Page 66 of Stranger in the Lake

“When, then? When would you like to do it? That lake out there was our daughter’s final resting place. It’s the reason we’re here.” His face is purple and his voice a cold, hard slap. I don’t blame him for being furious, but his anger seems more than a little misplaced. His wife didn’t do anything. She’s suffering, too. And clearly, she’s in need of some comforting.

He aims his animosity at me. “I need to know where she wasexactly.”

Mrs. Sterling shakes her head, clapping her free hand over her ear. “I don’t... I can’t hear this right now.”

“I need to know, Sharon.”

“John,please.”

Chet and I are used to heated arguments. We’re used to slamming doors and loud voices and cuss words shouted over our heads. We’ve learned the best way to not get beaned with a plate is to stand still and keep quiet, and fade into the background.

But there’s no background here. Not in a house that’s basically one giant room, not with two grieving parents looking to me for answers.

“You should know that they handled your daughter with the utmost care. Especially the lead diver, Micah. He’s our neighbor, and a dear friend.” I don’t mention he’s Chief Hunt’s son, as that would only muddle things that have no business being muddled. I think of how he refused to bring her to shore any other way than by doing it himself, by plowing through the ice-cold water, even though he knew his father would refuse to give him any credit. “He could not have been more gentle.”

Mrs. Sterling is crying again, dabbing at her eyes with a sleeve. I eye the drooping roses in her other hand, the buds fainting over the crook of her arm. “Here. Let me put those in water.” I gather up the flowers, and she doesn’t protest.

“Does this Micah person know how Sienna got in there?” Mr. Sterling says, following me into the kitchen. “Do the police have a suspect?”

I lean the flowers in a pitcher I pull from the shelf and settle in the sink, then fill it with a couple of inches of water. “That’s a question for Chief Hunt, I’m afraid. I’m not up on the latest with the investigation. I only know what I saw on TV.”

Another lie, of course—the latest in a long string of them. But it doesn’t seem like a good idea to be spouting off his questioning of Chet or any of what Micah told me about Sienna’s jewelry, or that I saw her scarf hanging from Jax’s neck. Better to let the police decide which information they want to share.

“They won’t tell us anything,” Mr. Sterling fumes. “What kind of operation doesn’t tell the parents what they’re doing to find their daughter’s killer? This is ridiculous. It’sbullshit.”

Itisbullshit, and I’m pretty sure his question was rhetorical.

I fill the teapot with hot water, drop in a bag of Lipton and carry everything over to the couches. “Please, let’s sit down.”

I point Mrs. Sterling to a couch, but the problem with a house that’s built around lake views is that there’s not a seat in the house without one. She sinks onto the cushion facing the kitchen, giving her a clear shot of Micah’s dock farther up the cove, but at least from where she’s sitting, she can’t see ours.

I sit at the opposite end, busy myself with the arranging of cups on the coffee table.

Mr. Sterling has too much nervous energy to sit. He paces along the edge of the carpet. “Itoldher to let it go. I told her this podcasting business was dangerous. If somebody got away with murder all those years ago, you better believe they’ll murder again.”

“I saw her Twitter feed, all the stuff about Bobby—Skeleton Bob. Why did she think he was murdered?”

“Because of the necklace.”

“John.”Mrs. Sterling flashes a glance in my direction. “We’re not supposed to talk about the necklace.”

I sink onto a chair and shuffle through my memories of the weeks after Bobby and his Camaro emerged from the depths, dripping in mud and gunk. After two recreational divers swam up on Bobby’s car, Micah and his boys brought it to the surface and turned the accidental discovery into a walking advertisement for his company. It was on every front page and television screen in the Southeast, and made Lake Hunters into a household name. Thanks to Bobby Holmes, Micah became a local celebrity.

But I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve read all the articles. None of them mentioned a necklace, and Sienna wasn’t wearing one. I tick off the jewelry Micah told us he’s combing the bottom of the lake for—hoop earrings, a pearl bracelet and watch, a ring. He didn’t mention a necklace. I’m certain of it.

“That necklace got our daughter killed. It’s the reason Sienna is dead.” He is pacing now, in long strides perpendicular to the couches, back and forth across the carpet. “I will shout about that thing in the town square if I have to. I won’t shut up until they find who did this to our daughter.”

His wife frowns. “We don’t know she’s dead because of the necklace.”

He stops abruptly. “Don’t be ridiculous. That necklace is a clue. Sienna always said that necklace was going to make her famous, and it did, didn’t it? Our daughter is famous, but it’s because she’s dead. Because she wasmurdered.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What necklace, and how did she connect it to Skeleton Bob? Because there are thousands of people on the lake every summer. It could have come off a skier’s neck last decade, or somebody could have flung it out of a car ten minutes ago.”

“Because of Jeremy—he’s the diver who found the car. He took the necklace from the car and hung it around his neck. He wore it like some kind of trophy. But Sienna saw the engraving on the back, and she traced it to here, to the lake. That’s when he told her what really happened.”

I sit very still, a freezing cold finger climbing my spine. How many necklaces are there in the world? Billions, probably. But a necklace she could trace to Lake Crosby? What are the odds?

“What did the necklace look like?”

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