Page 182 of It Happened on the Lake

Dear God, who would—

Wait.

Something was off.

She looked again into those black eye sockets set deep in bone.

Barely any flesh on the graying bones.

Only a few thin tufts of fur.

No rotting smell.

Jinx had only been missing a week, and no way would he be this decomposed. No. Not at all.

Gritting her teeth and forcing back the urge to throw up, she forced herself to use the broom and drag the bones out from under the chaise. Her stomach turned over again when she saw the bits of orange fur. No, this wasn’t Jinx, her black and white tuxedo cat. This long-dead feline was probably Earline, her grandmother’s one-eared yellow tabby long buried in the rose garden/cat cemetery in the front of the house, across from the garage. The bones were dirty and gray, and there were a few fir needles caught between the cat’s ribs.

“You sicko.”

She rocked back on her heels, felt a bit of pain where she’d cut her foot, but stared at the skeleton and wondered who the hell had left it here.

Whoever he was, he was upping his game, trying to terrorize her.

“Bring it on,” Harper said under her breath, her fear having morphed into a new, growing anger. Her blood, which had turned ice cold at the sight of the dead cat, was now running white hot.

She threw the broom across the room in frustration. It landed with a thump against the floor. She was tired of all this idiocy, sick of running through her house,herdamned house, like a frightened schoolgirl.

No longer, she silently vowed.

She stood and kicked at a remaining shard of glass.

Dead cats.

Dolls with cryptic messages that moved around.

Bats flying through the house, probably let in by the same twisted loser who thought a dead cat would be a funny joke.

Does he have Jinx?she wondered, fear jabbing at her again. How else would he have left the collar on the doll? Next time, would she be dragging Jinx’s remains from beneath a bed or table or whatever? She felt a new fear and steadfastly tamped it down. She’d deal with that when the time came, which, she hoped, was never.

Harper was sick and tired of it all.

She wasn’t going to sit around and wait for some twisted son of a bitch to play another sick prank on her.

No way.

Next time, she’d be waiting.

Chapter 45

“Ihave a bone to pick with you,” Rand said, irritated as he slapped a copy ofThe Twilight Tribuneonto the table where Gunn was seated in the break room. Gunn was sipping coffee and picking at the remains of a cinnamon roll.

“About what?” Gunn looked up, then down at the front page of the newspaper with the headline:LOCAL WIDOW DIES IN MYSTERIOUS LAKE FIRE. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh.’” Rand twisted a chair around and sat on it, leaning over the back. “I thought all this information was supposed to come from the chief. Either directly or indirectly. He’s hired a public information officer, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t say anything that really wasn’t public knowledge.”

“It’s my case. You could have checked with me.”

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