Page 8 of Stranger in the Lake

“Come on. You’re kidding me, right?” Sam says in his solid, mountain man accent, the kind that says he hasn’t ventured far outside these hills. “Another body washed up under the Keller dock. You better believe I volunteered.”

I clamp down on my poker face because the words sting. A year ago I would have called him on it. I would have punched him on the shoulder and told him to stop being such an ass. I sift through all the things I could say instead—that this is different and he knows it, that the first woman was an accident, a crazy, tragic fluke that despite Sam’s best efforts he couldn’t prove was a crime—but we’ve had this conversation before. Sam is a cop, which means he needs someone to vilify, to lock in a cell so Lake Crosby can feel safe again. He needs someone to play the part of the monster.

And he thinks that someone is Paul.

He steps away from his car, his big boots thumping on the drive. “You didn’t touch her, did you?”

“Come on, Sam. You know I didn’t.”

“I don’t know that. I used to think I knew you, but then...”

“But then what?” I know what, but I want to hear him say it. I want him to look me in the eye and say those ugly words again. I’ve had five months to prepare for this. This time I’m ready.

He holds my gaze for a second or two, then shakes his head and looks away.

In a flash, an image of Sam leaning an elbow on my counter at the gas station, back when we were best friends. Of him chugging cup after cup of stale coffee, using it to wash down enough powdered doughnuts to win a county fair contest. Of me teasing him about his hollow leg as I rang him up, wondering with the other customers where he put it all. He joked that he burned off the calories chasing bad guys.

And just like that, I feel it, that pang of missing him. Despite all the ugly words he said. Despite all the tears I cried. I still miss the guy, damn it. I do.

I shut the door in his face.

Ten minutes later, the hill is swarming with cops. They march up and down the back steps with their bags and equipment, dumping everything onto the ground and stringing yellow tape around the edges of the water. They clomp up the dock and hang their upper bodies over the edge, shaking their heads and exchanging grim looks. They tip their faces up the hill to mine, watching from the living room window, and their expressions look much like Sam’s.

I step back from the glass, a giant solid plate overlooking the lake and trees that stretch up into smoky blue mountains. Like most people from the muddy side of the mountain, those cops down there resent my newfound life. They think I’ve abandoned my friends and my family and my morals for the comforts of a fancy house up on a hill.

Even worse, they make all kinds of assumptions about how I got here—by singling out a rich, older man and stalking him like prey, by offering up my body to a person I’m only pretending to love, by swiping aside every last lick of good sense to lay my head down next to a man everybody says got away with murder. Doesn’t matter that nobody could ever prove he had anything to do with Katherine’s death, or that he didn’t love her. As far as Sam and those cops are concerned, my sins are unforgivable.

There’s a rap at the mudroom door, a creak as Micah pushes it open a crack. “Hey, Charlotte.”

“In the kitchen.” I beat him there, pulling a cup from the cabinet and settling it under the spout, pressing the button without asking. When it comes to coffee, Micah’s answer is always yes.

Micah is a big bear of a guy who looks more like an overgrown computer nerd than a master diver. Tortoiseshell glasses, a swoop of muddy brown hair, a nose that on anyone else would be too large but that somehow works on him. Like Paul, he was born in high cotton, with looks and charm and money from a long line of tobacco farmers on his mother’s side. But he’s the only one of Paul’s friends who’s never—not ever, not even once—made me feel like Paul’s slumming by choosing me, which in my book means he can do no wrong.

“Sorry it took me so long. I was halfway to Sylva when you called.” Micah lumbers across the kitchen, taking in my hair thrown back in a messy ponytail, my makeup-free face and rumpled clothes. “Damn, girl, you look like hell.”

The comment is typical Micah, and I make a sound in the back of my throat—part laugh, part relief. He wraps me in one of his hugs, and tears prick at my eyes—and not because of the pregnancy hormones. He’s warm and he smells nice, and I’m just so damn glad he’s here.

He cranes his head back to look at me. “How you holding up?”

I shake my head, pressing my face into his chest. “Paul’s on a run.”

By now Micah knows me well enough to hear all the words I’m not saying. That my husband’s not here at the worst possible time, that he doesn’t know what happened because he never takes his dang phone, that I could use a little emotional support. He holds me for longer than he has to, waiting for me to be the one to untangle us.

When I do, he digs out his phone, pulling up the number for his father on his screen. “Hey, you think you could get some of your guys to sweep the roads around Nantahala Peak for Paul? He’s gonna need some advance warning before coming home to a crime scene.”

I smile a silent thank-you. Micah’s father is police chief—the only cop in the station from this side of the hill. Both men know that a house full of cops would trigger old trauma in Paul.

Micah’s conversation with his father turns testy, a regular occurrence whenever those two talk. Never mind that Micah is the best underwater criminal investigator in hundreds of miles, he’ll never be good enough for Chief Hunt, who, from the sounds of things, would rather wait for a team of divers he’s called in from Asheville to move the body. Micah turns up the heat, arguing he’s already here, standing by in his wet suit, and I flash a grin at his little white lie. Another reason why I like Micah Hunt; his daddy issues are even worse than mine.

He hangs up, tossing his phone onto the counter. “You know, I’m really starting to wonder if he’s been paying any attention at all. He just told me to send him my qualifications.”

I laugh, because Chief Hunt only need consult a newspaper. Weighted-down bodies, weapons flung from a bridge, some rusty hunk of metal that solves a forty-year-old crime. If it’s down there, Micah has dredged it up and held it up for some camera. He’s semifamous, and not just in these hills. Last year,USA TODAYran a front-page feature on Lake Hunters for their Life section.

I hand him his coffee, and he sinks with it onto a counter stool. “So, you want to fill me in on what happened?”

“Okay. Well, when I got up this morning, I realized I left a couple of things down in the boat, so—”

“What time was that?”

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