Page 43 of Stranger in the Lake

Micah laughs. “That’s what she told him, too, though nice to have it confirmed by someone who’s not Piper.” He leans a hip against the counter, reaching down to scratch a knee. “I ran into Gwen on my way out of the B and B. She was spitting mad. She said Paul missed some big deadline?”

Chet’s dip sours in my stomach, hardening into a painful lump. Micah talked to Gwen, who’d already told me she’d trudged all the way down to county GIS but couldn’t get the email to send. The signal was too weak, the files too massive. After all that work, they weren’t able to put the bid in. Gwen must have been livid, and I’m sure she gave him an earful.

I nod. “When Paul’s back, he’ll call them to explain, see if they’ll accept his bid a day or two late. Surely they can’t hold him responsible for the snow, or for a traffic accident that took down the internet. Isn’t weather like an act of God or something?”

Micah is silent for a beat or two, and I know what he’s thinking, that Paul didn’t miss the deadline because of the snow or the accident. He missed it because he took off on an errand so important that he forgot all about the bid he’d been working on for months.

Micah takes a long, pensive pull from the bottle, then settles it onto the counter. “You know, back in high school, everybody made fun of Paul for turning in his term papers a whole week early. Professor Paul, we used to call him, including the teachers. He never waited until the last second to turn in anything.”

There’s a question in there somewhere, but I’m not about to touch it. Micah is right. It’s not like Paul at all to miss a deadline. If I keep my mouth shut, I won’t have to tell another lie.

“Here’s another thing Gwen and I can’t seem to understand. How’s Paul scouting anything in this weather?”

I swallow, trying to keep my breath steady. I want Paul to be here. I want him to swing his arm around my shoulders and explain it his damn self. “He left before the snow hit.”

“How come he’s not answering his phone?”

“No reception, I guess. Either that, or he forgot his charger.”

Or both. Or he’s too busy lying in a broken heap at the bottom of some bluff.

The kitchen is a pressure cooker. Micah is playing us. He talked to Gwen, and he knows Paul’s history. He knows the way Paul thinks, what makes him tick, what would make him run off in such a hurry. The walls shrink in, the ceiling moves lower, and the hot air blowing through the vents hurts my ears.

Micah sets the beer on the counter with a sigh. “Charlotte, what do you say we cut the crap? Because I think you know exactly where that crazy-ass husband of yours went, and if it’s the place I think he’s gone, then you’d best be telling me so I can do something about it. You won’t hear it on the press conference tomorrow, but all signs point to Jax for Sienna’s murder.”

My body is tight with unreleased fear. Micah knows where Paul went, and he’s worried about him, which means I should be, too.

“Look, I don’t want this getting all over town, but the cops have been to Balsam Bluff.”

I frown. “What’s in Balsam Bluff?”

“Jax has a cabin on the western side.”

This is news to me. Jax has a cabin, and in Balsam Bluff no less. A popular hiking area crisscrossed with trails and picnic spots deep in the Nantahala National Forest, a good thirty minutes by car from here.

But the western side is undisturbed wilderness, an untamed, undeveloped forest where the few humans wandering the hills are either lost or up to no good. How Jax got away with erecting a cabin on government land is anybody’s guess. You can’t stake anything there without an act of Congress.

Chet doesn’t buy it, either. “Dude, that makes zero sense. For one thing, nobody has a cabin in Balsam Bluff. And even if Jax did live there, which he doesn’t, he’s not going to be anywhere near there by the time the cops arrive. You don’t find Jax. Jax finds you.”

“That may be so,” Micah says, “but they found Sienna’s coat in Jax’s cabin. Her scarf is MIA.”

I think of Jax, standing in the glow of the porch lights on the back deck, and something sparks in my chest. “What does the scarf look like?”

“Cashmere. Cream and knitted. With dangly things on the ends.”

“Fringe.” I close my eyes, and I see his neck, wrapped in the creamy material. I remember thinking the scarf was too pretty for his big frame, the pattern too complicated and girlie. I think back to when I saw Sienna in town, the scarf she had double-wrapped around her neck and stuffed into her black wool coat.

But the parts of it I could see were cream.

Jax knew her name. He was wearing her scarf.

I open my eyes, and Micah is watching me. “Jax is dangerous, Charlotte. Volatile and violent and completely unpredictable, and he has been for a while. The cops have evidence he murdered that woman, something I’m guessing Paul at least figured when he took off after him. That’s where Paul is, isn’t it? He went to warn Jax the cops were coming for him.”

I look at Chet, standing stiff like a soldier on the other side of the island.

You can’t tell Micah, Paul said on his way out the door.Promise me you won’t say a word until I get back.

In the end, though, I didn’t make that promise, did I? I was angry about him leaving, angry he might not make it back in time for my doctor’s appointment tomorrow, moved to next week because of the snow. He said he had to go, that we’d talk about everything when he got back.

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