Page 36 of It Happened on the Lake

She nodded, swallowed hard, and looked away, back to the window, but he guessed she wasn’t seeing the ridge of bare-branched trees rimming the parking lot. No, she was caught somewhere else, in the memory of the night before. “I was at the house on the island,” she said and he nodded. “I really had just gotten there, hadn’t even unpacked. I saw the fire as I passed by the window, and I couldn’t believe it. I mean a fire in the middle of the lake? So I looked through one of my grandfather’s telescopes. At that point I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. But then I saw the boat was on fire and someone was on board. I recognized Cynthia.”

“So what did you do?”

“Called 9-1-1. And then, I took off down to the dock and swam. There was no boat, so . . . it was the only way I could get to her.” Her eyebrows drew together, forcing little lines between them as she replayed the scene in her mind. “I yelled at her. Told her to jump. Screamed at her. But she ignored me and kept hurling things into the water. Pictures and albums and all kinds of stuff. It was bizarre . . .” She cleared her throat, her voice lowering. “Really, really awful.” Her fingers were twisting the fabric of her gown. She paused, closing her eyes, reliving the horror.

He waited, and she drew in a long breath. Finally she said, “I think they brought her here, but no one’s telling me anything.”

“How did you get here?”

“Ambulance, I guess. I don’t remember it.” She motioned to the bandage over her eye. “I remember getting hit by something and kind of sinking, barely coming to. Someone pulled me out of the water. The next thing I knew I woke up here. I’ve asked about Cynthia, but no one’s telling me anything.”

He decided she needed to know the truth. “I talked to the doc. It looks like they’ll be transferring her to a burn unit in Portland.”

“But she’s going to make it,” she said eagerly.

Hedging, he said, “We can only hope.” Then he changed the subject. “So what do you think happened out there on the lake?”

“You mean, why was she out there? Don’t know.” Harper frowned and shoved her hair from her face, the movement stretching the IV line attached to her wrist. “As I said, I’d just gotten back to the house when I saw her. You know the rest. I called for help, then swam out to her. Maybe it was stupid, but I just reacted, Rand. Didn’t really think about it. Someone needed help.”

“You knew she was down there?”

“As I said, I sawsomeone. A woman, I thought, then I recognized her. But she freaked out when she saw me. Even more than before.” Harper closed her eyes and shook her head, her body shivering at the memory. For a few seconds there was silence in the room, then she whispered, “I can’t do this.” When she opened her eyes again, she met his gaze. “I can’t. Not now.”

He thought about pushing her a bit, but he backed off.

“I’ll need a formal statement.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nodding, she wrapped her arms around her middle, again stretching the IV. “I’m supposed to get out of here today, I think. I don’t know when.”

“I’ll be at the station most of the afternoon.”

He tried to read her expression. Couldn’t. He wondered if she was hiding something, masking her emotions. Not that he’d ever been able to read her and now, with a bruise forming under her eye and her chin and forehead bandaged, her hair stringy and face pale, he had no idea what she was thinking. “I’ll see you then.”

Once more, a shadow passed over her eyes.

For a quick second Rand remembered the night everything changed, when Levi Hunt was on his old man’s doorstep and he’d caught a glimpse of Harper cowering in Levi’s truck, the night his best friend had disappeared. Never to be seen again.

Harper’s grandmother had died that same night.

A tragic coincidence?

He’d thought so. Tried to convince himself. After all, Olivia Dixon was old, her health deteriorating, and there was a chance that Chase had disappeared by choice.

Maybe. But he wasn’t sure. That was the trouble with being a cop. There were always more questions than answers, more doubts than certainties, more lies than truth. And always, underlying it all, suspicion.

“I’ll see you later then,” he said and walked out of the hospital, memories of the tragedies twenty years ago tangled with the questions about the here and now. Connected? Probably not.

Cynthia Hunt had suffered in the past two decades, her mental and emotional stability seeping away. The story was probably just as Harper recalled.

But he had to make certain.

Like it or not, that was his job.

Chapter 10

The last person, the very last person Levi Hunt wanted to deal with was Harper Reed. Make that Harper Reed Prescott. She’d married since he’d last seen her twenty years earlier.

He’d kept track.

---