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Rick waved off the criticism. “We certainly don’t need more hunters with poor aim, so the fewer the merrier.

” He offered a barrel-chested laugh, but then turned serious.

“And just so you know, we eat what we kill. That’s code.

Also, we help with population control, not to mention the wildlife conservation efforts our hunting licenses fund. ”

“Great,” Fiona answered with sarcasm. “Save the animals so you can shoot them later. How noble of you.”

“The animals aren’t going to kill themselves to prevent overpopulation,” said Rick with another laugh before downing the rest of his Miller Lite. No more blue goo for him.

Fiona stiffened. Julia caught her reaction, which was more than perturbed. She was downright incensed.

“You shouldn’t joke about suicide, not ever, ” Fiona said bitingly.

Nobody was sure how to respond.

“Forgive him, Rick doesn’t mean to be an ass—it just comes naturally,” Erika said, sending her husband a chiding look.

A brief, awkward silence ensued before the song on Christian’s playlist changed to a T-Swift tune.

Fiona’s mood shifted instantly. She shrieked in delight. “Oh my god, this song is awesome!” she exclaimed.

Her fast reset was jarring, but lightened the atmosphere instantly.

It was impossible to look away as she bebopped over to the firepit, a spring in her steps, her face beaming.

Not a drop of her drink spilled as she twirled in front of the roaring blaze.

She tilted her head back, singing with drunken ebullience about leaving with some hunky criminal in a getaway car.

“I love this song soooo much!” Fiona howled, spinning around three times as her skirt billowed out from her dancer’s legs, catching the breeze. Eventually she lost her balance, but to Julia’s astonishment, Fiona kept herself upright. She didn’t miss a step as she resumed her song and dance routine.

Sweat glistened on Fiona’s body as the fire heated her golden skin. She swayed her hips provocatively, everyone entranced with her movements. She shook her head to the beat of the music, flipping her hair like a coquettish minx at a casting call for a 1980s music video.

Julia remained mesmerized. At that moment, Fiona was divine— a wild nymph clutching her glowing blue drink as she shook and shimmied in uninhibited revelry. In her tiny top, it looked like she was acting out a scene from a fantasy film, a precursor to a weird sex ritual honoring a mythical goddess.

Judging by the look on Christian’s face, Fiona was the goddess.

She danced her way back to the group, approaching David with a swing in her step and a seductive glint in her eyes.

She put her back to him before lowering herself onto his lap, still moving her hips with unabashed intensity, giving him what was unmistakably a lap dance.

David looked remarkably uncomfortable for someone who often boasted about his prowess in the bedroom.

He pushed Fiona off him with a grunt of annoyance.

“Get control of yourself,” he said.

Fiona didn’t care. She kept on dancing as if nothing had happened.

“I wouldn’t pass that up,” said Rick, chuckling as he flashed a hungry smile.

Fiona focused on Erika as if seeking her permission, to which Erika acquiesced with a shrug. “I’m not saying no,” she said. “That guy should get a thrill somewhere. ”

Julia was shocked. She’d never let Christian do the same. There wasn’t time for second thoughts (or common sense) to take hold. Fiona grinded into Rick’s lap, moving her body in ways that kept the men transfixed.

Before the “dance” could escalate to the level of a live sex show, the music ended, and a new song came on. The spell was broken.

Fiona peeled herself off Rick, only to plunk herself down in the seat beside David, who couldn’t bear to meet her eyes.

“Yowza, Dave, you’ve brought us a real live wire,” Erika said, taking delight in her husband’s cheap thrill.

Do they have an open relationship? Julia didn’t think so, but honestly, that could explain how their unlikely marriage endured.

David cleared his throat to dislodge his discomfort. “So,” he said, addressing nobody in particular, “any updates on the discovery up north?”

It made sense he’d want to redirect away from Fiona’s escapades, but he’d sure picked a grim topic.

“I don’t think the bones have been ID’d yet,” Erika said as she bowed her head in respect.

Confusion washed over Fiona’s face. Her near-flawless skin took on the pallor of the moon. “Bones? What bones?” she asked.

“Someone bought land a few miles from here, started construction on a house, and dug up some bones,” Christian explained. “At first they thought it was a deer—until they unearthed a human skull.” He turned his attention to Rick. “Hey, wasn’t that near your family’s hunting grounds?”

“Close, but not our property, thankfully. My parents don’t need that kind of stress.” He grimaced. “They’re just hoping for a happy, quiet retirement.”

Julia exchanged wary glances with Erika and David.

Firelight danced in their eyes as if the past were flickering within.

She knew what they were thinking. They’d grown up hearing the warnings from their parents: Keep your eyes open.

Make sure someone knows where you’re going at all times. And don’t wander off alone.

Fiona was about to get indoctrinated.

“It’s hard not to wonder…” Erika wrapped her arms around herself.

“ The lake takes them, ” said David, his voice ominous and drawn out, as though he were about to spook everyone with a ghost story. Fiona huddled closer to him.

“That folklore is just silly campfire nonsense,” Rick said.

“Wait, I’m confused,” said Fiona, looking to David for answers, but Erika spoke up.

“ The lake takes them, ” she said. “That’s the legend around here.”

Julia felt the need to elaborate. “Two women disappeared from Lake Timmeny thirty years apart.”

“First, it was a young woman around nineteen named Anna Olsen,” Erika said. “That was way back in the mid-sixties. The police had no leads, and her body was never found.”

“Then it happened again, exactly thirty years later,” said David in a hushed voice, as if the spirits of these two women might be listening.

“Another young girl named Susan Welch—we called her Susie—disappeared from her home while on vacation with her family. No sign of forced entry or a struggle of any kind. Two young women, both around the same age, go missing without a trace, no evidence, no apparent motive… just poof—gone.” His voice trailed off dramatically.

“The police searched the area,” Erika added. “Divers looked in the water, but no luck. Susie simply vanished. No note. No body. No clue what happened to her. Same as Anna.”

All fell silent.

Eventually Julia spoke up. “After Susie went missing, the young kids in the area started the lore… they said, ‘The lake takes them,’ like it was an evil spirit or something. I think it was just a childish way of coming to terms with what happened. But it caught on and became our version of the boogeyman. We were teenagers back then, just like Susie.” She pointed to herself, then David, and next over to Erika.

“We all knew her, not well, but well enough that it was a serious shock for us.”

“Susie and her family’s house was right over there,” said David.

He pointed to the opposite side of the lake.

“We’d canoe to her place once in a while to hang out.

She wasn’t part of our lake gang, since she lived on a different shore, but we were all friendly.

” He pointed somewhere south of Susie’s house.

“Anna Olsen lived down that way, on this side of the lake. There may not be a connection, but there were enough similarities between the two cases to make you wonder.”

“And when was the last disappearance?” Fiona asked, and David cited the year like it was burned into his memory.

Fiona’s expression turned grim. “Don’t you get it?” Her tone implied that everyone was missing something important.

“Get what?” Rick chased the question with a sip of his beer.

The worry in Fiona’s eyes deepened. Turning to Julia, she said, “The two disappearances were both young women, and they happened thirty years apart from each other, and it’s been exactly thirty years since the last one.”

“That’s right,” said David, as if he was proud his partner could perform feats of basic logic and reasoning.

“I don’t know if I’m being paranoid, but, well… where’s Taylor?” Fiona’s brow furrowed.

Julia whirled around, searching in all directions.

Nutmeg was there, playing with the twins and the nanny.

Lucas had returned and was sitting nearby, staring at his phone.

But Taylor was nowhere in sight.