Page 75 of It Happened on the Lake

About to give up, she took a final swallow of her drink and noticed a shadow. On his dock. Near his boathouse.

She leaned in closer as he disappeared inside the boathouse. A few minutes later his boat slipped onto the dark waters of the lake.

“Where are you going?” she wondered aloud as the boat, running lights visible, moved slowly around the point, then made a wide arcing turn to cross the lake and cruise toward the island.

He’s coming here?

No.

Why? The muscles in the back of her neck tightened. This wasn’t good.

They’d left on such harsh terms, she challenging him to arrest her and calling him a liar. “Not smart,” she reminded herself. “Not smart at all.”

And still she kept her eye on the boat as it slowed near her dock. She no longer needed the telescopic lens to watch as the boat crawled, slowly circling the island as if he were trawling for something.

Why?

From this vantage point she couldn’t see the boat as it moved closer to the mainland and under the bridge, but she could hear the churn of its engine.

“What’re you doing?” she whispered and hurried, wincing, into the kitchen, but the view of the water was obscured by trees, so she entered Gram’s shadowy room and waited, pushing the sheer curtains aside and counting off the seconds.

When he didn’t appear, she imagined him stopping .

. . but why? Of course there was the myriad of paths that crisscrossed the island, but they were overgrown and steep and rarely used these days.

Besides, there was no reason for him to get out of his boat and climb the rocky cliffs.

She strained to listen, wondering if she heard the sound of an idling boat engine, or was it just her imagination?

Time to find out.

She wasn’t about to hide up here and peek out of windows.

She found a flashlight and walked back through the house just as the prow of the boat appeared.

Good.

May as well have it out.

She wasn’t going to cower here in her own damn home.

He might be a detective, but he was Rand Watkins and she’d known him most of his life.

But she thought of the dolls with their weird message.

And she remembered how he’d stared at her during the interrogation, how his mistrust for her was evident.

And she knew that he was looking into her grandmother’s death again.

So what?

She had nothing to hide!

She should confront him. Ask him what he wanted. Invite him in for a drink. See how he’d like that!

You’d be dancing with the devil , she heard her grandmother say.

Too bad. She wasn’t going to be a wuss about it.

If Rand had something to say to her, something he wanted to see at the house, then fine.

Flashlight in hand, she walked to the French doors off the living room, and as she stepped onto the terrace she caught sight of his navigation lights, heard the purr of the boat’s engine fading. He was already leaving.

“Hey!” she yelled, swinging the flashlight. “Hey! Rand!”

He kept motoring.

“Detective!” she screamed.

To no avail.

Well, fine.

“And good riddance,” she added, not wanting to examine why he bothered her so much. It was more than the fact that he was looking into her grandmother’s case or that he’d once been Chase’s best friend. Something deeper. And something she didn’t want to consider.

She went back inside, had one last drink, and was a little wobbly as she climbed the stairs to her room, then glanced up at the stairway to the turret room.

She should clean up the mess from the broken lamp.

At least sweep up the sharp pieces. She could find a hand vacuum and clean the rest tomorrow.

The broom was already in the room, so she trudged up the remaining flight, put the shade and base on the chaise, and began sweeping the big shards into a trash can.

She was just about finished when she noticed one piece of glass winking from beneath the skirting of the chaise longue. Bending down to reach it, she used the bristles of the broom to pull the jagged piece out of its resting place and peered beneath the fringe.

And stared into deep, black eye sockets.

She let out a gasp and scooted away.

Before she realized she was looking at the remains of a crouching skeletal cat.

“Oh God. Jinx,” she whispered, her heart cracking, her insides shredding. Tears touched the back of her eyes. Her stomach turned over.

Dear God, who would—

Wait.

Something was off.

She looked again into those black eye sockets set deep in bone.

Barely any flesh on the graying bones.

Only a few thin tufts of fur.

No rotting smell.

Jinx had only been missing a week, and no way would he be this decomposed. No. Not at all.

Gritting her teeth and forcing back the urge to throw up, she forced herself to use the broom and drag the bones out from under the chaise.

Her stomach turned over again when she saw the bits of orange fur.

No, this wasn’t Jinx, her black and white tuxedo cat.

This long-dead feline was probably Earline, her grandmother’s one-eared yellow tabby long buried in the rose garden/cat cemetery in the front of the house, across from the garage.

The bones were dirty and gray, and there were a few fir needles caught between the cat’s ribs.

“You sicko.”

She rocked back on her heels, felt a bit of pain where she’d cut her foot, but stared at the skeleton and wondered who the hell had left it here.

Whoever he was, he was upping his game, trying to terrorize her.

“Bring it on,” Harper said under her breath, her fear having morphed into a new, growing anger. Her blood, which had turned ice cold at the sight of the dead cat, was now running white hot.

She threw the broom across the room in frustration. It landed with a thump against the floor. She was tired of all this idiocy, sick of running through her house, her damned house, like a frightened schoolgirl.

No longer , she silently vowed.

She stood and kicked at a remaining shard of glass.

Dead cats.

Dolls with cryptic messages that moved around.

Bats flying through the house, probably let in by the same twisted loser who thought a dead cat would be a funny joke.

Does he have Jinx? she wondered, fear jabbing at her again.

How else would he have left the collar on the doll?

Next time, would she be dragging Jinx’s remains from beneath a bed or table or whatever?

She felt a new fear and steadfastly tamped it down.

She’d deal with that when the time came, which, she hoped, was never.

Harper was sick and tired of it all.

She wasn’t going to sit around and wait for some twisted son of a bitch to play another sick prank on her.

No way.

Next time, she’d be waiting.