Page 31 of It Happened on the Lake

H arper’s pulse pounded, and her stomach ground nervously. Had Craig seen her spying?

Was he calling to warn her to mind her own business?

What would she say?

Could she deny it?

Or maybe he was going to ask her about fixing up the place?

She hurried into the kitchen, her hip protesting as she snagged the receiver from the wall phone. “Hello?” she said breathlessly, her heart in her throat.

“Mom?” Her daughter’s voice stopped her cold.

It was Dawn.

Dawn was calling.

Not Craig Alexander.

No one had seen her spying.

“Hi, honey,” she said, sagging against the wall in relief.

“Jesus, Mom, what the fu—hell is going on?”

Harper’s relief was short-lived as she heard the angst and the anger in Dawn’s voice.

“Why didn’t you call me and tell me that you were in the hospital?” Dawn demanded. “Holy shi—crap, Mom! You should have called me immediately! Instead, I get this call from some lame-ass reporter!”

“Rhonda DeAngelo.” The woman worked fast. What had she said her name was? Smith or . . . “Simms. Her name is Simms now.”

“Like I care! It doesn’t matter, Mom,” Dawn snapped.

“God!” Then she took in a deep breath before adding, “Maybe. Maybe that was it. I don’t remember, but she told me.

Yeah, maybe, Rhoda or Rhonda Something. I’m not sure.

I didn’t really catch her name. I was too freaked out!

I wasn’t thinking straight. She told me something about you and a woman who died in a fire on the lake and I couldn’t say anything.

I just hung up on her and called the gatehouse, but there was no answer.

Nothing, just some dead-sounding voice saying the number was no longer in service. ”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry—”

“So I tried this one for the lake house that you gave me like a million years ago. I didn’t even know if the phones there still worked. You know it was really embarrassing for some random reporter to be the one to tell me you were in the hospital!”

“I was going to call you.”

“When?” Dawn wanted to know, and Harper could imagine her eyebrows slamming together in frustration. Brown eyes peeking out from dyed black hair, skin as white as alabaster, black lipstick—all part of the whole Goth thing she’d been going through. “Jesus Christ, Mom, if—”

“Hey! Language!”

Dawn let out an audible puff of disbelief. “Like you’re religious or never swear!”

“Okay, that’s fair, I do swear, but I am religious, it’s just my own personal religion, my thing with God.”

Dawn huffed, “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“The thing is,” Dawn went on, “I shouldn’t have had to hear from some stupid reporter that you were involved in some kind of boat fire or something! I mean I could have come up there. It’s only a couple of hours, you know. It’s not like I’m still in California.”

That much was true. Dawn was now at the university in Eugene.

Dawn added, “Isn’t it bad enough that Grandpa’s in the hospital, but now you?”

“I’m fine, and obviously out, or you wouldn’t have reached me here. And I saw Grandpa today,” Harper said, trying to calm her daughter. “He’s going to be okay.”

“And I should take your word for it?”

“Why would I lie?”

“You tell me, Mom,” Dawn shot back. “There are lies of commission and lies of omission, isn’t that what you always say?”

“I guess.”

Silence from the other end of the line, but at least she hadn’t hung up.

“I’m sorry. Okay? You’re right. You should have heard it from me. Not a reporter. I just got home about an hour ago, and I was going to call you. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But, as I said everyone’s fine—”

“Except for the dead woman!”

“Well, yeah. Of course.” Harper sighed and refused to think of Cynthia Hunt’s horrid demise. “I know. It’s sad. Tragic.”

“And weird!”

“Very.” But Dawn didn’t know the half of it. The history.

“So what happened?”

If she only knew. Leaning a hip against the kitchen counter, Harper tried to ignore the headache that was starting to pound behind her eyes.

It didn’t help that her gaze landed on the untouched ramekins she’d positioned near the back door for Jinx.

As best she could, she told Dawn about the day before, how she’d barely gotten here when she spied the fire on the lake.

She downplayed her own horror at recognizing Cynthia Hunt.

“You knew her?” Dawn demanded.

“She was the mother of one of my friends.” Two actually, but she didn’t need to go into details.

“Why would she do that? I mean . . . it’s awful and crazy and . . .”

“Who knows?” Harper said, wrapping the coils of the phone cord around her wrist. “I think she was ill.”

“No duh! And you weren’t even going to call me?”

“Of course I was. I told you.”

“When?” Dawn demanded.

“Tonight. After I went through the shower and had dinner.”

A pause.

Harper relented. “I should have called you first. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

“Well, you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mollified somewhat, her ruffled feathers smoothed, Dawn asked, “And you’re sure you’re okay?” She actually sounded concerned.

“Beat up and bruised, but yeah, I’ll be fine. No permanent damage.” Again, that was a bit of a lie. After witnessing the horror of what happened to Cynthia Hunt, Harper doubted she’d ever be the same. She changed the subject. “So, how’re you doing?”

“Oh, fine, I guess.”

“School?”

“I said, ‘fine.’ But you know, it’s school.”

“College. More fun than high school.”

“If you say so. How does Jinx like it on the island? I bet he loves it.”

Harper’s stomach knotted. Oh God, no. She forced a lilt to her voice. “He’s getting used to the place. Exploring.” Not exactly a lie.

“Is he making friends with any of Great-Grandma’s cats?”

Dawn had heard stories.

“Oh no. Those cats are long gone, I’m afraid,” Harper said and glanced out the window to the front of the house and the rose garden where so many of Gram’s favorite felines had their final resting place.

“So sad.”

“It was a long time ago. So,” Harper said, “are we good now?”

“You and me? I guess. But I’m still pissed off—er, ticked off that you didn’t call me when you ended up in the hospital. And you would be, too, if it were the other way around. It’s not like I’m five, you know. I’m a grown-up.”

Not quite , Harper thought but nodded to herself and said, “Point taken.”

“And I told Dad.”

Harper froze at the mention of Joel. “You didn’t.”

“He has the right to know.”

Did he? Harper didn’t think so. She suddenly wanted to throttle her kid. She closed her eyes and mentally counted to ten. “We’re divorced,” she reminded Dawn.

“I know. But he still loves you.”

Harper bit back a sharp response to that. Dawn, of course, didn’t know the ins and outs of her parents’ marriage and wasn’t privy to the lies and truth of it all. She probably never would be.

“We’re still a family,” Dawn said a little more loudly. “That’s what you told me.”

Harper winced at that. “Yeah, I remember.”

“So he should know.”

Even though he’s with his girlfriend? Harper bit her tongue.

There was no reason to bring Melanie into the conversation.

“I just don’t want him, or you, to worry.

Nothing serious happened to me last night,” Harper insisted with conviction, despite the fact that the headache was thundering and her chin was throbbing and she was dead on her feet.

“Sure.” Dawn didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll talk to you soon. And you can call me anytime. You don’t have to leave a message on the machine. I’ve got a pager, and the number is—”

“Wait! A pager?” Harper repeated. “Like what doctors use or . . . or drug dealers?”

“No! I mean, well, yeah, probably. I don’t know. But everyone’s starting to get them here at school. And they work great. Through a service, but it’s cool.”

“You pay for the service?”

“Dad does. He knows. He’s got one, too.”

Of course. Joel always had the latest gadgets, anything bright and shiny that caught his eye. Including women.

“So, this way you can reach me anytime. So, like, if I’m out of town, you won’t have to wait for me to get home and go through my messages and call you back. I’ll know you want to talk to me when you call—your number will show up on the screen.”

“I don’t know.”

“You want the number or not?” Dawn sounded exasperated.

“Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Hold on.” Harper stretched the phone cord so she could reach the junk drawer.

“I’m looking for a pen.” She opened the drawer and pawed through paper clips, old lists, keys, cat collars, and even several books of S&H green stamps, which her grandmother, like everyone else in the sixties and seventies had collected.

“Just a sec.” She tried several pens that didn’t work before she located a pencil that was more than a stub.

“Go ahead,” she said, cradling the receiver between her shoulder and head as Dawn rattled off a number.

“Got it,” she said, scratching the digits onto a book of matches from a steak house that no longer existed.

“You really should get one.”

“A pager?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good. I’d like that.” A pause. Then, “Hey, I just saw the time. Oh God. Sorry, Mom. Gotta run.”

“Love you,” Harper said, but the line was already dead, her daughter having hung up.

She held the receiver in her hands, then finally replaced it.

A pager? Really? She found a bottle of Anacin in her purse and walked back to the parlor, where she tossed back two tablets and washed them down with the left-over drink from the night before.

It burned on the way down again, but she poured herself another, which she drank far too quickly.

On her third drink, she reminded herself to sip.

She told herself not to pour another as she felt like warmed-over crap and eyed the telescope again. Looking through it would only get her into trouble. She had no right to peer inside other people’s lives.

And yet . . .