Page 79 of It Happened on the Lake

Dawn let out an audible puff of disbelief. “Like you’re religious or never swear!”

“Okay, that’s fair, I do swear, but I am religious, it’s just my own personal religion, my thing with God.”

Dawn huffed, “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“The thing is,” Dawn went on, “I shouldn’t have had to hear from some stupid reporter that you were involved in some kind of boat fire or something! I mean I could have come up there. It’s only a couple of hours, you know. It’s not like I’m still in California.”

That much was true. Dawn was now at the university in Eugene.

Dawn added, “Isn’t it bad enough that Grandpa’s in the hospital, but now you?”

“I’m fine, and obviously out, or you wouldn’t have reached me here. And I saw Grandpa today,” Harper said, trying to calm her daughter. “He’s going to be okay.”

“And I should take your word for it?”

“Why would I lie?”

“You tell me, Mom,” Dawn shot back. “There are lies of commission and lies of omission, isn’t that what you always say?”

“I guess.”

Silence from the other end of the line, but at least she hadn’t hung up.

“I’m sorry. Okay? You’re right. You should have heard it from me. Not a reporter. I just got home about an hour ago, and I was going to call you. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But, as I said everyone’s fine—”

“Except for the dead woman!”

“Well, yeah. Of course.” Harper sighed and refused to think of Cynthia Hunt’s horrid demise. “I know. It’s sad. Tragic.”

“And weird!”

“Very.” But Dawn didn’t know the half of it. The history.

“So what happened?”

If she only knew. Leaning a hip against the kitchen counter, Harper tried to ignore the headache that was starting to pound behind her eyes. It didn’t help that her gaze landed on the untouched ramekins she’d positioned near the back door for Jinx. As best she could, she told Dawn about the day before, how she’d barely gotten here when she spied the fire on the lake. She downplayed her own horror at recognizing Cynthia Hunt.

“You knew her?” Dawn demanded.

“She was the mother of one of my friends.” Two actually, but she didn’t need to go into details.

“Why would she do that? I mean . . . it’s awful and crazy and . . .”

“Who knows?” Harper said, wrapping the coils of the phone cord around her wrist. “I think she was ill.”

“No duh! And you weren’t even going to call me?”

“Of course I was. I told you.”

“When?” Dawn demanded.

“Tonight. After I went through the shower and had dinner.”

A pause.

Harper relented. “I should have called you first. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

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