Page 67 of Stranger in the Lake

My voice sounds all wrong. Too high, quivering in my skull like an airplane going down because surely, surely they’re not talking about the same necklace.

“A dog tag with the town’s coordinates,” Mrs. Sterling says, and her words leach to the lining of my stomach. “You know. The intersection of longitude and latitude smack in the center of the lake. It was gold.”

Not just gold. Solid, weighty twenty-four-karat gold. Only the best for Diana’s boys.

Fresh tears are brimming in Mrs. Sterling’s eyes, and she buries her face in her hands. “I just can’t believe this is happening. We made it through childhood without her choking on a marble. She didn’t get shot up at school or die in some fiery crash when she got her license. Every time we reached this big milestone in her life, I thought, whew, we made it through another phase alive.” She looks up, her cheeks slick with tears. “And nowthis. How did this happen? Mrs. Keller, do you have children?”

I shake my head, try not to throw up. “No.”

“Well, be glad. Being a parent is a constant worry. It never goes away,ever. Not even when they’re grown and gone. It’s the burden of being a mother.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. My mother didn’t worry, not even a little bit, but I have bigger problems.Tell Paul I need to talk to him, Jax said, right before a girl with his necklace turned up dead, and Paul took off into the woods. Only a guilty man would do that. A man with something to hide.

“Where’s this necklace now?”

“That’s the problem,” Mr. Sterling says. “Nobody can tell us. Not the police. Not the people in the B and B.”

Mrs. Sterling nods, her summer-blue eyes boring into mine. “It’s gone. The necklace has vanished.”

31

I don’t wait until the Sterlings are done with their impromptu memorial. As soon as they’ve carted the flowers out the back door, the second they’ve rounded the corner for the stairs that will lead them down to the dock, I’m reaching for my cell. Chet’s number rings and rings, then pushes me to voice mail.

“Chet, call me. Sienna came to town with a necklace that connects Bobby to Jax. Did she say anything to you about it, or was she maybe wearing one? Either way, it’s MIA. Call me the second you hear this.”

I hang up and stare out the window, at the lake and hills and light that’s fading fast.

Being responsible for a man’s death would drive a person batty. It would drive me batty. Chet, too, probably. Maybe Jax ran Bobby off the road. Maybe Jax saw it happen and jumped in to save him, losing his necklace in the process. Or maybe it was worse than that—maybe he was sitting next to Bobby in the Camaro when they crashed. Maybe he was driving.

The thought wipes me clear inside, a bright white light that’s blank and blinding. For a second or two, I think I might pass out from the enormity of it. It would explain so much. Why Jax kept quiet about it for all these years. Why he traded his golden-boy status for a reputation as the town loon. Why he crumbled under the weight of all that guilt.

And now the necklace links Jax to Bobby Holmes to Sienna, a shiny, definitive token someone was willing to kill to make disappear.

And what about Paul? How much did he know? I stare out the window and will my mind to come up with a safe explanation, with an answer that makes some sort of sense. My brain bubbles with half-formed thoughts, but the same one keeps rising to the surface: Paul doesn’t have an alibi for the morning Sienna went into the lake.

Would he do that? Silence an innocent stranger in order to keep Jax’s secret safe? Would he weigh loyalty to an old friend over another life? I think these things until my bones are ready to jump out of my skin. The Paul I know would never do any of these things, but if the past few days have proved nothing else, it’s that I only know the Paul he’s wanted me to see.

The Sterlings are down by the shoreline now, standing at the far edge of the dock. Mrs. Sterling tosses the roses in one by one, while her husband watches from three feet away. The wind picks up her hair, whirls the petals from the flowers. There’s a storm brewing, the clouds low and heavy over the mountain and in my heart, and I don’t know what to believe.

My phone beeps with a text from Paul.

Home in 15, see you soon <3

I grab my keys and race to the car.

The rain starts as I’m rounding the bend to Knob Hill, fat splatters on the windshield, knocking against the roof, sliding in rivulets down the glass. I flip the handle for the wipers and they squeak and whine, leaving greasy streaks on the windshield. It makes it hard to see past the next curve, to judge if the car coming at me is Paul’s or another SUV. If he was where he said he went, to the Curtis Cottage on the southern end of the lake, he’ll be taking a whole different road home than the one I’m on now.

A silver Toyota whizzes past, and I blow out a sigh of relief. The road before me is empty, and it feels darker than before. I reach down and flip on my headlights.

I dig my phone from the cup holder and call Sam on his cell.

“Kincaid.” It comes out gruff, the word hurried, and for an irrational second I wonder if he knew it was me when he picked up, if he still has my name in his phone.

“Sam, it’s me. Charlie. Is it true Sienna had Jax’s necklace?”

A pause. “I take it you’ve talked to the Sterlings.”

“Is it?”

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