Page 80 of It Happened on the Lake

A nna Reed thought of all the ways she could kill her husband. Fingers gripped around the steering wheel, she considered her options.

There was poison, of course, but where would she get it?

Nope.

So, maybe an accident. But how? A gun? Her father kept all kinds of guns in the garage and the manor. Rifles, shotguns, pistols. A bullet through Bruce’s adulterous heart would do the job.

But could she do it? Actually pull the trigger?

She thought so. But maybe that was just the alcohol talking.

She’d had three—or had it been four?—martinis at the cocktail lounge in Portland where she’d been stood up by her husband.

Oh, he’d called the ma?tre d’ at the expensive restaurant and told the man to search out his wife, to pass on the message that Bruce couldn’t make it.

After all their plans. He’d gotten hung up.

Harper was sick or something. Harper couldn’t go trick or treating with Beth. Excuses, excuses, excuses!

She didn’t believe it for a second.

There had been too many other times when she’d been left waiting in a restaurant, nursing a drink, knowing deep in her soul that her husband wasn’t going to show. Tonight, she’d sensed, was no exception.

Well, Anna wasn’t about to have dinner alone, so she’d ordered one last drink, nursed it, feeding her anger, then left the restaurant.

This wasn’t the first time that son of a bitch had stood her up, but it would damn well be his last.

Maybe he wasn’t out with another woman. Maybe he was home taking care of their sick child as the ma?tre d’ had confided to her. But she wasn’t buying it. Yet.

Blinking back angry tears, she pushed the speed limit on the two-lane highway that followed the course of the river and connected South Portland to Almsville.

She drove recklessly, her concentration shot, the misting rain dampening her windshield and the tears forming in her eyes not helping her vision. She sniffed as the tires of her Thunderbird sang on the pavement and tried like hell to keep them from straying over the center line.

From the radio, Roy Orbison’s voice crooning “Only the Lonely . ”

“Oh, shut up!” She snapped off the radio.

It’s a miserable night, perfect for Halloween , she thought, trying to concentrate, to keep her mind on driving as the Thunderbird sailed into Almsville. Perfect for a murder. What could be more fitting?

Almost unseeing, absorbed in her own heartache, she passed groups of kids in rubber masks and overcoats, sacks of candy swinging from their arms as they splashed through puddles on the sidewalks.

You’re not a murderer.

You cringed when you saw your father shoot a squirrel or a crow .

Do you really think you could point a gun at Bruce, then pull the trigger? The father of your children? The man you swore you’d stay with forever? Remember, “’Til death do us part”? Do you really think those vows meant, “’Til I kill you”? Get real.

Angry, she nearly missed the stop sign and almost plowed into a group of pre-teens racing across the street. They were shouting and laughing, calling to one another and not yet realizing the pain of being an adult.

“Jesus.” She had to be more careful! With the car idling, she reached into her handbag, pulled out an engraved handkerchief and a bottle of pills.

Barbiturates. Her doctor had prescribed them for her anxiety and insomnia.

Boy, could she use them tonight. She unscrewed the cap, tossed a few into her palm, then threw them into her mouth and wished she had another martini to wash them down.

Not that she really needed another drink.

As it was, the world seemed a little off-kilter. Driving a challenge.

Through the downtown of Almsville, she stayed within the speed limit. She drove past storefronts festooned with Halloween decorations in their windows.

Once outside the city core she saw houses with leering jack-o’-lanterns, their crooked smiles glowing on porch steps, while hay bales and dried cornstalks leaned against doorways. Outdoor lights were glowing, inviting trick-or-treaters to knock.

All the little perfect houses with perfect families and perfect husbands , she thought, wrinkling her nose.

“Phoneys. All phoneys.” Knowing she was way past tipsy and now that some of her rage had cooled, she reminded herself to drive as carefully as possible.

Tons of kids were out roaming the streets.

She thought fleetingly of her own two children. They were out here, too.

Well, no. Not if Bruce’s message was to be believed.

Evan was out with his friends, probably raising hell. Her son was hard to read as a preteen. Even harder to rein in.

As for her daughter? It seemed Harper had been sidetracked from her plans of a party at the Hunt family’s across the lake and then trick or treating with her friend Beth.

The sniffles and scratchy throat that had kept her home from school had developed into a cough and fever, again, according to the note she’d been handed.

The lying son of a bitch!

How would her kids feel when they didn’t have a father? What if they figured out their own mother had killed him?

“Stop it!” she said aloud and flipped on the radio again. Melancholy songs were better than her own painful, murderous thoughts.

Elvis was crooning “It’s Now or Never.”

“You got that right,” she said to the empty car as she turned onto Northway and headed home, through the dark, along the shoreline of Lake Twilight. The pills—or was it the booze?—were starting to take root, her bones starting to melt, her brain coated in something warm and fuzzy.

As she neared the drive, she thought she saw someone dive into the bushes. A fleeting shadow that passed quickly.

She stood on the brakes!

Her Thunderbird shuddered, bouncing over a pothole.

Anna’s fingers slipped, the steering wheel sliding through them.

Her car swiped the mailbox, knocking it over and shattering a headlight.

“Shit!”

Metal crumpled.

Jostled, heart in her throat, Anna grabbed the wheel again, then clenched it in a death grip as the Thunderbird finally slid to a stop.

Her heart raced, adrenaline firing her blood.

That was close!

Dear God, she had to be more careful. Driving in this condition was lunacy.

What if she had hit a child?

She let out a long, unsteady breath, her heart still knocking wildly, the one remaining headlamp illuminating the gate to the manor and the gargoyles crouched atop their pillars. “Your night to howl,” she told them.

Then, as if the monstrous stone beasts could hear her, she yelled loudly, “Go! Fly away! Terrorize some of those damned trick-or-treaters.”

Giggling, she fell back on the seat and was surprised at her reaction. Inappropriate. Probably the pills really taking hold. Well, good!

“Get a grip,” she told herself, while noticing that her vision was more than a little blurred, her hands unsteady.

Shoving her hair away from her face, she tried to breathe deeply. She consoled herself with the fact that she hadn’t hit a kid tonight. Thankfully.

Then her thoughts returned to her husband, and she tried to decide whether she’d kill him, as she’d been contemplating, or divorce him.

Or could she? Murder was a mortal sin, of course, but the church really, really frowned on divorce.

Didn’t recognize it. Could she get an annulment?

If she could prove that Bruce was cheating, wouldn’t the church grant one?

And then what?

Her kids would be bastards.

She didn’t like the sound of that.

No matter what, she had to be more careful. She’d wrecked her car. A gift for her birthday last year. From her dear hubby. And bought with her money. What a prick! Nonetheless, he was going to be sooo angry with her. Well, too damned bad.

Anna reached for the keys to kill the engine, and it took two swipes to catch hold of them.

Again, they slipped through her fingers.

As she tried once more to snag them, she thought she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

Something in the greenery by the front gates causing the rhododendron leaves to shiver.

A raccoon?

Or a possum?

Maybe a deer or . . . stray dog . . . No, no.

It was most likely one of her mother’s miserable cats, those nasty little beasts that hid and darted throughout the property.

Especially at night. Nothing to worry about and maybe nothing at all.

Maybe she’d imagined it. After all, the T-Bird’s windows had started to fog and—

Wait!

Something moved again.

She tried to focus.

Was that a shadow on the other side of the fir tree?

A human slinking in the thick shrubbery?

Or just the shifting of tree limbs casting shadows in the breeze?

She squinted as the car idled. Who would be skulking around in this nasty weather?

Maybe kids out trick or treating, or older kids playing pranks like taking rolls of TP and throwing them over trees and cars or houses or leaving sacks of lit dog poop on a hated neighbor’s porch.

It wouldn’t be the first time the gargoyles had been the target of some teenage skullduggery.

Anyway, the dark figure disappeared.

If it had ever existed.

She couldn’t leave the damaged car in front of the gates blocking access to the bridge as she knew her mother and father were both out for the night, so she managed to swing the nose of her car around and parked awkwardly in front of the cottage’s little garage.

Good enough!

On unsteady legs Anna climbed out of the car. She wobbled in her stilettos as the flagstones leading to the front door were uneven and slick. She caught her heel twice but managed not to fall. But she had to steady herself on the door frame as she unlocked the front door.

Once inside, she shed her coat, letting it pool on the floor. Her umbrella? Oh God, she’d left it in the car and hadn’t noticed the rain as she’d walked to the porch.

She must be more wasted than she’d thought.