Page 11 of It Happened on the Lake

“What the—?” she whispered. Something was out there. Something bright and swirling, seeming to grow more luminous and larger, as it bobbed on the surface and drew nearer.

A fire? There was a fire in the middle of Lake Twilight?

But—?

No.

Couldn’t be.

Heart thudding, she swung her grandfather’s telescope around and peered through.

“Oh God.” Her heart sank.

Sure enough, a boat was ablaze, flames rising into the rain-washed night.

A woman was aboard, her tortured face turned up to the heavens.

Cynthia Hunt.

Chase’s mother.

A woman who blamed Harper for all the heartache in her life.

A woman who wished Harper dead.

“No,” Harper whispered. “No . . . no . . .” There couldn’t be another tragedy on the lake.

Not after there had been so many.

And yet, once more Lake Twilight was claiming its own in its deceptively calm waters.

Fighting a searing sense of déjà vu, Harper ran straight to the bedside phone in Gram’s room, a clunky dial-faced relic that had never been replaced.

Sweeping up the heavy receiver, she sent up a prayer that the line was still connected, that she could still reach someone. A dial tone hummed in her ear.

Thank God!

She jammed a finger into the 9 slot and waited for the dial to slowly rotate back into place. It seemed to take forever for the phone to spin out each digit of the emergency number. “Come on, come on,” Harper said as the phone started to ring. “Answer!”

She stretched the cord and paced.

“9-1-1.” A female voice startled her and started asking questions.

But Harper cut her off. “There’s a boat on fire in the middle of Lake Twilight! Near Dixon Island! There’s at least one person on board! A woman! Send someone now!”

“On Lake Twilight? If you could please identify yourself and—”

She didn’t hear the rest. Just took off through the side kitchen door that was used as a service entrance. Sprinting around the side of the house, she dashed onto the slippery flagstones of the terrace to the stairs.

Slipping and sliding, her pulse pounding in her ears, she scrambled down the steep concrete steps, some crumbling, some slick with moss.

The fire was in full view if anyone was looking, a wavering blaze undulating on the choppy waters, three hundred, maybe four hundred yards from either shore. Surely someone else had noticed the flames. Surely someone had—

Her bad leg gave out.

She missed a step.

Twisting, she went down hard.

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