Page 55 of It Happened on the Lake

“My time.”

“Fine.”

“Okay then. There were other suspicious deaths in the Reed family, right?”

“Hey, where’re you going with this? Harper was just a kid when her mother died.”

“What about the brother, though?”

“Jesus, Chelle, are you on some kind of vendetta here? Don’t you have other, more important work to do?”

But she ignored him. “He died from a . . . self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“‘Self-inflicted’ being the important information.”

Her expression changed, sobering as she picked up a yellowed bit of newsprint she’d dug up. “Harper found him.”

“That’s right.”

“Huh.”

Rand could almost see the gears turning in Chelle’s brain. “And then there was the mother—what was her name?” She checked her notes. “Anna.”

He nodded and heard a phone ring in a neighboring office.

“Suicide.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “And again, in the lake.”

He felt his jaw tighten. “Harper wasn’t there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. And I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“I don’t either. That’s the point. Maybe no one does. But Harper was found . . . let me see.” She picked up another faded bit of newsprint. “On the terrace and rushed to the hospital. Had pneumonia.”

He felt his gut tighten. “She was nine years old.”

“I know.” She twiddled her pen, still thinking, putting the jagged pieces of the Dixon Island deaths into place. “It’s just an odd string of deaths, you know. And now they’re all gone, and she inherited millions, right? Maybe even tens of millions.”

“That’s not a crime.”

“I’m just saying it’s curious, that’s all. If it had just been the grandmother. If she’d died, you know, ‘accidentally,’” Chelle said, making air quotes, “it wouldn’t be so odd. But the other ones . . . let’s see, the brother, Evan, he was eighteen and their mother just double that, dead at thirty-six.” Leaning back in her chair, she studied him with slitted eyes. Quietly assessing.

“Coincidence?” he suggested. “Maybe just bad luck.”

“Mmm.” She glanced down at the list she’d made again, then her eyes were back on him. She finally adjusted her ponytail and asked, “Did you have a thing for her?”

“A thing?” He felt all his muscles tense.

“Come on. Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t fit. You know what I mean.”

He did. But dodged it. “She was my friend, Michelle, Chase Hunt’s girlfriend. Chase was my best friend.”

“Yeah, I know. The dude who went missing. And it’s Chelle. Remember?”

“Right.”

“So,” she asked again, “did you have a thing for her?”

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