick up much-needed groceries, go back to the island, find the damned cat, shower the day and night off, then call Dawn and bring her up to speed.

Tomorrow she would tackle the unpacking and start organizing the house. There were utility companies to call, repairmen to find, and housekeepers and gardeners to contact.

She left enough cash on the table to cover the bill and a tip, then stepped outside to find a fine October mist falling on already damp sidewalks, wet leaves collecting in the gutters, the day gloomy and cold, the night creeping in.

Her head was bare, so she flipped up the hood of her raincoat, her boots splashing through small puddles.

As she rounded a final corner, she spied the police station, a conglomerate of three buildings that took up half a city block, windows bright in the gathering night.

Near the glass door in the front of the building stood a flagpole, Old Glory drooping in the drizzle, lit by surrounding street lamps.

Spying her car in the adjacent lot, she fished her keys from her purse and headed straight for her Volvo. As she unlocked the car, she caught her own reflection in the window of the driver’s door, a shimmering image distorted by raindrops sliding down the glass.

And behind her, over her shoulder, something moved.

A person?

She turned just as she heard a female voice say, “Harper? Harper Reed?”

“Yes?”

“I thought so!” the woman said. She was small and compact, a long wool coat cinched at her tiny waist, a hood covering her head. “Wait a minute. It’s Harper Prescott, right? You’re married now.”

“Was,” she said, thinking the woman was vaguely familiar. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

“Oh yeah, you do! It’s me!” the woman said, offering a wide toothy smile. “Rhonda!”

“Rhonda?” Harper repeated, trying to place the name and face.

“Rhonda Simms—well, now, but you knew me as Rhonda DeAngelo.”

“Rhonda DeAngelo.” Faint bells were ringing in Harper’s mind: warning bells.

“Yeah, yeah! We were in chemistry together as juniors. Remember? Seventh period? Mr. Latham’s class?

I cheated off of you all the time,” Rhonda admitted, stepping into the light.

Suddenly her features—big, Kewpie doll eyes, rosy cheeks, and pointed chin came into clearer view.

Harper’s gut tightened. She did remember.

But the girl she recalled was a dishwater blond with straight hair, braces, and a bad case of acne in high school.

She’d worn cat-eye glasses and had been quiet, a listener.

This was a newer version. With straight teeth, blue eyes, clear skin, and platinum curls sprouting out from beneath the rim of her hood, this Rhonda was definitely more confident and forthcoming.

“Sorry about the cheating, but I just didn’t get it.

At all!” She flashed Harper what was clearly meant to be an abashed smile.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t, but I’d love to talk to you. Maybe get a drink? Or coffee? Catch up?”

“Now?” Harper asked, remembering the petite little girl who slithered around corners, listening to gossip, pretending she wasn’t trying to overhear what anyone was saying. Harper had always considered her a bit of a snake. So what was she doing lurking in the parking lot of the police department?

“Now would be great!” Rhonda enthused. “I mean if you’re up to it. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Oh.” She was talking about the bandages. Inadvertently, Harper touched her chin.

“I heard what you did last night,” Rhonda was saying.

Already. “Did you? How?”

“Oh, come on, you know. Almsville might have grown in the last decade or so, but it’s still a small town. Gossip spreads like wildfire.”

And you’re probably holding the gasoline can . Harper didn’t say it, but she was getting the gist of what was going on here. Rhonda had been the editor of the school newspaper back in the day. So now? “Let me guess, you’re a reporter.”

“Well . . . yes!” she said, unable to keep the enthusiasm from her voice and her gaze from the gauze on Harper’s face. “ The Twilight Tribune .”

Crap! The local paper. And Rhonda had either followed her here or somehow discovered that she would be at the police station. Had Rand spilled the beans? Unlikely. He’d been closemouthed in high school, and as a cop he had an obligation to keep things private. But who knew?

“And I’d love to do a story about the island,” Rhonda said, gearing up. “And about your family and how they ended up with it. There’s just so much interesting history there, so I thought a series about it, and your family and you, of course, now that you’ve inherited it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Public knowledge.”

That much was true, so she shouldn’t have been surprised. There had been a lot of talk about the dispersal of the Dixon fortune at the time of Gram’s death. Some of her assets had been donated to the university, some to St. Catherine’s Hospital, and the bulk, including the island, left to Harper.

And of course Rhonda would want to dig further.

She’d probably probe about what had happened the night Chase disappeared and her grandmother died.

All part of the island’s “interesting history.” At the time her father had shipped Harper off to California to live with a second cousin of his so that she would avoid excessive and seemingly unending interviews by the press and possibly the police and somehow, hopefully, regain her anonymity.

He and Marcia had arrived a few weeks later.

But she refused to dwell on all that now. And she certainly wasn’t going to discuss it with a reporter, any reporter. “Wait a minute. How did you know I’d be here?” she said, motioning toward the police station.

Rhonda ignored the question. “There’s talk that you might put the island up for sale. So a feature on it would be great publicity, you know. That island’s got a lot of history, and it’s unique, the only one on all of Lake Twilight.”

“How long have you been waiting here for me?”

“A while.”

“You didn’t answer my question. How did you know I was here?”

Rhonda started to hedge. “Well, I—”

“From Beth Alexander?” Harper guessed.

“No, she didn’t tell me you would be here, but she did mention that Detective Watkins had tried to talk to you at the hospital.”

“And—?” Harper was getting angry.

“Your car has California plates.”

“That you checked somehow? Ran my plates somehow?”

“No. No. It was just a lucky guess.”

Harper couldn’t believe it. Nor could she believe that she was standing in the rain discussing it. “So you waited for me?”

“I figured you needed the car.”