Page 31 of It Happened on the Lake

If she’d just stayed, she might have heard Gram cry out.

If she’d checked on her, she might have stopped Gram from having another drink.

But she hadn’t.

And now her grandmother was dead.

Chapter 8

“Harper!” her father yelled as the front door banged against the wall.

“In here!” Harper dropped her grandmother’s hand.

Footsteps pounded through the hallway as Bruce Reed raced into the bedroom and Harper flung herself into his arms.

Her voice cracked. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Marcia was holding her dressing gown closed, her hair in rollers as she followed her husband inside. “Bruce—? Oh Jesus!” She stared in horror at the woman lying in the bed. With a gasp, she took a faltering step backward. Turning wide eyes at her husband, she whispered, “Is she . . . ?”

“I don’t know. I think so,” Bruce said, releasing Harper and searching for a pulse at Gram’s wrist, then her neck. He shook his head.

“Lord have mercy.” Marcia stopped in the doorway and held on to the jamb as if she needed support.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” Bruce said, listening at Gram’s chest for any sound of a heartbeat.

“I already called for an ambulance.” Harper could barely get the words out. Tears ran down her cheeks. Gram looked so tiny. So frail. How had she not noticed?

Faintly, but growing stronger, the wail of a siren could be heard.

“They’re coming,” Marcia said.

“You left the gate open?” Bruce asked his wife.

“Yes!” Marcia was turning toward the parlor when something in her peripheral vision seemed to catch her attention. “What in God’s name?” she whispered, gazing out the window to the lake. “Something’s going on. Bruce—”

But he wasn’t listening to his wife. His gaze moved from Gram to the empty gin bottle on the side table. His eyebrows drew together. “What happened here?”

“She . . . she wanted a drink.”

“And you gave it to her?” Marcia demanded, the siren loud now.

“She insisted.”

“But she’s . . . she was on medication! You shouldn’t have—”

Harper wasn’t listening. She was already running through the parlor as the siren’s wail reverberated through the house.

Through the foyer where the February wind was racing into the house.

Headlights bright, single red bulb flashing, siren shrieking, the ambulance streaked over the bridge. The driver hit the brakes and cranked on the wheel, forcing the Cadillac to skid into a quick U-turn. As the big car shuddered to a stop, both doors were flung open and two men leaped out, both volunteers for the fire department. The driver was Beth’s dad, Tony Leonetti.

The attendant who had been in the passenger seat was Craig Alexander, who had once lived in the attic apartment over the garage with his father. Two years older than Harper. He was the boy her grandmother had accused her of being involved with. “Your grandma, right?” he asked.

“Olivia Dixon,” Mr. Leonetti said.

“Yes. In her bedroom.”

The men rushed in, Craig leading the way through the hallway to Gram’s room.

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