Page 6 of It Happened on the Lake

“Pull yourself together,” she told herself, but that had been nearly impossible lately with her recent divorce and estrangement from her daughter. And then there was her father’s heart attack. Bruce Reed had survived, she’d heard, but she had yet to see him herself. As soon as she was settled in the cottage, she’d drive to St. Catherine’s Hospital. Not that she and her dad were close these days, but she sure as hell hoped he would recover.

And really, who was she close to at this juncture in her life?

No one.

Not one damned person.

She set her jaw as her headlights reflected on the old deer crossing sign riddled with bullet holes.

Some things never change.

And some things always do, her nagging brain reminded her.

“Shut up!” She cranked up the radio, blasting U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” “Me neither, Bono, me neither.”

From the cat carrier on the seat beside her, Jinx gave out a low, irritated mewl.

“Almost there,” she told the cat, just as she spied the edge of the drive, nearly hidden by untrimmed laurel and overgrown rhododendrons. “You’re fine,” she assured him, then added, “We’re both fine,” though that was a lie.

She eased up on the gas.I’m home, she thought hollowly, an emptiness invading her soul.

How many ghosts from her past lingered on the solitary island, that jagged stump of rock jutting from the dark, impenetrable depths of Lake Twilight?

Her heart squeezed when she caught sight of the caretaker’s cottage at the edge of a parking apron, the place she’d once called home. It had been a spot where she’d lived on and off during her adolescence, a place of solace and heartache.

She let the Volvo roll to a stop near the cottage, just in front of the huge gate leading to the mansion. Beyond the wrought-iron pickets, she saw the bridge that spanned a narrow neck of the lake, connecting the mainland to the island. Her island now. She was thirty-seven, the magical age her grandmother had thought she would be responsible enough to claim her inheritance. Thirty-seven. Was that midlife?

All signs point to “yes.”

“Oh, shut up!”

And as far as crises went, she’d been through her share already.

She cut the engine and climbed out of her wagon. Flipping up the hood of her jacket, Harper stood at the gate, the Volvo’s headlamps casting her shadow through the bars of the massive wrought-iron barrier beyond which the narrow bridge seemed to disappear into the darkness.

The island itself was blurry, a massive, indistinct shape with towering fir trees that rose from the cliffs and sheltered the mansion. No lamps were lit, no exterior lights glowed to highlight the ornate walls or the high turret that knifed into the sky.

“Welcome home,” she told herself.

She’d thought as a child that the house was straight out ofThe Addams Family.

And she hadn’t been wrong.

But it had been Gram’s home, once upon a time, an architectural showpiece that had turned into a house of horrors.

Harper shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her.

You can never go back.

Well, here she was.

Very much back.

At least for a little while.

She cast a disparaging glance at the stone posts that were not only fastened to the gate but also served as perches for the gargoyles her grandmother had loved so fervently.

“Tacky, I know, and possibly a tad macabre,” Gram had confided in Harper one summer morning. They had stood just inside the gate, the bridge to their backs as they’d studied the carved beasts in the sunlight.

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