Page 51 of Stranger in the Lake

Whatever it is, it’s not little. I take in the size of the basket, the thick layer of tissue paper bouquets concealing whatever’s underneath. A normal person shells out a couple of extra bucks for a gift bag from Walmart, but not Diana. Diana shops at the kind of stores where the wrapping is as extravagant as the gift.

“I... You didn’t have to do that.” An unpleasant tightness gathers in my chest at her thoughtfulness.

“I know, but I couldn’t resist.” She grins, claps her hands three rapid-fire times, and her enthusiasm is like a saw against my skin. “Go ahead. Open it.”

I tug on the canary yellow ribbon wound around the top of the cellophane, and the plastic opens up like a flower, the filmy petals floating to the countertop with a soft crinkle. I remove the tissue paper, pretty pastel bouquets arranged in a tight layer to conceal what’s underneath. A rubber giraffe smothered in polka dots. A chenille bath towel with floppy elephant ears hanging from the hood. Pacifiers and rattles and blankets and clothes, a mountain of miniature sweaters and footed pants and onesies as soft as butter. I pull out a knitted hood shaped like a miniature strawberry, tiny enough to fit on my fist, and set it on the marble with the others.

“I know it’s early still,” Diana says, admiring a sweater with a teddy bear embroidered across the front, “but I went in that baby store just to take a little peek, and before I knew it, I’m standing at the cash register with a mountain of stuff. We didn’t have all this when Paul was born. The cribs and the rugs and the changing tables and—Oh my God, the mobiles! So precious. I would have bought you one of those, too, but I couldn’t decide. Have you thought about colors yet? Do you have a theme for the nursery?”

When Chet was born, our mother wrapped him in an old T-shirt and put him in a box on the floor. If he cried in the middle of the night, she’d shove him, box and all, into my room. Of course I don’t have a theme for the nursery. I didn’t know I was supposed to.

“Diana, this is all...”

“Too much?” I look up in surprise, and she laughs. “Go ahead—you can say it. It won’t be the first time I’ve been accused of being too much. I know I have the tendency to go overboard, especially when it comes to my family.”

I smile. “I guess I can’t fault you for that. But it is a lot. Does a baby really need all this stuff?”

“Well, no. Of course not. A baby doesn’tneedany of this, but that’s the whole point.” She picks up a stuffed lamb, holding it by its fuzzy neck. One eye is shut in a saucy wink, its lashes stitched to the fabric with shiny black thread. “Grandmothers are supposed to spoil their grandchildren, especially the first one. I’m supposed to spend a ridiculous amount of money on stuff they’ll grow out of within a year. That’s part of the bargain.”

She says it without an ounce of malice, and I tell myself it’s not a dig of some kind, not a subtle swipe at my penniless, motherless existence. My mother will not be dropping by with expensive gifts. I will not have to tell her to back off. She can’t be bothered to love her own children, much less a grandchild.

Diana shakes her head. “You know, I had actually given up on the idea that Paul would ever have kids. I’d resigned myself to the fact I’d have to live the rest of my life without knowing what it was like to be a grandmother. If he’d married someone his own age, that window would be closing up about now.” She pauses, looks at me. “I guess I have you to thank, don’t I?”

It’s the closest she’s come to saying she approves of Paul’s choice of wife, and it’s like all those times when my mother told me I was pretty. I find myself liking Diana a little more for the compliment.

“You should know that Paul and I didn’t plan this. We weren’t looking to get pregnant this early on in our relationship, but I guess sometimes life has other ideas.”

“Youdowant this baby, though, don’t you?”

I pick up a silver teething ring tied with a tulle bow, and it really is beautiful, so beautiful I’d never even consider buying it myself. A blast of longing hits me hard, a physical tug in my chest—for this baby, for things with Paul to go back to the way they were before yet another dead woman’s body washed up in the lake. For Diana to like me, even if only because of my ability to give her a baby Keller.

“Yeah. I do. I want this baby with everything inside of me, and so does Paul.”

“Good, because now that I’ve gotten over the surprise of it all, I can’t tell you how excited I am.” Her gaze wanders to the items spread across the island, and she laughs. “Clearly I’m excited. Though I hope all these gifts didn’t scare you off, because when all of this—” she sweeps a hand in the general direction of the lake “—dies down, I’d really love to throw you a shower. At the club, maybe, or a restaurant in town. Up to you.”

I bristle a little at thethis—murder is so darn inconvenient—but I’m not about to slap the hand extending an olive branch. I give her my brightest, happiest smile. “I’d love that, Diana. Thank you.”

23

On the day Katherine Marie Keller drowned, the woman who four years later still haunts this town and my marriage, I had just clocked in at The Daily Bread diner in town. It was an hour before opening time, and we were gathered around a table by the window for our morning meeting, a run-through of specials and instructions that our manager Leonard always started with prayer. He’d just flipped to the appropriate page in his Bible when sirens sounded on the other side of the glass—too many of them whizzing by. Police. Ambulance. Rescue squad. Leonard made us hold hands and pray, loud and long, for whatever God’s creature they were dashing off to save.

The lunch shift was in full swing when the news reached the diner. People shaking their heads and whispering, holding hands and saying prayers for the poor, lost soul. Katherine was dead before they pulled her out of the water.

I wasn’t the only person in Lake Crosby who found it suspicious an experienced swimmer would drown in a lake she swam in every day. Those treks to Waterfall Cove and back were how Katherine stayed fit, her workouts so regular that the boaters knew to watch out for her. One of them, a fisherman, spotted her on her way back, a brunette in a crimson bathing suit executing the perfect butterfly. Strong. Powerful. Two hundred yards from home.

The mountain came alive with questions. How does a perfectly healthy woman drown in water she swims in every day? Did she run out of breath? Get a cramp? And why did she have fresh bruises on her right ankle?

That last one is what keeps Sam awake at night still. Four small round bruises just above her foot, plus one larger one by her heel. Fingerprints, Sam claims, though the medical examiner never went that far. The ME documented the bruises, but she didn’t find much else. No alcohol or drugs in her blood, no other injuries. Nothing to give anyone reason to think Katherine’s death was anything other than a tragic accident. The case was closed before it was even opened.

And Paul? Paul was on a run when she went under. I know this from the photographs in the paper, his beet-red cheeks shiny with sweat, his look of terror to come home to a driveway filled with police cars. Some reporter pointed a camera at his face at the exact moment Chief Hunt delivered the bad news. Talk about a money shot. There’s no way he could have faked that kind of grief.

And yet that reporter’s question won’t stop playing on repeat in my head.Any chance the two deaths are connected?Jax’s words thump bass lines in my ears:That’s two.Watch your back.

Diana is long gone by the time the back door bangs open, and I jump clear off my chair. My heart settles when I see Chet, drenched from the waist down, his boots dangling from two fingers. He drops them, and they land on the tile with a splat.

“Did you get the boat?”

“I got the boat. Froze my ass off in the process, but I got it. I hope you got insurance, though. The seats were slashed to shreds, and so were the ties. Sliced clean through.”

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