Page 19 of It Happened on the Lake

Something was definitely wrong.

Harper bit at her already-chewed fingernail. “Come on. Come on. Where are you?” she whispered as she refocused the field glasses.

She glanced at her watch. Nearly twelve-twenty. Had Chase come early and left when she hadn’t been able to meet him right at midnight? Had she missed him, as she’d been stuck dealing with Gram and her stupid pills?

Or was there another reason?

A more worrisome reason.

Had he been caught sneaking out? That was kind of ridiculous. He was nineteen, even though he was still living at home. He should be able to come and go as he pleased despite his strict father.

Or . . . she experienced another horrid thought. What if Chase had stood her up on purpose?

He wouldn’t, would he?

But deep down, she wasn’t certain.

He can’t abandon me now, she thought as she glanced around this tiny bedroom that had once been her mother’s. The quilt was still the same, the pictures on the wall, even the crucifix of Jesus over the bed hadn’t been changed. Everything in this room was just as it had been the night Mama died. She felt a familiar darkness in her soul as she thought back to that night, so she closed her mind to it and held on to the bedpost, conjuring up her mother’s fading image and trying to feel closer to her.

But her thoughts returned to Chase.

He was all that mattered now.

Mama and the rest of Harper’s family were her past.

Chase Hunt was her future.

She loved him.

With all of her heart.

Are you sure? Her willful mind asked.

An awful question!

Of course she loved him, and she would prove it!

Hadn’t she already?

Even done the unthinkable?

So why didn’t you tell Gram about him? Why are Beth Leonetti and just a handful of friends the only ones who know you’re still seeing him, even after breaking up after he went off to college?

Why the secret, Harper?

What are you afraid of?

She didn’t want to think about that now, nor did she want to admit that it was Chase’s idea to break up and then get back together in secret.

It had always bothered her.

But it was about to change.

Again, using the binoculars, she stared through the window, first focusing on the terrace off the parlor downstairs, then on the tram that ran from the terrace to the boathouse. It was quiet, as usual, the tram’s car tucked into its small garage.

No one was outside. Not even a cat showing in the moonlight. She didn’t see any sign of the bats that roosted in the boathouse—the “bat house”—as her brother Evan had called it, insisting it was filled with vampires intent on sucking every drop of blood from her body.

He’d thought it was a great joke.

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