Page 7 of It Happened on the Lake

Harper had been in her teens at the time, and the monstrous winged creatures seemed to her as if they’d risen from hell, just like Sister Evangeline had warned in catechism. The gargoyles’ lips were pulled back into snarls, fangs long and curved, each with a snakelike tail that coiled around its muscular body.

They were not identical. One was sculpted with reptilian eyes and scaled like a dragon. The other’s skin was taut and smooth over visible muscles. Horns curved from its forehead. Huge eyes bulged above a pug nose, and sharp claws extended from manlike hands. The end of its tail was carved into an arrow’s tip. A devil-creature.

To Harper, each sculpture appeared to be the epitome of pure evil.

“You want to scare people away?” she asked, studying the stone creatures warily as she sidled closer to her grandmother.

“No. Not really.” Gram pulled shears from the pocket of her golf skirt and clipped off an errant bit of ivy that had dared wrap around the wrought-iron railing. “I just want people to think about it before they ring the bell. They might even consider me a bit eccentric. Wouldn’t that be delicious?” She’d flipped up the sunglasses she referred to as her Audrey HepburnBreakfast at Tiffany’spair, setting them into her perfectly coiffed hair.

Her blue eyes sparkled as she winked at Harper. “It’s all kind of in fun, you know. But, yes, I do like my privacy. Grandpa, he wasn’t fond of them.” She hitched her chin toward one of the stone carvings. “He called them ‘Ugly and Uglier.’ Thought he was so damned funny.” She sighed and for a second was caught in a nostalgic moment, her eyebrows pinching together. “I guess he would have preferred something more traditional. More regal.”

“Like?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . lions, I suppose.” She swatted at a mosquito, then snipped off another offensive sprig of ivy. She let the sunglasses drop onto the bridge of her nose again. “Come to think of it, he did mention lions, oh, and eagles. Yes, that’s right. Too traditional.” With a quick shake of her head, she added, “As if. Let me tell you, I nixed those ideas quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.Myhouse,mychoice,mygargoyles.” She eyed the carved creatures and smiled. “You know, I think they protect me. Keep all of us safe.”

“What about Mama?” Harper asked, feeling the heat from the sun beat against her crown and a coldness enter her heart. “They didn’t keep her safe.”

A shadow crossed Gram’s face. Her amused smile faded. “No, I suppose not.” Gram cleared her throat and scrabbled into her pocket, this time for a pack of cigarettes. She lit up quickly with a silver lighter. As she shot a stream of smoke to the blue, blue sky, she said, “Your mother, she didn’t like them much either.” Her voice had turned soft as she wrapped one arm around her slim waist, holding her cigarette aloft in her other hand as she squinted up at the scaled gargoyle, the dragon, the one Harper’s grandfather had named “Ugly.”

“When she was a little girl, about your age, or a year or two younger, maybe, your mother suggested we should replace them with race horses or unicorns.” Another puff. “Can you imagine? Unicorns?” She said it as if it were a joke, but there was a sadness to her tone, as there always was when she mentioned Mama. Harper felt it, too. That sadness was like a shadow, always close, ready to grow if you thought too long.

“Well, that was Anna for you. Forever the dreamer.” Quickly Gram took another draw on her cigarette, then dropped it onto the pavement and crushed it with her sandaled foot.

Harper had hazarded a glance up at Ugly with its scaly skin and folded wings. If it had been the gargoyles’ job to protect the family, then they had failed miserably. Otherwise Mama would still be alive.

Now, of course, Evan, too, was gone and had been for years. But she wouldn’t think of that tragedy. Nope. There was no time for melancholy on this miserable night.

The Volvo’s headlights offered enough illumination for her to run up the uneven flagstones to the caretaker’s cottage. While rain peppered the ground and dripped off the sagging eaves, she huddled on the porch and fumbled with the key ring—Gram’s set of keys to unlock the door.

Stepping inside, she flipped on the light switch.

Nothing.

The house remained dark, cold, the emanating scent of mold evident. “Not good,” she told herself and backtracked through the rain to the car where she searched in the glove box. All the while Jinx let her know he was still very unhappy. “I know, I know, it won’t be long now,” she said as she found the flashlight, snagged it, and headed back to the cottage.

Once inside again, she swung the weak beam over the interior and saw the soggy mess. Buckled stairs, peeling wallpaper, sodden carpets, and swollen hardwood. The brick floor near the front door was still intact, but everything else inside appeared ruined.

“Well, crap.”

No way could she stay here.

Not until everything was repaired, which would take weeks—no, make that months. So why hadn’t the attorneys in charge of the estate made the repairs? Why had they let the house erode to this abysmal level?

Carefully she stepped into the living room, felt the sponginess of the floor, and retreated to the front hallway again.

There was nothing she could do tonight.

On to Plan B.

Which she had hoped to avoid.

“Grow a pair,” she told herself. For the love of God, she was no longer that desperate, wide-eyed girl who had fled this place half a lifetime ago. She was a grown woman now. A mother and a wife—well, no, an ex-wife, she reminded herself.

The hood of her jacket fell away, and November rain drizzled down her collar as she skirted puddles and made her way to the gate.

Which wouldn’t budge.

The automatic keypad was ruined, the hinges rusted.

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