Page 10 of It Happened on the Lake

Jinx complained mightily from his carrier as she hauled it, along with a small bag of cat food, to the kitchen. Again, she flipped the light switch. Only a few of the overhead lights winked on, illuminating the kitchen in a weird, almost sepia light. Then she made sure the three doors were closed before opening the cage door. Wide-eyed, all sleek black fur and white toes, Jinx slunk out.

“What’d’ya think?” she said as if the cat could answer. When he didn’t respond, just eyed the new surroundings warily, she said, “I know. Me, too, but trust me, you’re going to fit right in.” She found two ramekins in a cupboard and rinsed them before adding water to one, cat food to another. “Morris loves this stuff, you know,” she told him.

Jinx was unimpressed and didn’t seem to care about the spokes-cat for 9 Lives. Ignoring the dishes, he crept around the perimeter of the large kitchen. “Get comfortable,” she told him as he circumvented the wide island between the stove and refrigerator.

As he explored, she slipped back to the parlor.

“Just one more,” she said as if the cat could hear or understand. She poured herself another healthy shot from the open decanter, drank it in three long swigs.

Jinx was crying at the swinging door.

“I know,” she said, letting the door swing open. “It’s kinda strange being here, isn’t it?” Picking him up, she confided, “It’s weird for me, too.” She left her empty glass on a side table and, stroking the cat, made her way to the window. Her stomach tightened a bit as she looked out across the terrace where she’d last seen her mother so many years before. She’d been just a kid, and her memory was as blurry as that foggy night, some parts completely obscured.

Her fingers tightened.

Jinx yowled!

He kicked hard, scrambling out of Harper’s arm, scratching wildly.

“Ah, wow!” Harper sucked in her breath against the sting but took off after the cat before he could get lost in this huge mansion filled with nooks, crannies, and cupboards. He’d shot down the hallway to the back stairs. “Jinx!” She hit a light switch.

No light sizzled on.

And she saw no cat as she ran past the elevator to the staircase where one flight ascended to the upper floors and the other wound down to the basement.

Both doors were open.

“Jinx,” she called into the darkness. She slapped at a light switch and nothing happened. Crap. “Jinx? Come, kitty.” But her voice seemed to fade into the darkness.

She waited, calling softly. Coaxing.

He didn’t appear.

But he would. He always did.

She tried the light switches for each set of stairs.

Again, the darkness remained.

“Great.” Going down to the basement with its rabbit warren of hallways would be dangerous and fruitless. And searching the upper stories, three counting the tower room, would prove impossible. Her flashlight was weak to begin with, the batteries dying and she had no new ones, so it would be nearly useless.

She would just have to wait until he calmed down and returned.

As he had in the past.

Rubbing her arm, she felt the warm beads of blood that had risen when his claws had caught her wrist and forearm.

“Come on, Jinx,” she said once more and told herself that losing the cat was the perfect end to a miserable day that had started at dawn in Santa Rosa before her drive north. All the way, as the miles had passed beneath her Volvo’s tires, she’d told herself that returning here was no big deal, that all of the pain of the past might surface a bit but would eventually retreat again.

But she’d been wrong.

Dead wrong.

All the old pain was still there, the unanswered questions returning.

She found an ancient box of Kleenex, pulled out all the tissues and took several from the middle of the folded sheets to dab at her arm, then considered another drink but decided against it.

Instead, she gazed through the windows to a spot on the opposite shore. Fox Point, where the lake was narrowest. She remembered each of the houses and their inhabitants: Old Man Sievers’s bungalow near the swim park and closest to town, then the Watkins’ A-frame and the Hunts’ cottage and—

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