Page 90 of The Lake Escape
While this is all well and good, and my mother and I have fixed something about our relationship, I still have an empty place inside me. “Mom, I need to know how you feel.”
“Feel?” she parroted back. “I told you. I’m pissed off. And rightfully so.”
“No, not that, Mom. About him. David Dunne.”
Her exhale fills my ears. “Well, if I’m being honest, Izzy, I feel a profound sense of relief knowing that son of a bitch will end up where he belongs, thanks in part to you.”
There.That’s what I needed to hear. The empty feeling is gone and I understand something I didn’t before. A podcast can inform and entertain, but only people can heal your heart.
Chapter 41
Julia
There’d be no more grilling. No cocktails, no boating, swimming, lounging, or hiking. The vacation was over before it really even started. But in the grand scheme of things, what did it matter? A woman was missing, most likely dead, and one of the Lake Gang was responsible. That trumped all.
The stress of the past few days had short-circuited Julia’s taste buds. Sitting in Erika’s living room, she picked at the sandwich her friend had prepared, but it tasted like cardboard. Rick’s freshly popped popcorn was stale as old bread.
Taylor wasn’t eating, either, though probably for different reasons. Before she went to Erika’s house, Julia checked in on her daughter, who was isolating in her room. Taylor assured her she was fine, but wanted to be left alone. Julia respected her need for space, but they still had another person to talk to—Christian. Julia didn’t have it in her to respond to his last text message, and whatever pot farm scheme he was concocting would obviously take a back seat to the current crisis.
“Do you want to be the one to tell him, or should I?” she’d asked Taylor. “Give it some thought, but we have to call him soon. He’s your father and needs to know what’s going on.”
Taylor’s whole body sagged. “I’ll tell him,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. “I just need a little more time.”
Julia gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze.
Taylor asked, “What’s going to happen to David? And will Izzy have to leave the lake?”
Julia couldn’t say. It was more uncertainty they’d have to sit with, which was never comfortable. Erika and Rick were stuck in the same uncomfortable waiting place, but at least they knew how to pass the time: drink. Julia joined in with a glass of wine, pretending to eat her sandwich, all while seated under the ever-watchful gaze of Cormac Gallagher’s stoic portrait and the heads of many dead deer.
“I’m too sick about David and Fiona to stay here any longer,” Erika stated. “My caseload feels more relaxing than the lake at this point.”
She didn’t know the half of it. Julia had revealed nothing of Izzy’s relationship to Susie Welch. It wasn’t her place to share, which meant she hadn’t told Erika or Rick about the Polaroid, or Anna Olsen’s letter, either. And she couldn’t broach the topic of the pregnancy until Taylor told Lucas herself. She was dreading that difficult conversation, but it had to be addressed soon.
“I just can’t believe it,” said Rick, who seemed far more relaxed than was appropriate, but shock could do that to a person. He stuffed popcorn into his mouth, some falling onto the new rug that had replaced the brown one Julia despised.
There it was again—the rug, what was it about the old brown rug that bothered Julia so much?
“I see it all the time in my law practice. Good people getting caught up in the heat of the moment, too much alcohol, one bad decision, and their lives are ruined,” Erika said matter-of-factly.
“Well, I’d say Fiona got the worst of it,” said Rick. “Poor girl.”
“Of course,” Erika agreed. “It’s just, as a defense attorney I tend to think of it from the client’s perspective.”
Julia was aghast. “This isn’t some unknown client and random victim, Erika. It’s David and Fiona we’re talking about. Our longtime friend and a woman we saw alive and well, in her prime, just days ago. Now there’s nothing left of her but a bloodied shirt. It’s horrifying.”
“I know, I don’t mean to be crass. But I’ve seen a lot of terrible things in my line of work. It can be easy to depersonalize it.” Erika coupled her observation with an apologetic look. “And you’re right. Itishorrifying. Guess you never really know what’s in somebody’s heart.”
Or head,thought Julia, wishing she better understood what Erika was thinking and feeling.
Even after playing with the twins and bagging up the bloody evidence, Erika didn’t have a crease in her summer capris or a stain on her crisp white blouse. She appeared cool and collected. Did the law really harden you to that extent? Erika had screamed at first, but soon after her composure kicked in like a well-honed muscle. Rick was the same. What this unlikely couple had most in common at the moment was their cavalier attitude—first toward the glass house and now regarding these disturbing new developments.
With David’s secrets out in the open, Julia wondered again what Erika and Rick might also be hiding. Then again, who was she to judge? Julia couldn’t be fully forthcoming without revealing information about Izzy, the depth of her financial woes, and her trip to Bennington.
In thinking it over, it was the Mob aspect that bothered Julia the most. In a short period, the Mob had come up twice—and both times, there was a connection to the lake lore.
Obviously, David had nothing to do with Anna Olsen’s disappearance; he hadn’t even been born. But could Jimmy T have been a resident of Lake Timmeny? That was an unsettling possibility, though it was probably a stretch.
Curious enough to google him, Julia got up to excuse herself. “The wine actually isn’t sitting well with me. I’m going to make some tea. Anybody need something from the kitchen?”
