The Lake

“Sorry, Mattie. There just wasn’t time. We had to go. Anyway, we’re coming in now. And Deana’s alive, okay? She’s had a rough time, but s’far as I can see, her injuries look kinda…superficial. Can’t say for sure, though…She’s a little bewildered. Got an injured jaw. Black eyes. Otherwise okay.”

Wrapped in blankets, Deana lay on the sofa, Leigh by her side, holding and stroking her hand.

“How did you find me?” Deana asked Warren. Her words came out thick and slurred. She was weak as a kitten, couldn’t stop shaking, not yet believing the nightmare was over.

Warren’s brows went up. He looked across at Sheena, standing silent by the glass wall, staring out at the view. “Over to you, sis,” he called out with a grin.

She turned nonchalantly, lifted a shoulder, and tilted her head. “Yeah. Right…,” she said, looking at Deana. “I’ll tell y’about it sometime. Just say I wander around those parts myself now and again. When I need to think, get my head straight, know what I mean? I just take out the old Chevy and have me a little campin’ trip up there in the mountains.”

“Yeah, but…that…that place I was in, it was so well hidden…It couldn’t have been easy.”

“Persistent li’l gal, ain’t ya? Let’s just say my woman’s intuition played a part—it led me to where you were.”

Leigh broke in. “And I’m sure glad it did. I can’t begin to thank you both…” She paused, still stroking Deana’s forehead, throwing Sheena a grateful smile.

Looking over at Mattie, she said, “So, what do we do now, Mats? Take Ava’s advice, fly out to Wisconsin? How about backup?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Leigh. FBI, local troopers, you name it, every fucker with a badge is about to descend on Lake Country as we speak. I’m shippin’ out later today.”

“And I’m coming with you,” Leigh said.

Mattie looked doubtful.

Warren met her eyes.

Quietly, he said, “I think Sheena should also go along.”

There was a pause while Mattie did a double take.

“You do? Why?”

“Apart from being pretty useful when it comes to one-to-one combat,” he winked across at Sheena, “she has a…vested interest.”

Mattie’s eyes narrowed.

“Whadyamean? A vested interest?”

“I’m Tania,” Sheena said. “Mace’s sister.”

SIXTY-NINE

The lake looked pretty much the way she remembered it.

The same clear, bright air. Inlets, sandy coves, sunbathers stretched out like fish to dry. Dark stands of pine to the south. Water lapping gently around the pilings. The sputter of motorboats. Canoes, one or two rowboats…

Charlie’s was green, she remembered.

Could I forget…?

And loaded with baskets.

The sound of vacationers laughing, shouting to each other from the smartly painted piers, floated across the water. Bringing up an arm, shielding her eyes from the sun, Leigh saw them, the size of ants, from her side of the lake.

A motorboat with a water skier tagging behind, zipped by on a crest of white foam…

Leigh smiled softly, remembering how it had been, eighteen years ago. After the accident, Uncle Mike and Aunt Jenny moved camp. Away from Wahconda. They’d sold the cabin and summered in Colorado from then on.

Back in the eighties, they’d retired to Florida.

Carson’s Camp was under new management. All modernized and spruced up with a change of name—Lakeside Holiday Homes. In place of the old log cabins were smart new ones, in varnished pinewood, with porches, loungers, and barbecues out front.

Over to her right, Leigh could see the new cabins, shiny yellow in the sunlight. She saw a twist of smoke, caught a drift of grilled burgers hanging on the air. Nothing really changes, she thought with a smile.

Squinting into the sun, her eyes scanned the lake.

They picked out a green rowboat.

Her heart lurched. For a moment, she felt the same tense excitement of eighteen years ago. When she’d spotted Charlie out there. Charlie, bare-chested. Wearing his funny hat, with its high rounded crown, wide brim, red feathers tucked in the headband…

Charlie.

Waiting offshore.

Silent.

Unmoving.

Paddles resting in the oarlocks as he watched her showing off, posing in her white bikini…

She fingered her sea-thing, nestling in the cleft between her breasts. It felt so right to wear it again, here, at Wahconda. The place where once she’d truly believed it was her good-luck charm. Despite the way things had turned out. This trip, she’d slipped it around her neck, figuring it deserved another chance…

“Penny for them?”

Mattie was smiling at her.

“Mulling over a coupla things,” Leigh said, a rueful smile playing on her lips. “As you do. But that was then. Right now we got business to attend to.”

Mattie didn’t miss a beat.

“Nothin’ like old times for bringin’ on a case of the jitters, eh?”

“Tell me about it,” Leigh said with a wry smile.

Mattie studied the far end of the lake. “So those people back there at the Bayview—the gal, that your friend Cherry Dornay?”

Leigh nodded.

“Mmmm…Nice hair. And the guy?”

“Ben. Cherry’s brother. A good friend from way back when I was in San Diego having Deana. Yeah, he was a very good friend…”

She sighed.