Текст книги "The Secrets of Lake Road"

Автор книги: Karen Katchur

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Caroline looked over her shoulder not once but continuously. The light of the moon cut through the trees, distorting the shadows of branches on the ground. The lake water looked as dark as pitch, like a sharp, shimmering black hole. She had never been out this late at night, and as if she wasn’t paranoid enough, even the Pavilion looked ominous, old and abandoned.

She wound her way to the water’s edge, creeping past lakefront cabins, pausing to listen for any sounds. The horse and the legend lurked in the corners of her mind, making the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. She reached Adam’s place and slipped around back, stopping in front of his bedroom window. She tried not to think about what would happen if she got caught and tapped on the glass.

“Adam,” she whispered. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Wake up.” She strained to listen for any sounds coming from inside. Nothing. “Adam,” she said a little louder. Tap. Tap. Tap. A rustling came from in the room. The curtains parted, and Adam pressed his nose against the glass, trying to see outside. She stood back a few inches and waved.

“Caroline? Is that you?”

“Yeah, open up.”

He pushed the window up. She could just make out his big ears.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Get dressed. I need your help,” she whispered. “And be quiet.”

He didn’t ask for an explanation. She knew he wouldn’t. Adam might be only ten years old, but she knew how to spot a team player when she saw one. He’d help her without question. He’d want to help Sara. Caroline learned in the last few days that Megan was a different sort of friend, although which kind of friend Caroline couldn’t say.

Adam was who she trusted with her plan. She stepped into a shadow to hide and give him privacy. He came back to the window. It was a struggle, but they managed to pop the screen off without making too much noise. He climbed out. They stood quietly and listened for any sounds of his parents stirring.

When she thought it was safe to move, she crept back along the water’s edge. Adam followed behind.

“What are we doing?” he whispered.

“We’re releasing the snappers,” she said. She had counted at least half a dozen traps and guessed each one held two or more snappers apiece. The job was too big for one person.

He grabbed her arm so she’d stop walking. She turned to face him. His eyes were open wide. “Why?” he asked.

“So they don’t get Sara.”

“But don’t you want her found?”

She furrowed her brow. It was a complicated question and one with no easy answer. But he had crawled out of his window in the middle of the night, he could get into serious trouble, she could get into serious trouble. It was against the law to mess with a fisherman’s traps, and yet he was standing here. She owed him an explanation.

“Yes and no,” she said. “I want her found but not this way.” It was the best she could do. She didn’t know how to explain her dream, how Sara asked not to be found, how she wanted her mommy. The dream had felt real. And the least Caroline could do was not let Sara be found by the snappers. She had formulated a plan earlier that evening, lying in bed, too afraid to close her eyes. “She’s one of us,” she told him. A kid. It was personal. “And we owe it to her.”

Adam nodded. On some level, it was personal for him, too. Maybe it was his subtle way of getting back at Heil and the other adults for taking his treasured horse’s bit, for not speaking about the dangers of swimming in the lake, its history, what lies at the bottom.

“Are you in?” she asked, giving him one last chance to change his mind.

“I’m in.”

They continued to follow the water’s edge. Caroline’s sneakers sunk in the mud. Behind her, Adam was having the same difficulty. His feet made a sucking sound with each step. And then it stopped. She didn’t hear him anymore. She turned around. He was standing still, looking out at the lake. “Adam,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard, like, a neighing sound or something.” He pointed to the sky. “But I couldn’t have. The moon isn’t full. You can only hear the horse during a full moon.”

She looked at the moon. It was a gibbous moon. She had learned about the eight lunar phases in earth science. But was it a waxing or waning gibbous? One occurred before a full moon and the other after. She hoped it was the latter, and that the full moon had already past.

“I checked the calendar the other day, you know, after what I found,” Adam said. “It won’t be a full moon for another two days.”

So it was a waxing gibbous moon. She nodded and looked around uneasily. “Come on,” she said, glancing at the moon and lake one last time. “We need to keep moving.”

They continued along the water’s edge, fighting the mud. When they reached the beach, they had a decision to make. They’d either have to cross the road and make a wide loop around the parking lot, staying close to the woods and possibly waking up Cougar, or they could stick close to the Pavilion but risk running across the open lot without any cover. The direct route was the quickest and also the scariest in her mind. She glanced at Adam. Shadows covered his face, but she sensed his nervousness. Maybe it was best to take their shot in the open and get it over with as fast as possible.

“Stay close to me,” she said.

They sneaked along the beach’s fence line and reached the Pavilion. The water licked the shore, the crickets chirped, the mosquitoes buzzed around her ears, but otherwise the night was quiet. She took a careful step toward the building, Adam in tow. They kept their backs to the wall, staying in the shadows, creeping slowly toward the stairs. The gravel underneath their sneakers snapped, crackled, and popped like the cereal Caroline ate for breakfast. The sound was much too loud in the silent night. They continued under the steps and around the corner where the lake opened wide and flickered under the moon’s glare, where the gaping parking lot awaited.

“On the count of three,” she said, “we run to the dock. We can hide behind the third pillar.” It was the tallest pillar on the pier and the one closest to Stimpy’s boat.

Adam nodded.

“One,” she said. “Two.” Before she got to three, a duck splashed in the water, quacking and calling a warning. She and Adam both jumped. They stared at each other. He covered his mouth and laughed into his hand. She started laughing too, a nervous kind of laugh that hurt her belly when she tried to contain the sound.

“Shhh,” she said through jittery giggles.

When they had both settled down, they straightened up and looked around.

All was still.

“One, two, three.” She took off across the lot. Adam was somewhere behind her. She didn’t look back until she reached the pillar. A second later Adam slammed into her. They were both bent over, sucking wind. Adam wiped his face with the back of his arm.

Once they had caught their breath, he said, “Now what?”

“Now we set them free.”

*   *   *

Caroline squatted next to a smaller pillar at the end of the pier. She pulled on the line that disappeared into the black water. The trap was heavy and lopsided, but she was able to tug on it an inch at a time, careful not to make a sound, until the trap surfaced.

“I’ll hold it up,” she said. “And you open the trap door.”

“No way.” Adam shook his head. “I’m not getting my fingers anywhere near those snappers.”

He had a point. She wasn’t thrilled about sticking her hand close to the trapdoor and the snappers’ mouth, but what other choice did she have?

“Here.” She handed him the line.

He struggled with the weight of the trap, and it slid underneath the water again.

“This isn’t going to work.” They had to move quickly if they were going to release all of them before the sun came up. She took a moment to think, then came up with an idea.

“I’ll pull the traps out of the water and wrap the line around the pillar. All you have to do is make sure the line stays wrapped.”

Adam nodded.

She raised the trap again and secured the line on the pillar before handing it off to Adam. “You got it?”

“I got it, but hurry,” he said.

“Here goes nothing.” She lay face down on the pier and stretched her arms over the side. The snappers shifted and jostled the cage, but she was able to unhook the latch and pull the door open. She stood up. “That wasn’t too hard.”

“They’re not swimming out,” Adam said, struggling with the line.

“Cripes.” She’d have to tip the trap to get them to swim out, which meant sticking her fingers inside. She wiped her wet hands on her shorts. “Don’t let go,” she said, and lay down on her stomach again. She slipped her hands into the water and stuck her fingers inside the trap far enough to grasp the metal bars, lifting as best she could, tilting the cage to force the snappers out. She had to shake it several times to get them to move, but after a few seconds the two snappers swam free. She pulled the trap from the water and latched it closed. “Drop it in.”

Adam unwound the line from the post, and the trap slowly sank to the bottom.

“That’s one down.”

They pulled each line, opened the traps, and shook the snappers free, one after the other in succession without stopping. They moved systematically, catching each other’s eyes every so often, checking the gibbous moon.

On the last trap, tired and weary, Caroline’s fingers slipped from the latch. The bigger snapper reared its head and opened its mouth in warning. She pulled her arms back. The sudden movement scared Adam, and he let go of the line. The trap scraped the side of the pier and splashed into the water. She lunged for it, catching the side, and shook it until it was empty.

Cougar started barking. The lights in Stimpy’s cabin were turned on. There was no time to close the latch. She got off her stomach and grabbed onto Adam’s arm. “Go, go, go,” she said, pushing him forward.

They took off running down the dock and across the parking lot. They made it to the far side of the Pavilion and ducked underneath the steps. Caroline pressed her back against the wall. Adam did the same. Between heavy breaths and Cougar’s barking, she listened for footsteps. She pinched her eyes closed. Please don’t let them catch us. After what felt like several eternal minutes, Cougar finally stopped barking. She peeked around the corner toward the dock. The lights in Stimpy’s cabin were off.

“That was close,” she said. “We better get out of here.” It didn’t make sense for her to follow Adam home, since The Pop-Inn was in the other direction, but she offered to walk him to his cabin to make sure he got back safely.

“You don’t have to walk me back,” he said. “I can make it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, but be careful.” She took a step out from under the stairs.

“Wait,” he said. “Here.” He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s beef jerky for Cougar in case he starts barking again.”

“You carry beef jerky in your pocket?”

“All the time,” he said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

She smiled. “Um, no, but thanks.”

Adam crept along the fence line. She hustled across the road and slipped into the woods, weaving her way around to the path that led to the colony. Cougar yipped. She tossed him the beef jerky, and she made it to the cabin without further incident.

She looked at Willow and smiled. “I’m back,” she said, and crawled through her bedroom window and kicked off her dirty sneakers. She peeled out of her wet clothes and dropped them on the floor. She pulled on a nightshirt and slipped into bed. Her arms lay heavy at her sides, exhausted from all of the pulling, lifting, and shaking throughout the night. She closed her eyes, her conscience clear. She believed in her heart she had done the right thing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cold air blew through the open window, sending the curtains flapping into the room. Thunder rumbled. Jo lay still, listening to the storm. Her head pounded and her back ached. She rubbed the spot along her spine where she had been pinned against the tree. Her mouth tasted like an ashtray. A dried stickiness smattered her inner thighs, and she couldn’t help but think that after all the ebbs and flows, the pushes and pulls, they always ended up right back where they had started.

Kevin stirred and rolled to his side. Dried blood stuck to his lip where she had bitten him. His hair fell in his eyes. She smoothed the bangs from his forehead, and for a second, a fraction of a second really, she closed her fingers around the strands and thought about ripping them from his scalp. His eyes moved behind his lids, but he didn’t wake. She let his hair flutter through her fingers, and she gently kissed the cut on his bottom lip. “What have we done?” she whispered, and quietly got out of bed.

After two aspirin and a hot shower, she peeked into Caroline’s room. Her daughter was curled into a ball, sound asleep. On the floor by the bed were dirty clothes and muddy sneakers. Something about it gave her pause, made her feel uneasy, but she had been feeling that way so often over the last few days, it was hard to tell whether it was her intuition or if she was just being paranoid.

She turned away.

Gram was awake, shuffling her feet in the back bedroom, talking in a hushed voice on the old rotary phone before hanging up with a click.

“Jo, is that you?” Gram called.

Jo didn’t answer. Whatever Gram wanted could wait. She was sure it had something to do with cleaning closets, and just the thought of lugging old boxes around exhausted her. She had hardly slept last night, tossing, unable to shake the way the sheriff had looked at her, his questions, his accusations, the fractured bone.

*   *   *

Jo slipped out the screen door without making a sound. Thunder continued to roll, and the rain fell hard and fast, pelting her cheeks and shoulders. She didn’t mind. It felt good to feel something real, tangible. And besides, summer storms never lasted long. Already the sun was peeking through the clouds on the other side of the mountain.

She walked across the dirt road, dodging the deeper puddles. She glanced in the direction of the Sparrow, the cabin Patricia rented. Patricia was standing behind the screen door, watching the storm, her arms wrapped around her waist. Jo waved, and Patricia called her over.

Lightning flashed.

“Please, come in out of the rain.” Patricia held the door open. She smoothed her blond tangled hair away from her drawn face. “Is there any news?” She clutched the collar of her blouse. Her clothes were wrinkled and worn, as though she had been wearing them for days.

Jo shook her head and stepped inside. “Not that I heard.” She scanned the room. A stuffed cloth doll sat on one of the wicker rocking chairs in front of a child’s tea set. Coloring books were scattered on the floor amidst spilled crayons and colored pencils. Drawings of ponies and kittens covered the coffee table.

Thunder continued to roar.

Jo picked up a drawing. “These are really good.”

Patricia looked at the picture. A smile crossed her lips. “Sara’s. She had an eye for detail. I teach art at the school. I guess she had a natural talent for it.” She covered her mouth and turned away.

Jo put the picture down. “Why don’t I make you some coffee?” She fumbled around the unfamiliar kitchen. She was aware that her wet shoes and clothes dripped onto the linoleum floor, but by the looks of the stained countertops and dirty dishes in the sink, the place hadn’t been cleaned recently.

While Jo waited for the coffee to percolate, she washed the dishes and wiped the table and countertops. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, why she was even here. But there was something about Patricia she found comforting. Maybe they were just two women who understood about regret and mistakes, two women who shared a similar burden in its own terrible way. She picked up a coffee cup.

Patricia settled into a chair at the kitchen table. She wore the expression of someone tired yet wired. The look in her eyes said she was barely hanging on. She turned to Jo as though she had remembered something important. “Tell me,” she said. “Do you still talk to Billy?”

The question was so startling, the cup dropped from Jo’s hand and shattered on the floor. Thunder cracked and lightening lit up the room.

Patricia looked so innocent. Was she mocking her? Did she want to cause Jo pain? Before Jo could find her voice to respond, there was a loud knock at the front door.

“Hello?” Sheriff Borg called. He stepped inside and removed his sheriff’s hat, his gray hair clipped short and neat.

Patricia sprung from her seat. “You found her?” she asked him.

“No, I’m sorry. Not yet.”

Jo’s heart pounded in her ears. She avoided Sheriff Borg’s eyes and grabbed a tea towel. She dropped to her knees and wiped the floor, at the same time trying to make sense of what Patricia had said. Her hands shook as she picked up the pieces of the broken cup.

“Everything okay?” he asked, and raked his eyes over Jo’s wet clothes, her chest, before scanning the mess on the floor.

“That last crack of thunder,” she mumbled. “The cup slipped from my hands.”

“You should be more careful,” he said.

“I will.”

He turned his hat around in his hands. “Have you given any thought to our conversation the other day? Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked. “Maybe something you might’ve remembered?”

Jo shook her head, feeling his eyes on her as she continued picking up ceramic shards.

Patricia touched the sheriff’s arm. “What about my girl?”

He turned his attention to her. “No one can be on the lake with the thunder and lightning.” He hesitated as though he were making up his mind whether to continue. “We have another problem,” he finally said. “One of the fishermen was up early before the storm to check the traps and found them empty. There were muddy footprints all over the docks: kids’ footprints. They must’ve fooled with the traps and let the snappers out sometime last night.”

“Why? Who would do such a thing?” Patricia asked.

“Kids pulling a stupid prank would be my guess.”

All the blood rushed to Jo’s head. Caroline, she thought. It would explain the wet clothes, the dirty sneakers in her bedroom. She pinched her eyes closed. Why would Caroline do it? Her daughter knew she wasn’t supposed to touch a fisherman’s traps. Did Caroline even know what they were using the snappers for?

“How do you know the turtles didn’t just get out?” Patricia asked.

“Not possible unless they locked the trap doors behind them.”

He continued. “It’s a darn good thing the rain held off until now, or we never would have seen the footprints.”

Patricia nodded.

“I wanted to stop by to let you know they’ll have to trap more turtles,” he said. “That is, if you still want them to. I can put an end to it if you say so, and we’ll let the recovery team continue as they have been.”

Patricia was quiet. The only sound was the splattering rain on the roof and the occasional clap of thunder. After awhile, without looking at him, she said, “I want them to do whatever it takes. I want my daughter found.”

“Okay.” He put his hat back on and turned toward the door. “I’ll let the men know.”

“Wait,” Patricia said. “I’m coming with you.” She chased after him, leaving Jo all alone on her knees in the kitchen.

*   *   *

As soon as the sheriff and Patricia were out of sight, Jo rushed back to The Pop-Inn, the pouring rain drenching her for the second time that morning. She pulled open the screen door, letting it slam behind her. Kevin sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. He looked like hell.

“Forget your umbrella?” he asked, and smiled, but he must’ve seen something on her face, because he immediately furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t have time to explain. She darted into Caroline’s bedroom. Her daughter wasn’t in bed. She plucked the wet dirty clothes off the floor. She searched the room for the muddy sneakers. They were nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Caroline?” she called to Kevin, and tossed the dirty clothes into the sink. There wasn’t time to take them to the Laundromat. She turned on the faucet.

“She took off on her bike a little while ago,” he said. His voice was deep and raspy from a night of drinking and smoking and singing. “I didn’t think she should go out in the storm, but like mother like daughter.” He leaned against the wall outside the bathroom door, sipping coffee. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

She didn’t know where to begin; Patricia asking about Billy, the sheriff, or that Jo suspected Caroline had released the fishermen’s snappers. Instead she said, “Do you know where she went?”

The screen door slammed.

She pushed past him. “Caroline,” she called, but found Gram instead.

Kevin walked up behind her, and she suddenly felt trapped between the two. She pulled on her wet cotton shirt, which stuck to her breasts and constricted her chest, the collar tightening around her neck.

“Is someone in the bathroom?” Gram asked. “I hear water running.”

Kevin shot out of the kitchen to turn off the water so the sink wouldn’t overflow. Jo backed away from Gram. The distance was enough to open her throat and allow the air to return to her lungs. She pulled her damp hair from her face.

“Where’s Caroline?” Gram dropped a bag onto the table.

“That seems to be the million-dollar question,” Kevin said, returning to the kitchen. “What’s in the bag?”

“Sneakers,” Gram said.

“But how…” Jo started to ask, but Gram held her hand up to stop her. Someone must’ve tipped Gram off. Maybe that was why she had been on the phone earlier.

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Gram said.

For once, Jo and Gram were on the same side. She peeked into the bag at a pair of white sneakers. Caroline would have to get them a little dirty so they wouldn’t look so new. “Where are her old ones?” she asked.

“I tossed them,” Gram said.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Kevin asked, and set his coffee mug down in the sink. He folded his arms and looked back and forth between them.

Johnny walked into the kitchen, scratching his head. His dark hair was almost to his shoulders, and the way it swooped to the side was a reflection of Jo’s own hair, albeit a more masculine version yet with a hint of something feminine, too. Jo knew the girls his age thought it made him look sensitive.

“Why is everyone looking at me?” Johnny asked, and yawned.

“Have you seen your sister?” Gram asked.

“Why? What did she do?” He opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a gallon of milk. Then he pulled a box of cereal and large bowl from the cabinet, plucked a spoon from the drawer, and sat at the table.

“She didn’t do anything,” Jo said. At least, she hoped. “But we need to find her.”

“Try her phone,” Johnny said through a mouthful of cereal, milk dripping from his chin.

“I can’t get a signal.” She looked at Kevin. “Will you take Johnny and search the colony? I’ll check to see if she’s at the lake. Gram, you wait here in case she comes home.”

Johnny dropped his spoon. “In the rain?”

“The storm is almost over,” Kevin said and gave Jo a worried glance. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Later,” she said. “Just go.”