Page 77 of It Happened on the Lake

The flashlight flickered on again, and she followed its shifting beam from the kitchen through a short hallway before it vanished. The house was dark for a few seconds, then the bobbing light reappeared in the upstairs bedroom. Tom and Cynthia’s room.

Why?

He cut the light again, and before her eye could adjust to the darkness, the flashlight flickered briefly downstairs once more. He slipped out the back door, locked it, and seemed to replace the key on the ledge above. Then, quick as a cat, he hurried across the deck, dropped into the canoe, untied it, and was lost in the darkness once more.

Odd, she thought.

Maybe more than odd.

Something dark . . .

She checked the Alexanders’ house and caught sight of the kid’s head as he left his room. Beth was still in the kitchen. She took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, then headed toward the stairs.

Oh God, Craig was going to get caught.

Good.

Harper tightened the viewfinder just as Beth met her son at the top of the stairs leading to the basement. She paused to say something to the kid.

Craig was still outside, tying up the boat.

Beth started down the stairs.

Harper’s pulse jumped, and she bit her lip. She couldn’t imagine that Beth knew what her husband was up to. He’d been so furtive as he’d left.

Craig hopped onto the dock and hurried to the door.

His wife was out of sight, descending the stairs.

Harper’s pulse elevated.

Was Beth going to find him coming inside and ask what he’d been doing? Or did she know already?

Somehow Harper wanted that confrontation.

Under the bright lights, Craig was already at the door to his office, unlocking it, before nearly leaping to his desk. He managed to tear off the sweatshirt and stash it in a drawer as he settled into his desk chair.

Beth opened the door just as he was picking up a file folder and pen, pretending to be reading the contents of the folder while leaning back in his chair, clicking the pen as if distracted.

He wasn’t.

In an instant Craig Alexander transformed from clandestine cat burglar to concerned businessman and loving husband. He looked up from the manila folder and grinned as Beth held up a beer. Nodding in appreciation, he set the folder aside and they talked a bit—though, of course, Harper couldn’t hear any of the conversation. She watched with bated breath as Beth gestured toward the outside, and for a second Harper was certain Beth had caught him coming and going, but as they stepped onto the deck, that didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, Beth directed his gaze across the lake, to the island. Harper didn’t move a muscle.

Beth motioned toward the manor, her hand moving from one side to the next, as if discussing the finer and lesser points of the place. She was a real estate agent, after all, and appeared to be giving her would-be contractor/husband the details of a possible job. Craig hooked one arm over her shoulders and, with his free hand, sipped his beer.

There was a chance that they were not discussing the pros and cons of the island. Harper wasn’t certain Beth was lobbying for him to make repairs to this house. Maybe they were talking about Harper’s return to Almsville and the horror of the night before, though it didn’t seem so.

After a few minutes, Beth took her leave. Harper watched as Beth returned to the kitchen, opened the oven door, then checked her watch. Their son was nowhere to be seen.

But Craig was at his desk again, leaning back in his desk chair while he took a long pull from his beer.

The telescope was so strong she could read the bottle’s label, as well as catch the headlines of the January edition ofField and Streamin a nearby magazine rack. A buck with a large rack of antlers was the cover photo.

So where was the pistol he’d retrieved from the wall safe—the one that might be the twin of the one she found?

Was it in the pocket of his sweatshirt, now wadded up beneath in a desk drawer?

Or left in the canoe?

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