Page 4 of It Happened on the Lake

“W hat the—?” she whispered, then picked up the revolver with its long barrel and pearl handle. It was heavy. And familiar. The last time she’d held it . . .

“No!” She dropped the damned thing as if it was hot. With a loud crack, a jagged line cut across the glass shelf. She backed away. “No, no, no!” But the memory she’d tried for decades to repress sliced into her brain.

Evan.

Oh dear God.

“Get a grip,” she told herself. She’d been in the house less than ten minutes, and already her nerves were shattered.

This revolver wasn’t the gun that had taken his life. The police had taken that one. This pistol was its twin, part of a set that Gramps had kept locked in his tower room.

So why was it here?

Setting her jaw, she picked up the gun again and examined it.

Nearly an antique, the revolver was the kind she had seen in old TV westerns.

One side of the mother-of-pearl handle was loose.

The screw holding it in place needed tightening with a tiny screwdriver—she remembered that, her grandfather forever trying to fix it.

And Evan had been fascinated by it. She remembered seeing one of the pistols in her brother’s hand as Evan had twirled it and pretended to be Roy Rogers or Wild Bill Hickok or some other TV cowboy she couldn’t name.

She turned the gun over in her hands. Holding the grip, touching the cylinder and trigger, staring at the damned gun with its six deadly chambers, she remembered Evan as he’d been the last time.

Eighteen, his blue eyes bright, pupils dilated, brown hair fanned around his face.

Always full of “piss and vinegar,” as Gram had said so often. But not then.

Her throat tightened and she refused, absolutely would not think about that hot summer night.

But she was still bothered to have found the pistol and wondered again why it had been left in the cupboard that had housed glassware. And by whom?

Questions flitted through her mind, but she had no answers and wasn’t going to try and force them. “Not tonight,” she told herself and put the damned thing back in the cupboard for now. Later, she would transfer it to Gramps’s locked safe. If she could open the massive thing.

For now, she rooted through another cabinet, found a glass, and blew out any dust that might have collected over the years. She lifted one of the crystal decanters, nudged off the top with her thumbs, and smelled the peaty scent of Scotch.

Her first sip was strong and burned a bit but settled into her stomach. Two more long swallows, and the glass was empty. Soon she would warm from the inside out as the alcohol seeped into the bloodstream.

But first, she needed to unpack the car.

Starting with the cat.

Jinx complained mightily from his carrier as she hauled it, along with a small bag of cat food, to the kitchen.

Again, she flipped the light switch. Only a few of the overhead lights winked on, illuminating the kitchen in a weird, almost sepia light.

Then she made sure the three doors were closed before opening the cage door.

Wide-eyed, all sleek black fur and white toes, Jinx slunk out.

“What’d’ya think?” she said as if the cat could answer.

When he didn’t respond, just eyed the new surroundings warily, she said, “I know. Me, too, but trust me, you’re going to fit right in.

” She found two ramekins in a cupboard and rinsed them before adding water to one, cat food to another.

“Morris loves this stuff, you know,” she told him.

Jinx was unimpressed and didn’t seem to care about the spokes-cat for 9 Lives. Ignoring the dishes, he crept around the perimeter of the large kitchen. “Get comfortable,” she told him as he circumvented the wide island between the stove and refrigerator.

As he explored, she slipped back to the parlor.

“Just one more,” she said as if the cat could hear or understand. She poured herself another healthy shot from the open decanter, drank it in three long swigs.

Jinx was crying at the swinging door.

“I know,” she said, letting the door swing open.

“It’s kinda strange being here, isn’t it?

” Picking him up, she confided, “It’s weird for me, too.

” She left her empty glass on a side table and, stroking the cat, made her way to the window.

Her stomach tightened a bit as she looked out across the terrace where she’d last seen her mother so many years before.

She’d been just a kid, and her memory was as blurry as that foggy night, some parts completely obscured.

Her fingers tightened.

Jinx yowled!

He kicked hard, scrambling out of Harper’s arm, scratching wildly.

“Ah, wow!” Harper sucked in her breath against the sting but took off after the cat before he could get lost in this huge mansion filled with nooks, crannies, and cupboards. He’d shot down the hallway to the back stairs. “Jinx!” She hit a light switch.

No light sizzled on.

And she saw no cat as she ran past the elevator to the staircase where one flight ascended to the upper floors and the other wound down to the basement.

Both doors were open.

“Jinx,” she called into the darkness. She slapped at a light switch and nothing happened. Crap. “Jinx? Come, kitty.” But her voice seemed to fade into the darkness.

She waited, calling softly. Coaxing.

He didn’t appear.

But he would. He always did.

She tried the light switches for each set of stairs.

Again, the darkness remained.

“Great.” Going down to the basement with its rabbit warren of hallways would be dangerous and fruitless.

And searching the upper stories, three counting the tower room, would prove impossible.

Her flashlight was weak to begin with, the batteries dying and she had no new ones, so it would be nearly useless.

She would just have to wait until he calmed down and returned.

As he had in the past.

Rubbing her arm, she felt the warm beads of blood that had risen when his claws had caught her wrist and forearm.

“Come on, Jinx,” she said once more and told herself that losing the cat was the perfect end to a miserable day that had started at dawn in Santa Rosa before her drive north.

All the way, as the miles had passed beneath her Volvo’s tires, she’d told herself that returning here was no big deal, that all of the pain of the past might surface a bit but would eventually retreat again.

But she’d been wrong.

Dead wrong.

All the old pain was still there, the unanswered questions returning.

She found an ancient box of Kleenex, pulled out all the tissues and took several from the middle of the folded sheets to dab at her arm, then considered another drink but decided against it.

Instead, she gazed through the windows to a spot on the opposite shore. Fox Point, where the lake was narrowest. She remembered each of the houses and their inhabitants: Old Man Sievers’s bungalow near the swim park and closest to town, then the Watkins’ A-frame and the Hunts’ cottage and—

“What the—?” she whispered. Something was out there. Something bright and swirling, seeming to grow more luminous and larger, as it bobbed on the surface and drew nearer.

A fire? There was a fire in the middle of Lake Twilight?

But—?

No.

Couldn’t be.

Heart thudding, she swung her grandfather’s telescope around and peered through.

“Oh God.” Her heart sank.

Sure enough, a boat was ablaze, flames rising into the rain-washed night.

A woman was aboard, her tortured face turned up to the heavens.

Cynthia Hunt.

Chase’s mother.

A woman who blamed Harper for all the heartache in her life.

A woman who wished Harper dead.

“No,” Harper whispered. “No . . . no . . .” There couldn’t be another tragedy on the lake.

Not after there had been so many.

And yet, once more Lake Twilight was claiming its own in its deceptively calm waters.

Fighting a searing sense of déjà vu, Harper ran straight to the bedside phone in Gram’s room, a clunky dial-faced relic that had never been replaced.

Sweeping up the heavy receiver, she sent up a prayer that the line was still connected, that she could still reach someone. A dial tone hummed in her ear.

Thank God!

She jammed a finger into the 9 slot and waited for the dial to slowly rotate back into place. It seemed to take forever for the phone to spin out each digit of the emergency number. “Come on, come on,” Harper said as the phone started to ring. “Answer!”

She stretched the cord and paced.

“9-1-1.” A female voice startled her and started asking questions.

But Harper cut her off. “There’s a boat on fire in the middle of Lake Twilight! Near Dixon Island! There’s at least one person on board! A woman! Send someone now!”

“On Lake Twilight? If you could please identify yourself and—”

She didn’t hear the rest. Just took off through the side kitchen door that was used as a service entrance. Sprinting around the side of the house, she dashed onto the slippery flagstones of the terrace to the stairs.

Slipping and sliding, her pulse pounding in her ears, she scrambled down the steep concrete steps, some crumbling, some slick with moss.

The fire was in full view if anyone was looking, a wavering blaze undulating on the choppy waters, three hundred, maybe four hundred yards from either shore. Surely someone else had noticed the flames. Surely someone had—

Her bad leg gave out.

She missed a step.

Twisting, she went down hard.

Bam!

Her chin bounced on the edge of a step.

Pain exploded through her jaw.

“Oooh. God.” Stunned, Harper slid down the final two steps to the rain-soaked deck. She rolled onto her back. The warm ooze of blood mingled with cold raindrops to run down her chin and neck. She blinked to stay conscious. Thought she might be sick.

No! No! No!

Get up!

She took in a deep breath. Damn it all!

From the corner of her eye she caught a glimmer of orange. The flames. The boat afire. A woman—Cynthia Hunt—trapped on board. A woman who hated Harper’s guts.