Page 86 of It Happened on the Lake

Next door, the Hunt house was dark. Now that Cynthia was gone, he wondered what Levi would do with the cottage. Rand had heard he might move back; that had been his plan before his mother’s demise.

Rand stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and eyed the cottage with its large daylight basement. He’d spent a lot of time over there, hanging out in Chase’s room listening to records or talking sports.

A ravine with a creek separated the properties, and when they were both on the team, Chase and Rand had spent hours tossing a football back and forth over the stream.

And then things had gotten complicated.

The irony wasn’t lost on him that he’d become exactly what he’d railed against as a youth. Though as a boy he’d admired his dad and had thought he’d become a cop just like his father, that had changed with adolescence, when the police were no longer heroes but the enemy.

And now here he was.

Living in the old man’s house.

Using his desk.

Doing the same job at the Almsville Police Department.

How had that happened?

Rand had asked himself that same question a hundred times over and had never come up with an answer. His gaze dropped to the Hunts’ empty boathouse before he looked to the middle of the lake and wondered again about Cynthia. What had driven her to the lake and her ultimate horrific demise?

He shoved a hank of hair from his eyes and heard a cricket chirping nearby.

Rand reminded himself to talk to Levi, as well as with some of the staff, possibly nurses and a social worker at Serenity Acres, the care facility from which Cynthia Hunt had wandered. Somehow she’d gotten through the facility’s security and made her way five miles to the Hunt home. Once there she’d gathered mementos of her life and carried them along with a gas can and lighter to the boat, then motored to the middle of the lake.

Less than an hour after Harper had returned.

What were the odds of that?

He was headed inside again when he noticed lights on at the Sievers’ home. The old man no longer lived in the house, but his daughter, her kids, and two small mutts had taken over the home. The chain-link fence was still in place, but the warning signs and security lights had been taken down, fresh paint making the bungalow more welcoming.

The dogs seemed friendly enough, though they tended to bark whenever the ducks and geese that lived on the lake got too close. And they’d put up a helluva ruckus last night.

He’d heard the neighbor dogs barking and going out of their minds about the time he’d been called from the station. While on the phone he’d looked out the window and seen the boat in flames.

He hadn’t waited for the fire department but instead had dashed out the back door and climbed into the old motorboat, heading straight for the flames where a woman was screaming and writhing aboard. As he got close, he’d recognized the boat as the Hunts’ Triton. Sick inside, he’d arrived just as the crew on the department’s boat had cleared the area, firemen trying to save her.

Even then he’d known it was too late.

The horror on the sinking craft had consumed his attention while others saw to a lone swimmer, getting her to the hospital, a woman he hadn’t recognized. Only later had he learned her name and was struck that Harper Reed was back in town.

And once again involved in a tragedy.

Coincidence?

Unlikely.

Of course all the neighbors on the point and along the lakeshore had been interviewed, asked about what they’d seen the night before, and most of them were in concurrence. No one had noticed anything unusual until they’d caught sight of the fire on the water or heard the commotion and looked outside.

Francine Sievers O’Malley had said the same. She’d been watching television, an episode ofThe Wonder Years,when her daughter had said she saw “something weird” on the lake and soon thereafter the dogs began barking their fool heads off.

Walking inside, he contemplated another beer and battled against it. His family had a history and a complicated relationship with alcohol, not the least his own father’s entanglement, which had really taken root around the same time that Chase Hunt had gone missing and Rand had left for Southeast Asia.

But one more wouldn’t hurt. He opened the fridge, grabbed another longneck, and opened it. With the same damned church key his old man had used. Frowning, he told himself hewasn’this father as he climbed the stairs to the loft. With a long swallow he settled back down in his chair and glanced down at the report on Olivia Dixon’s death.

Accidental overdose.

And not the only one, he thought, rubbing his chin as his gaze moved to Anna Dixon’s death certificate. Again, those words: Drowning caused byaccidental overdose.

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