Page 35 of Stranger in the Lake

The irony is not lost on me. This past year, I’ve tried so hard to think of this place as home. To not cringe when I come up on a framed photo with another woman in it, to not fret that all my belongings, every stitch of what I own, could fit in the hallway linen closet. I tell myself I don’t care that the pantry shelves are too high and the pillows too soft and I’m not supposed to eat on the white linen couches, or that I’d made myself small and unobtrusive so I’d fit in Paul’s preexisting life. Now, as soon as this place turns into a crime scene, it’s not my home but his. I only live here.

Sam puts down his fork. “Since she was found on the property where you currently reside, I need to ask where you were the morning of November 20, say from 4:00 a.m. on.”

My heart stops for a full second, like a slow-motion crash. “Okay.”

Sam waits. Shakes his head. “Okay what?”

“Okay, ask away.” I sit completely still, reminding myself to breathe. In my head I’m doing the math. Fontana Ridge is a little over three miles from the front door. The timing is doable but just barely, and only if Paul sprinted.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Where were you from 4:00 to 7:00 a.m. on the morning of November 20?”

“Upstairs asleep.” I say it without blinking, with so much conviction that I almost believe it myself, but I can feel myself dipping into panic because I know the question that comes next.

“And Mr. Keller?”

And Mr. Keller. A liar and a secret-keeper, maybe, but not a killer. No way.

My heart gives three telltale thuds,boom boom boom, but I manage to keep my face calm. “In the bed next to me.”

But Sam was here when Paul ran up yesterday morning, saw the blood and mud from his supposed tumble down Fontana Ridge. Good thing Paul’s a fast runner.

“His alarm went off at six,” I say before Sam can ask.

A lie and an alibi, wrapped into one.

16

June 12,1999

8:17 p.m.

Jax’s car reeked of weed.

Correction: his dead mother’s car reeked of weed, three puffs from the remnant of a crumpled joint Micah produced from his pocket, one toke apiece before it singed Jax’s fingertips and he flicked it into the wind. He had to admit, it took some of the edge off his anger, but he didn’t like the way it turned her car, a fully loaded Jeep Cherokee his dad gave her for her last birthday on this earth, into something out ofWayne’s World. The 38 Special blasting from the speakers wasn’t helping matters either.

But Paul drove a two-seater, so it was either this or Micah’s Acura NSX, a gift from his mom the day he got his license. Micah’s dad might be a cop, but the money came from his mom’s side, thanks to her great-great-granddaddy’s tobacco fields. But Micah’s Acura had a back seat built for a duffel bag, and it was a stick, something only Micah knew how to operate. Jax’s car was the obvious choice.

He hit the button for the windows to air the cab out and took a sharp right. Fast-food wrappers and empty bottles rattled around on the floorboard.

“Where are we going?” Paul said, pointing behind them. He was seated smack in the middle of the back seat, the seat belt straining as he leaned his upper body over the console. “Town’s that way.”

“I’m taking a detour.”

Micah twisted on the passenger’s seat. “This ain’t a detour, man. This is the wrong way.”

“Would you both just shut up and enjoy the ride? Listen to the music and just...chill. I know where I’m going.”

His friends were just high enough to let it go, and chatter turned to the most likely place to score some booze. Jax sank into silence. US 64 was a sloppy two-laner lined with gorges and dented guardrails under a canopy of trees, obscuring everything in darkness. It was hypnotic, the way the road dipped and disappeared just beyond the headlights, how it was the yellow lines that seemed to be whipping by instead of the car shooting forward. Jax laid on the gas, leaning into the curves in a way that had even Micah grabbing for the ceiling handle.

Jax looked over with a laugh. “Stop being such a pussy.”

“Stop driving like you have a death wish.”

“Pull over,” Paul said from the back seat. He was flush to the bench now, the seat belt tight across his chest, his hands gripping the seat on either side of his legs. “Let me drive for a while.”

It wasn’t the worst idea. Everything about Paul was neat and precise, including the way he drove, like Jax’s great-aunt Eleanor. Both stuck to the speed limits and kept their hands at ten and two. They liked order and craved control. He’d be a lot safer with Paul behind the wheel.

But Jax wasn’t looking for safety. He was looking for something that made him feel alive. The road stretched on, rising and switching back, rising again. Paul and Micah fell still.

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