Page 65 of It Happened on the Lake

“ . . . and since you haven’t called me back, I thought I’d give you one last chance to add to the first installment of the series that will start running tomorrow.

So just in case you lost my number, you can reach me at—” Harper erased the message before she heard Rhonda Simms leaving her damned phone number.

The gist of the message was that the reporter had the green light to run a five-part series on the tragedies that had occurred on Lake Twilight, much of which involved Harper and her family.

“Not happening,” she said to the empty kitchen.

She waited for the next recorded call to play while searching through a nearby cupboard for a glass.

Cradling the receiver between her shoulder and ear, she turned on the tap and filled the glass with water.

She was thirsty and tired from putting her things away and trying to make the manor livable.

She’d spent the day organizing her bedroom and office, removing old things, replacing with new, then as items had shifted since the major cleaning, rearranging a bit.

Once the new phone lines were installed, she’d be ready to work.

At least she had a bed with clean sheets, and her closet and the old bureau were filled with her clothes.

She used her grandfather’s desk for her computer, a “portable” Compaq in its suitcase-like case that she’d lugged up the stairs, cursing the broken elevator at each landing where she’d taken a break.

She set her printer on a large side table.

For now, the computer sat on a too-small stand near the telescope.

Her grandfather had used the tall table for his cigars, matches, and ashtray, and it wobbled a little with the weight of the typewriter. But it would do. For now.

During all the hours she’d spent upstairs, she’d ignored the phone, leaving the answering machine to pick up her calls. No way am I going to call Rhonda back , she thought, sipping from the glass as she eyed the floor, her eyes stopping on the untouched dishes she’d left out for the cat.

She’d cleaned them and refilled them, but to no avail.

Still missing , she thought, eyeing the collar she’d left on the kitchen counter when she’d cleaned out her pockets earlier.

And it had been a week since the cat had gone missing.

Not good.

And someone found his collar.

Or had her cat.

That thought made her stomach churn. Surely no one would hurt him. Surely not. Dear God, she prayed so.

As she listened to the next message, she looked out the window, her eyes scouring the bushes for the dozenth time and coming up empty.

“Hello, Harper,” a deep male voice said as the recorder started to play and all the muscles in her body tensed before he identified himself.

“This is Lou Arista calling again. I left a message at your number in California, but since I didn’t hear from you, I thought I’d call the old house number and check in. ”

“Oh, shut up, you slimy bastard,” she said, though, of course, he couldn’t hear her.

“I think it would be a good idea if we get together. We could set up a meeting at the office, or if it’s more convenient I could visit you at the estate.”

Over my dead body!

“I know the last time we spoke, things got a little off track—”

“You mean fucked-up.”

“So now that the trust is complete, since you’ve reached the age your grandmother chose for it to be disbursed, I thought we should talk things out and I could explain how the final payments will be handled.

We could go over the tax bill, then I’ll let you know about the services our firm could offer.

There are a few outstanding bills that we’ll handle, but then there’s the matter of your ex-husband’s claim. ”

Joel.

So that was his “business” in Portland. Harper should have known. Well, she would deal with him. “Delete,” she said aloud, then erased the lawyer’s message and stopped the recorder. “Jerk-wad!”

Oh, she remembered Arista all right. Gram’s slick attorney. She had visited his offices not long before moving up here and had found him self-serving and patronizing and barely able to hide the fact that he thought he was more knowledgeable, more educated, and well—just damned smarter than she was.

“Bullshit.”

She still held the ace.

Her grandmother’s estate. What was left of it, due to his mishandling.

Somehow a good share of the money had been siphoned off for her own care and schooling by her parents, or, as he’d explained, “For taxes, management fees, estate management, and adjustments due to economic downturns,” and blah, blah, blah. She suspected it was all BS.

He was a big man with an even bigger personality. His dark hair was thick and brushed back, his near-black eyes sparked with a calculating intelligence that felt almost sinister.

When his father, Louis, had died in a hunting accident Lou Junior had inherited his father’s business, which included Gram’s account, the estate and trust his father had orchestrated.

Within a year of his father’s death, and only six months after Gram was laid to rest, Junior had left the modest office space in a historic Almsville building and joined two other attorneys, Frank Bartlett and Joseph Connors, to become the founding partners of Arista, Bartlett, and Connors, Attorneys at Law, The ABCs of Legal Services , according to their local television ads.

Over the years, the firm had expanded and moved to its current location in a high-rise in downtown Portland. Arista’s glassed-in office offered views of the Willamette River and the city stretching east to Mount Hood in the distance.

She’d been there once, to sign papers that started the process of distributing the remainder of the trust. She told the lawyer that she would be in the market for a new attorney.

He’d just nodded, his smile not touching his eyes as he’d tried to convince her to change her mind about dismissing the ABC legal team.

She had assured him she wouldn’t.

He frowned and said something about her being a single woman, as if that were some kind of disability.

She remembered him saying it was a mistake for her to leave.

She hadn’t thought so then, didn’t think so now. As far as she was concerned, Arista had lived off her grandmother’s estate far too long.

She’d walked out of the law firm’s offices that last visit, had her parking ticket validated by the sweet-smiling receptionist who’d tried valiantly to copy Princess Diana’s layered hair style, then ridden the elevator sixteen stories down to the parking garage.

No, she wasn’t calling Arista back unless it was, as Craig Alexander had suggested, to sue the bastard for neglecting the property.

Or unless Joel decided to get nasty.

Just let it go.

“No,” she said aloud, then drained her glass and placed it in the sink with some other dishes.

She was still waiting for all the account records.

When they arrived, she’d go over the statements with a fine-toothed comb and hand copies to a CPA or financial attorney. Let the lawyers duke it out in court.

She hit the Play button again, and her heart twisted as she heard her daughter’s voice on the recording.

“Hey, Mom. Sorry I missed you again. But it turns out I have to stay in Eugene longer than I thought. Nothing big happening, just have plans with some friends, but I thought I’d drive up next week.

And, like I said, see Grandpa, too. Look, I’ve got class in twenty minutes, so call me back on my pager and let me know you got this message. Okay?”

Harper phoned her daughter’s pager and hoped Dawn would call her back.

Rubbing her hip, she hoped the cable company could run a connection to the tower and was reminded of Gram’s philosophy: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and if there isn’t a way, then there’s always money.”

Usually Harper didn’t subscribe to Gram’s ideology, but she was beginning to see some merit to it as she made herself a snack of cheese and crackers.

She grabbed a Diet Coke from the refrigerator and popped the top.

After taking a long swallow, she considered adding a shot of rum to the can.

Why not? It was after five and she’d worked all day—but decided against it.

Since the first few days when she’d landed back in Almsville, she’d tried to avoid too many drinks and too much fascination with watching what was going on across the lake.

The snifters and crystal decanters were tempting, as were the multiple telescopes and pairs of binoculars on each floor, but she’d resisted.

For the most part.

After bolting down cheese and crackers, she told herself to get busy.

Today she’d tackle Gram’s room, but as she passed through the parlor, she saw lights burning across the lake at the Hunt home. In the upstairs bedroom. Cynthia and Tom’s room.

She thought of Cynthia Hunt and the deadly inferno on the water. The woman had seemed hell-bent to kill herself in a horrific and agonizing way.

Why , she wondered again, touching her chin that still itched where her stitches had been, a constant reminder of that awful night, Why was Cynthia out in the middle of Lake Twilight?

Because her life was crumbling, her mind deteriorating with the sadness and tragedy of her life.

Once Cynthia had been a willowy blond, a smiling mother of two who sometimes substitute-taught at the high school. Then had come the tragedies surrounding her family and Lake Twilight.

Decades-old guilt seeped into her blood, and she tried to disregard it.

Nothing could change the past, as her grandmother had always claimed.

Her voice rang in Harper’s ears even now.

“No use crying when you fail or fall down, Harper-dear. Just learn from it. What’s done is done.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and step forward.

Yesterday’s gone, but tomorrow holds a whole new day of promise. ”