Page 167 of It Happened on the Lake

“Shehatesme,” Harper said and sat up against the headboards, pushing her pillow to the side. “She tried to get Chase to break up with me.” It was all coming back to her, how much Cynthia was against their relationship. “She thought I would hold Chase back, that he wouldn’t finish college and I would ruin his life!”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know. We were coming out of the police station, my dad and me, and they were going in and Cynthia stopped and accused me of killing Gram. She said that with my mother and brother gone, the only thing that stood in my way of inheriting everything was my grandmother.” Tears began running down Harper’s face as she recalled Cynthia’s twisted, hate-filled face, her husband trying to usher her up the steps to the front doors of the station in the rain. But Cynthia had stopped and spewed her vile accusations, letting her umbrella get caught in the wind as she’d turned and yelled at Harper. A reporter had been at the station at the time and snapped a picture of Cynthia’s tortured face and Harper’s stunned reaction. A second after the picture was taken, Cynthia spat, missing her target, as Dad had quickly shuttled Harper to their car.

Beth said, “So you’ve talked to the police?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay. Dumb question.”

“The cops have questioned me three times. Once with my dad and twice with an attorney. And that doesn’t count the first night, when they came to the house.”

“Do they think—?”

“I don’t know what they think!” Harper snapped. “And they’ve talked to everyone close to Gram and Chase and . . .everybody. Including Old Man Sievers, who swore his dog went ‘bat-shit’ crazy around midnight and he thought there was an intruder. Later, the dog was at it again and Old Man Sievers heard a boat’s motor or something nearby. At least that’s what Dad told me.”

“That’s weird. We’re only a couple of houses down, and we didn’t hear anything until the sirens.”

“What about the people in the house at the end of the street, next to yours?”

“They left. Like fast,” Beth said, levering up on an elbow as Bandit scratched at the coverlet before rotating and settling down again. “I was there when the police showed up, and within minutes after the cops left, everyone in that place scrambled to pack up their cars and vans and took off. We’re right next door and I saw it all.”

So no one knew anything. None of Chase’s friends had any idea where he was, nor had he been admitted to a hospital.

He was just gone.

Vanished into thin air.

“So what’re you going to do?” Beth asked as the music stopped and she found another album, this one by the Supremes.

“I don’t know!”

“Knock, knock!” Marcia’s voice called as she rapped on the door. Without waiting for an answer, she pushed it open.

“Watch out!” Harper yelled.

Too late.

Carrying a tray, Marcia tripped on the record player.

The phonograph’s needle screeched loudly across the LP, Diana Ross’s voice gone.

Marcia’s tray spiraled into the air.

Mugs of cocoa went airborne.

Hot chocolate and melting marshmallows sloshed onto Marcia as she tripped.

Oreos and Nilla Wafers flew.

The tray landed on the rug with a soft thud. Cups and cookies followed.

“Oooh, what . . . Holy . . .” Marcia landed on her knees, chocolate splashing onto her sweater and splattering on the rug while Bandit went nuts, barking wildly on the bed.

Marcia leveled her gaze at Harper.

Beneath the thick bangs of her bleached beehive, her eyes were ice. “What,” she said through clenched teeth, “is going on here?”

---