Page 7 of It Happened on the Lake

S hutting the door softly behind her, Harper let out a long breath, then hurried up the steps, avoiding all the dolls Gram displayed on the staircase, to the turret bedroom on the third floor which had been her mother’s room at times.

From this little room with its high windows, she had a bird’s eye view of the lake.

It wasn’t as expansive as the locked tower room on the floor above, but it would do.

In the darkness, she went to the lamp near the window and turned the light off and on three times in succession—their signal, then searched the darkness for a reply, an answering three short bursts of light.

Nothing.

She waited another five minutes and tried again.

Still no response.

Something was wrong.

Really wrong.

But she had to meet him.

Had to!

Have some faith, Harper. She hazarded a glance at the crucifix of Jesus with blood dripping from his crown of thorns. Faith. She sketched the sign of the cross and decided to trust Chase.

He would come.

If he could.

Using a small set of binoculars she found in the drawer of one of the bedside tables, she scanned the dark water, her eyes darting from the dock on the island across the lake to the far shore and Fox Point, where Chase Hunt lived with his parents and younger brother, Levi.

One light was burning, a low glow from the kitchen.

Probably the stove’s hood light his mother always left on.

But no sign of Chase, and she couldn’t see if the family’s boat was in the boathouse.

She moved the binoculars a bit, to the Watkins’ A-frame where Chase’s best friend, Rand, lived. But the Watkins’ home was dark, no signs of life.

“Where are you?” she whispered as she checked out the next house on the point, the bungalow close to the swim park and nearest to town.

Old Man Sievers’s place. Eyeing it was a long shot.

There was no reason Chase would be anywhere near the bungalow where the crazy old coot lived with his guard dog.

His place, next to the swim park, was visible under the glow of his security lights.

An anti-government loner, Edward Sievers was a one-man vigilante.

A “nut job,” according to Gram. He didn’t get along with anyone, especially his neighbors.

It was rumored he had motion detectors and booby traps installed around his house—even a bomb shelter where, according to local kid gossip, he hid the dead bodies.

Tonight Sievers’s house was quiet, visible in the blue haze of a security lamp.

Finally she turned the binoculars on the house at the opposite end of the point, where the road petered out to a dead end at an old deer trail.

She didn’t know anyone who lived there at the cabin as it was a rental, with, again according to Gram, “a revolving door of hippie slackers. All they do over there is smoke dope and practice free love. Disgusting!” Gram didn’t even believe they were students.

But Chase had mentioned some of them. What were their names?

Charla, maybe, and Ronnie and then some girl named Moonbeam and a guy who called himself Trick.

She searched for any sign of Chase. But the shades were drawn, a few silhouettes passing behind the closed curtains, people still awake.

There even seemed to be a small light emanating from the round window of the roofline, which had to be an attic or loft or something, but as she peered at it, the light disappeared.

Something was definitely wrong.

Harper bit at her already-chewed fingernail. “Come on. Come on. Where are you?” she whispered as she refocused the field glasses.

She glanced at her watch. Nearly twelve-twenty. Had Chase come early and left when she hadn’t been able to meet him right at midnight? Had she missed him, as she’d been stuck dealing with Gram and her stupid pills?

Or was there another reason?

A more worrisome reason.

Had he been caught sneaking out? That was kind of ridiculous. He was nineteen, even though he was still living at home. He should be able to come and go as he pleased despite his strict father.

Or . . . she experienced another horrid thought. What if Chase had stood her up on purpose?

He wouldn’t, would he?

But deep down, she wasn’t certain.

He can’t abandon me now , she thought as she glanced around this tiny bedroom that had once been her mother’s.

The quilt was still the same, the pictures on the wall, even the crucifix of Jesus over the bed hadn’t been changed.

Everything in this room was just as it had been the night Mama died.

She felt a familiar darkness in her soul as she thought back to that night, so she closed her mind to it and held on to the bedpost, conjuring up her mother’s fading image and trying to feel closer to her.

But her thoughts returned to Chase.

He was all that mattered now.

Mama and the rest of Harper’s family were her past.

Chase Hunt was her future.

She loved him.

With all of her heart.

Are you sure ? Her willful mind asked.

An awful question!

Of course she loved him, and she would prove it!

Hadn’t she already?

Even done the unthinkable?

So why didn’t you tell Gram about him? Why are Beth Leonetti and just a handful of friends the only ones who know you’re still seeing him, even after breaking up after he went off to college?

Why the secret, Harper?

What are you afraid of?

She didn’t want to think about that now, nor did she want to admit that it was Chase’s idea to break up and then get back together in secret.

It had always bothered her.

But it was about to change.

Again, using the binoculars, she stared through the window, first focusing on the terrace off the parlor downstairs, then on the tram that ran from the terrace to the boathouse. It was quiet, as usual, the tram’s car tucked into its small garage.

No one was outside. Not even a cat showing in the moonlight. She didn’t see any sign of the bats that roosted in the boathouse—the “bat house”—as her brother Evan had called it, insisting it was filled with vampires intent on sucking every drop of blood from her body.

He’d thought it was a great joke.

Macho and full of himself as he was, Evan had always teased her, had thought he could get the better of his younger, more na?ve sister.

Never had he fooled her. “Never,” she whispered aloud and hated to admit how much she missed him.

Once more, she twisted the knob on her lamp, giving the signal.

She waited and watched.

Not a flicker of response.

“Oh, come on !”

She tossed the binoculars onto the bed in frustration.

On the window seat, staring through the glass, she waited as night turned to morning.

Eventually she dozed in that position.

Dreams of Chase sifting through her mind.

When the clock struck four, she awakened with a start, her neck cramped.

She couldn’t stand the waiting a minute longer.

She had to find him. Talk to him. Even though it was still hours before dawn.

She considered calling his house, but if she did, she would wake the entire household. And his parents already didn’t like her. Especially his mother. No, no, that wouldn’t work.

After taking the back stairs to the kitchen, she snagged her rain jacket from a rack of coats mounted over a row of boots in the mud room.

Then she slipped out the side door where deliveries were made.

A soft February drizzle was falling, the clouds overhead obscuring the moon and stars.

Hardly daring to breathe, she skirted the tram’s garage and used the outdoor stairs to the dock.

Of course there was no sign of Chase.

If he’d made it this far, he would have used the key she’d secretly given to him and made his way inside. And his boat would be tethered nearby, most likely at the boathouse entrance, or beneath the willow branches of the tree near the only stretch of beach on the island.

She checked both places.

And came up empty.

Shivering, fearing the worst, she focused on the houses across the lake and the stretch of water that separated the island from the point.

It was the narrowest span here. For a second she thought she caught a glimpse of something in the water, possibly some kind of craft floating on the undulating surface.

Squinting, she moved to the very edge of the dock and squinted. Yes! There!

A few hundred yards off the point! A boat!

Her heart jolted.

Finally!

He was coming!

Sending up a prayer of thanks, she felt a moment’s relief before she realized she heard no rumble of an engine. The boat wasn’t approaching. If anything it seemed to drift farther away.

What?

Was it someone else on the lake? Some early morning fisherman?

No . . . no, no, no!

Swallowing hard, her heart beating with dread, she climbed back up the stairs and slipped noiselessly into the house to the parlor and the telescope. It was positioned as she’d left it, focused on the far shore.

She bit her lip, hoping beyond hope that Gram hadn’t wakened as she sometimes did in the night.

But the rooms were quiet. Even the nocturnal cats were hidden and hopefully sleeping.

Throat dry, she focused the lens, then swung the telescope away from the Hunt house to search the blackness of the lake.

Yes! There it was!

The Triton!

The two-toned mahogany hull was distinct.

Tom Hunt’s sleek pleasure boat.

Rocking in the water.

Silent.

No signal light flashing to her.

No one at the helm.

No movement on board.

Almost ghostly.

She went cold inside.

Where the devil was Chase?

Frantically, she moved the telescope over the dark craft, stern to bow, but saw no one aboard.

And the water surrounding the boat?

Black and silent.

No sign of Chase.