Page 79 of Pro Bono

“It does,” Charlie said. He went on slowly. “This seems to be the road that leads around the lake.”

She looked at the map on his phone. “I don’t know if I’d call it a road.”

He kept going. After a few hundred more feet they came to a two-car garage, then a house that at first seemed to be a large bungalow, but when they reached it they could see that the two-story plain part was only the front, and there was a tall A-frame roof behind it, and then after the house there was a structure farther from the road that had a dock leading out toward it. “I wonder if that’s it,” Charlie said. He kept going.

The road improved for a hundred yards or more before it began to get worse. He stopped. “What do you think?”

“I’ve been keeping my mouth shut, being a mere volunteer companion and all, but I don’t think we should go any farther. Whenever there’s a break in the trees, I look across the next part of the lake, and I don’t see any other houses.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “There’s some kind of a break up ahead. It looks like a trail goes up the hill to the left. It might make the road wide enough to turn around.”

Linda Warren’s paddling was bringing her kayak up between the two other women’s kayaks. She glided into the space and rested her paddle across her lap. “Well,” she said. “Just catching up was a pretty decent workout in itself.”

Wendy said, “I’ll bet. I was getting tired just watching you.”

“Is there something out here in this part of the lake that you wanted me to see?”

“No. But out here where it’s sunny and there’s a little breeze, there aren’t any bugs, and you get the best view of everything,” Mary said. She took a stroke with her paddle and glided closer to Linda.

“Well, it’s certainly a great view. I’ll give you that,” Linda said. She was feeling a mild irritation with the others, but as she thought about why—that she had wanted to explore the shoreline instead of the middle of the lake, but that they had made the decision without speaking to her—it seemed so trivial that she dismissed it.

Wendy took two strokes with her paddle and drifted close to Linda on the other side. It made Linda feel even more silly because in moving close they were trying without words to reassure her. She looked at Mary, and then heard a swish behind her as the blade of Wendy’s paddle swung and bashed the back of her head. She actually saw a flash, and the force of the blow propelled her forward so hard her face almost hit her kayak. She sensed that Wendy’s paddle would be rising to take another swing, but instead it jabbed at her like a spear and hit her ribs on her left side. Linda brought her own paddle backward to slice at Wendy, but as she did, she saw Mary.

Mary had taken a hatchet out from under the foredeck of her kayak and raised it to swing downward at her. Linda reflexively lowered her paddle and changed the motion into a paddle stroke. She shot ahead just as Mary’s hatchet chopped downward. The blade hit the hard plastic side of her kayak and bounced back, accomplishing nothing.

Linda’s mind caught up with the past two seconds. She knew that Wendy had hit her in order to incapacitate and distract her while Mary swung the hatchet from the other side. It was inescapable that they were murdering her. She didn’t understand how that could be, but she knew it and knew that she didn’t have time to wonder about it. She had already taken a strong paddle stroke and her arms were in position to take the next, so she did, and she paddled fast and hard, alternating sides and heading for shore.

She heard the sound of splashing behind her and knew it was both women flailing to make their kayaks move forward from a standstill tocatch her. She had to fight this regardless of what her chances were to hold on to life. She seemed to have nothing to preserve her but whatever her body could do at this moment of this day. It was going to have to be enough.

Over a mile away, Charlie Warren drove up to the house and stopped. He turned off the engine and walked to the front door. He pressed the button beside it and heard the doorbell ringing. This was the only building that he and Vesper had seen since well before they’d left the interstate and driven to Blucher Lake. The doorbell seemed to be ringing from at least three places in the house. Whoever owned the place must be concerned that he never miss any visitors. Maybe nobody lived here all the time, and he was just a landlord who didn’t like waiting for tenants to admit him to his property. Charlie was sure anyone inside must have heard the bell, but after he’d waited for about thirty seconds, he rang the bell again. He waited, then knocked.

His mother had told him she and her friends were here for the lake and the woods, and those weren’t in the house. He walked back to Vesper and leaned close to her open window. “I don’t think they’re here. They’re probably out enjoying nature.”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s a long way to come to sit in a house.”

“I’m starting to think this wasn’t a good idea. I emailed her that we were up here and she didn’t invite us to stop by, and we’ve never even met the other two women. I think we should just keep going the way we were headed and drive back to Reno. She knows she can call me.”

“Maybe,” Vesper said. “Sometime we can tell her we came all the way here, got embarrassed, and sneaked off. It’ll make a good story.”

He chuckled. “It is kind of funny.”

“It will be, anyway,” Vesper said. “After it’s over and well behind us. Before I laugh, I’d at least like to be sure the two who’ve never seen us don’t think we’re criminals and call the police.”

“Or shoot us,” he said.

“Not funny,” she said. “Too soon after that night in your office. Please, just call her.”

He took out his phone and pressed his mother’s number, then listened, but there was no answer. “Hi, he said. “It’s just me, your favorite son. I’ll try you again later. I hope you’re having fun.” He shrugged and put the phone away, then looked at the house.

“I’d at least like to look around for a minute to see if they’re right nearby,” he said, then started walking along the front of the house toward the boathouse. Vesper got out of the car, shut the door, and trotted to catch up. They turned the corner and walked toward the back of the house and the lakeshore.

The house reminded Charlie of an open treasure chest. The front of the place looked like a shoebox-shaped cottage. In the back was a section that rose up to form a glass-fronted living room with stylish furniture, polished wood floors, Persian rugs, and paintings on the walls. It opened onto a large wooden deck with stainless steel gas stove, wet bar, and the best view of the lake that he’d seen.

“Look!” Vesper said, and pointed.

Far off down the lake, there were bright yellow specks moving from about midway to the shore on his left. Two of them were close together, and another seemed to be leading them. He hadn’t seen any other human beings or signs of them besides this house and the neglected road. “Are those boats, or what?” he said.

“They’re too slow to be Jet Skis, but they seem about that size.”

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