Page 83 of The Night the Lights Went Out
“I’m only the messenger and that’s what Heather told me.”
Merilee looked past Liz toward the house. “Have you seen Heather? I’ve been looking for her for a while and haven’t seen her.”
Liz shook her head. “I haven’t either. She texted me to let you know about the shoes. She said she’s been trying to text you to let you know, but your phone’s turned off.”
“What? It shouldn’t be.” She glanced over to one of the tables where she’d placed her purse. “Not that I’ve remembered to check it, anyway. I must have done it by accident or just forgot I’d turned it off. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Mom brain,” said Liz. “Happens to me all the time. That’s probably how your shoes got on the dock—either you put them there and forgot, or somebody else was wearing them thinking they were theirs.” They both laughed as Liz waved good-bye, then headed off toward one of the bonfires. Merilee began walking toward the dock for her shoes but figured she wasn’t done dancing yet and her feet would thank her for keeping the flip-flops for a little while longer. Merilee resumed dancing, keeping an eye out for Wade, hoping for one last dance with him. He’d been requisitioned earlier by Heather asking for his help in assisting some of the other men in taking down the tables and chairs and moving them outside to the waiting catering truck.
The song ended and the band began to pack up as dancers drifted from the dance floor to pick up purses and coats and say good-bye. Merilee heard a dog barking from the dock area and, after one last look for Wade, headed down to search for her shoes and say good-bye to Puddles.
The barking got louder as she approached, the tone different from what she’d heard before. It was insistent, angry, almost. “Puddles,” she called, walking carefully down the sloping lawn, the grass slippery under her feet.
The dog bounded toward her from the dock, but instead of stopping and allowing her to pet him, he immediately began to run toward the dock again, pausing to look back as if wanting her to follow him. “What is it, boy?” she asked, silently praying it wasn’t a water moccasin or some other critter that could bite, fly, or run faster than she could.
She wished that she’d brought her phone so she could turn on the flashlight to guide her way. There were no lights on the dock, probably to keep partygoers away from it, but the crescent moon shone brightly from the sky, casting everything in its milky glow.
Puddles ran back to her and nudged her hand, urging her to follow. With one last glance over her shoulder to where her purse and phone were, she began following the dog down the main dock until the dog took a turn around the corner of a smaller walkway stuck between two boat lifts. The wood creaked and swayed as she carefully lifted her hem and then slowly followed the dog until she reached the turn in the dock. It was darker there, the light hidden between the two lifted boats, but she could make out the shape of the black Lab waiting for her. As soon as he saw her, he resumed his frantic barking, his head facing the water.
“What is it, boy?” she asked again, moving just an inch forward, waiting for her eyes to adjust and hoping she wouldn’t see something thick and coiled and shining in the moonlight. “What is it...” The word died in her throat.
The dock lifted on a gentle wave, allowing in a triangular slice of moonlight, illuminating something in the water. Something that appeared to be a mannequin stuck between two pilings of the dock and wearing a white shirt and dark trousers. Merilee blinked hard, suddenly feeling how very cold it was outside and wondering who’d put a mannequin in the water. She jerked back, almost stumbling backward off the dock. She heard an unearthly sound, a piercing scream that went on and on while the dog continued to bark. When she found she couldn’t breathe any longer, she realized the screams were coming from her own throat.
Twenty-eight
SUGAR
Wade held open the door to his fancy foreign sports car, then waited for Sugar. She glanced into the backseat at a black-clad Merilee, who appeared to have not slept in the week since she’d discovered Daniel Blackford’s body floating facedown in Lake Lanier.
“You look terrible,” Sugar said as she carefully lowered herself into the seat, praying her knees could get her back up again. “Black is not your best color.”
Merilee sniffed as she raised a wadded tissue to her nose, the white glaring against her black leather gloves. “Thank you, Sugar. I had no idea.”
Wade closed the door as Sugar grimaced, glad to have forced something besides shock and sorrow from Merilee. There’d been a lot of both in the last week, and not just on Merilee’s part. Sugar had taken the news about Daniel hard. How did an expert swimmer and sailor, someone dressed in a tux and not known to drink alcohol to excess, drown on his own property at a party to which he was playing host? The autopsy results hadn’t been announced to the public yet, but Sugar hoped that he’d had an aneurysm or something to explain the unexplainable.
Because he shouldn’t be dead. In a fair world, he wouldn’t be. But, as she’d learned again and again over the last ninety-three years, life was never fair. Nor did it promise anyone that it would be. Maybe that was the point of life—that the water wasn’t always supposed to be smooth. That all the little storms were supposed to teach you how to keep your head above water no matter how high the swells.
“Nice hat,” Wade said in an attempt to break the silence that sat thick and heavy inside the car.
“It’s older than you by about forty years, but it still looks good enough to wear. I’ve worn it to every single funeral I’ve ever been to.”
“Good for you,” Wade said, but his voice sounded distracted as he glanced again in the rearview mirror to see Merilee, who seemed focused on something outside her car window.
It had begun to rain, and a thin drizzle coated the windshield, the wipers automatically swishing the moisture away. The wipers on her old Lincoln had sounded like semiautomatic gunfire, according to Daniel, and suddenly she was feeling the pinpricks of tears behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly, unwilling to break her promise to herself this late in the game.
“We’ll have to stop back at the house to get my casserole for Heather and the girls before the reception after the service.”
“You made a casserole?” Merilee’s voice sounded raw and scratchy.
“Of course. I made cheese straws, too. You can carry them inside so people will think you made them.”
Merilee turned her head to look out the window again without comment.
“Have you spoken with Heather?” Wade asked Merilee, his gaze focused on the rearview mirror.
“No. I’ve called a few times, but someone else always answers. I can’t imagine...” She stopped. “She hasn’t called me back. I was hoping to have a chance to talk with her today—I have something I need to return to her.”
Wade glanced again in the rearview mirror, but Merilee didn’t say anything else.
