Page 65 of Stranger in the Lake

He stared at the lady and her kids on the cinder-block steps, and he wondered which was worse: losing the mother who glued your family together or growing up with a mother like this one. The answer came to him instantly, along with a sour wave of tequila that landed on the dirt by his feet.

These kids. These poor, miserable kids had it so much worse than Jax ever could.

And this was how Jax knew he couldn’t be saved, why a hundred baptisms by Pamela’s crazy pastor into the waters of Lake Crosby couldn’t save his black and evil soul—because looking at that scraggly girl and her wailing baby brother made him want nothing more than that second bottle of tequila.

30

The good thing about living in a house of glass in the woods is that you know when someone’s coming. You hear the whir of a motor as they steer around a curve in the drive, murmured voices carried on the wind, the way the birds and chipmunks go still and quiet. It gives you just enough time to pat down your hair and slap on a smile before they step up to a door or a window.

The bad thing is there’s no hiding from the two strangers, peering through the glass.

A man and woman, both in their late fifties or early sixties, their faces far too grim and somber for a sunny Saturday afternoon. They could be anyone, and yet my gut knows exactly who they are.

I freeze at the edge of the foyer, taking in the woman’s white-blond hair, her birdlike build, her full lips and pale skin behind dark sunglasses. She clutches flowers to her chest, a spray of big white buds that falls over an arm.

Funeral flowers.

I open the door, and she nudges her husband with an elbow.

“My name is John Sterling, and this is my wife, Sharon. We’re looking for the owner of this house. I understand his name is Mr. Keller?”

He has an accomplished air about him—a doctor, an accountant, the owner of a chain of shoe stores—but with clenched fists and a sharp, angry edge. Grief in the form of fury, and I don’t blame him. If I were in his shoes, standing on the doorstep where my daughter washed up dead, I’d be pissed off, too.

“His name is Paul. He’s my husband. I’m sorry but he’s not here.” Neither is Chet, and I wish he was because I am not emotionally prepared for this. I’m not sure I’m equipped to comfort grieving parents on my own. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

The last sentence is the one I should have led with, I realize too late.

“Thank you,” Mr. Sterling manages with a jerky nod. His face is grim and rock hard. “Were you...were you here when it happened?”

I nod, trying not to wince at the memory of her pale skin, that one glass-blue eye staring into the sky. “I’m the one who found her. I called the police.”

Mrs. Sterling gasps, whipping off her glasses and staring across the pavement like I’m her daughter’s savior. Like I am the one who rescued her from the lake, except that I didn’t. By the time I got to her, she was already dead.

I stare into eyes the color of a weak sky, just like her daughter’s.

It’s to her that I make the offer. “Would you like to come inside?”

The Sterlings step across the threshold and pull up short, planting their shoes at the edge of the foyer rug and staring with obvious shock. Not at the house, at the size of the place or the way it looks ripped from a design magazine, but at the lake, glittering on the other side of the plate glass.

Mrs. Sterling sees it and bursts out crying. She clutches the flowers to her chest and just lets loose, a continuous sobbing that racks her body so hard I worry she might pass out. Her husband stands next to her, both hands shoved in his pants pockets, glaring out the window in grim silence.

I give them space, shimmying my cell from my back pocket, and text Chet.

OMG the Sterlings are here. Where are you?

Three little dots dance around at the bottom of my screen, and then:

Still in town. Want me to come home?

My gaze creeps to the Sterlings, lit up golden by the setting sun, and I wonder what Chief Hunt has told them. I wonder if they’ve already been to the B and B, if they’ve talked to Piper. If they’ve heard what their daughter was doing on her last days in Lake Crosby...or more specifically, who. My thumbs fly over the keyboard.

Actually, prob better if you stay away. Wait there until I give the all clear.

“Chief Hunt said she was under the dock.” Mr. Sterling turns away from the glass, and for a split second, his expression matches his tone, glittering with accusation. As if I was the one to drag his daughter up from her watery grave like some kind of lake monster. He squints, watching me from across the room. “Is that true?”

His wife gives him a pleading glance over her shoulder. “Hush, John. I can’t do this right now.”

I slip the phone in my pocket and reach for the teapot, settling it on a tray with some cups and saucers.

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