Page 30 of It Happened on the Lake

Gram didn’t respond at all. Not a flinch. No reflex.

Oh God. No, no, no!Harper touched the old woman on the shoulder and shook her.

Nothing.

She placed a hand under her nose.

Felt no whisper of breath.

And her pulse—Harper tried to find it but couldn’t.

And her skin was cool to the touch.

“No!” Harper yelled, and the cat rocketed off the bed, sending the dolls to the floor. “No! Oh God!” She picked up the bedside phone, stretching the cord, her heart thundering a hundred times a minute. She dialed 0 and waited for the dial to slowly spin back to place. This couldn’t be happening!

The operator answered.

Harper didn’t wait. Panicked, she yelled into the receiver. “I need an ambulance! Right now. Do you hear me? Send an ambulance to Dixon Island off of Northway Road in Almsville!” Her voice was high-pitched, catching on the numbers as she repeated her address. “It’s my grandmother. Olivia Dixon. She’s not breathing! Oh God, she’s not breathing! Send an ambulance!”

CPR!

She’d heard about it in health class.

She should be administering CPR!

However you were supposed to do it.

Harper had barely listened in health class, but there was something about pushing on the chest to get the lungs going, then forcing air through the victim’s lips.

Freaked out, nearly hyperventilating, Harper slapped the receiver’s cradle to end the call. Once she heard the dial tone again, she spun out the numbers for the gatekeeper’s house.

Dad was there.

He will know what to do, she thought as the rotating dial took eons to return with each digit of the number.

Even though she sensed it was too late.

You didn’t have to be a doctor to see that her grandmother was gone.

Even Harper knew it.

Marcia, Harper’s stepmother, answered the phone. “Hello?” Her voice was groggy.

“Put Dad on the phone.”

“What? Harper. Your dad’s asleep and—”

“Just get him! It’s an emergency!”

“What emergency?”

“Get Dad! Tell him to come to the house! Now!” She slammed down the receiver so hard the gray cat scrambled out the door. Harper collapsed into the chair near the bed and held her grandmother’s cold hand. A million thoughts raced through her head, pictures of herself and Gram throughout her life, how delighted the older woman had been in her grandchildren, especially Harper, and now . . . Harper’s gaze landed on the gin bottle. Now empty. She thought of the mix-up with the pills and Gram’s insistence on having a drink and . . .

Oh. Dear. God.

Guilt sliced through her.

She shouldn’t have messed up the pills. She shouldn’t have let Gram have a drink. She should have been here.

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