Текст книги "The Secrets of Lake Road"

Автор книги: Karen Katchur

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Kevin pretended to be asleep when Jo got out of bed and left the cabin. She would often take long walks in the morning whenever he was home for any length of time. He took these early morning walking excursions as a personal affront. He couldn’t help it. It was as though being with him, sharing a bed for more than one night, suffocated her.

Good, he thought. Go. He was glad to be alone. It gave him time to think. He had an uneasy feeling, or maybe it was more than that, something pushing him closer to the edge, ever since the sheriff had started asking questions. Even Caroline had asked him about Billy. He had been vague with his answers, sticking to the facts she had already confessed to knowing after reading an old Lake Reporter. Why Mrs. Nester had given his daughter those old newspapers baffled him. What was she looking to get out of it? And what in the hell were Jo and Johnny whispering about the night before?

He kicked the sheets off and ran his hand down his face. He felt as though he were on a collision course with the past, and everything he had worked so hard for was slipping away. He had done it all for the love of Jo. And he’d do it again if he had to. He wasn’t going to lie here and take it.

The cabin was empty except for Johnny snoring in the back bedroom. Damn kid could sleep the day away. Kevin decided to head down to the lake for the latest news. He wasn’t two steps out the door when he spotted the young woman Patricia stumbling down the dirt road. Her hair was tied in messy braids underneath a big crazy sun hat. Her blouse and flowing skirt looked slept in. Her sandals slapped the bottoms of her feet as she wove her way down the hill. If Kevin didn’t know better, he’d think she was drunk.

She didn’t notice him. How could she with her back to him and her head down? He had heard who she was from a couple of the fishermen the last time he was in the bar. Patricia was little Pattie Dugan, daughter of Bob and Jean, the couple who had come to the lake every summer for years and then one year had packed up and left, never to return. He had stopped listening to the gossip after that. It didn’t matter why the Dugans had stopped coming. He was more interested in what made Patricia, Pattie, come back.

He started following her, lagging far enough behind so she wouldn’t hear him—or if she did, she wouldn’t be alarmed. It was the road everyone in the colony took to the lake unless they took the path that cut through the woods, but which most adults avoided for practical reasons, bugs, poison ivy, or Cougar, Stimpy’s noisy, pathetic dog.

The sun was high in the sky, promising another hot day. He reached into his pocket for the pack of smokes. He paused briefly to light up. The Pavilion was open for business, and it was bustling. The parking lot was full of lake locals and their tents. Everyone was preparing for the Trout Festival. Heil was a man who got his way more often than not. He was a man who got things done, and nothing was going to stop this festival from taking place. It was one of the biggest money-makers of the season. People from all around the Poconos area, from all different vacation sites, flocked to the lake for a day of fishing, food, and crafts. The locals made a killing.

Kevin watched Patricia shuffle through the chaos. Most people got out of her way and looked a little guilty upon seeing her. The underwater recovery team was in the middle of lake doing their job. A few fishing boats were also out on the lake, but they respectfully kept their distance from the watercraft, although if they had any respect, they wouldn’t be out there at all.

Patricia stopped and gazed out at the lake. She started walking again, heading straight for the docks. Kevin followed, stopping briefly to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, Megan’s parents, who were carrying their beach chairs, obviously going to the swimming area to enjoy the day, drowning, be damned. Stimpy had his men working near the docks. Nate waved as Kevin passed. There were too many distractions, and Patricia was almost clear to the other side of the lake by the time Kevin broke free from the crowd. He passed Eddie’s cabin and found Sheila sitting outside on the front porch with a cup of coffee and the Lake Reporter. He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it.

“Join me,” Sheila said.

He glanced in the direction in which Patricia had been walking along the docks. Then he sat next to Sheila, deciding it was better to chat for a few minutes than make up some lie about where he was going and what he was doing.

“Eddie’s inside sleeping it off. And to think I’m usually the one who can’t handle the alcohol.” She laughed.

They reminisced about their partying days, and for a moment it felt like old times, how easily they had reverted to their teenage selves just by being together under the hot summer sun by the lake.

But after a few minutes of idle chitchat, the underwater recovery team’s watercraft pulled alongside the floating pier and silenced them. Kevin became keenly aware of a distance that spread between them—the space that never seemed to have closed after Billy had died. In ways, his death bound them to each other, and at the same time tore them apart. The little girl’s drowning, the recovery team on the lake—both were reminders you could never go back.

Sheila drank from her coffee cup, keeping her eyes over the rim and on the watercraft. Kevin sensed she wanted something from him. He wiped his palms on his shorts.

“You know,” she said, “Sheriff Borg stopped by to see me. He told me they confirmed the bones are Billy’s.”

He didn’t say anything, only nodded. So the DNA results were in.

“He asked if I knew how Billy might’ve hurt his arm.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I didn’t know.”

Sheila had never asked him any questions about his version of what had happened the night Billy had drowned. She believed the story he had given to Sheriff Borg back then. Although he suspected she had known he and Jo had been sneaking around behind Billy’s back. He wondered if she also assumed like the sheriff had that there had been a fight between them that night. If she did, he wasn’t going to admit to anything. Not now. Not ever.

“I don’t know anything about it either,” he said, and stood. “I hope Eddie feels better.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed toward the dock in the direction of Hawkes’ cabin, where Patricia had stopped and was now standing outside the front door.

*   *   *

Kevin lingered on the pier by the fishing boats, waiting for Patricia’s next move but pretending to look over the boats as though he were thinking about renting one for the afternoon. There was a time when he had enjoyed fishing, or rather he had acted like he did. Everything he did at the lake, every summer, had been centered on Billy. Billy loved to fish. To be fair, so did Eddie. Two of his best friends enjoyed the sport, so Kevin figured he should too.

But he didn’t.

It wasn’t that he got motion sickness from rocking on the water or that he wasn’t good at casting a line. He just didn’t see the point in spending hours on a boat to catch a fish, only to turn around and toss it back again. He’d have rather played his guitar, written his own songs, and hung out on the beach with Jo while she had tanned in her red bikini.

There had been countless times when he had watched her stretch her body on the towel, her flat stomach practically concave, leaving a gap in her bikini bottoms. He had imagined sliding his hand inside that gap, running his palm over her silky hair, slipping his fingers between her legs. And once, he’d had to pick up his guitar and put it in his lap to hide the erection in his shorts.

But like so many of his fantasies back then, even that one had been interrupted. A shadow had cut across her torso. Billy had dropped down on top of her and started doing pushups. His back was slick with sweat. His muscles bulged. Jo had laughed and pushed him away, pretending to be angry he had blocked the sun.

“Let’s head out on the boat,” Billy said to Kevin. “And leave the girls to their tanning.”

Kevin had forgotten Sheila was lying on the beach towel on the other side of Jo. He placed his fingers on the guitar strings, thinking about a song to play and the shrinking erection in his shorts. “I think I’ll stick around here for awhile.”

“What for? Come on,” Billy said. “Let’s go fishing.” He grabbed Kevin’s arm to pull him up.

Kevin shook his arm free. “Nah, that’s okay. I don’t feel like it.”

“Don’t be such a girl,” Billy said.

A familiar rush of anger shot through Kevin, reaching as far as his toes. Billy had a way of making him look like a sissy, like less of a man in Jo’s eyes. Sometimes he hated him. “No thanks,” he said.

“You’re killing me.” Billy placed his hand over his heart. “Please. Eddie’s got the boat ready. I have the gear packed. All you have to do is show up.”

Kevin played a couple of chords. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Jo leaned on her elbows, watching them.

“You’re breaking my heart,” Billy said in such a sincere way, the girls took pity on him.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Sheila said.

“He wants to hang out with his best friend,” Jo said to Kevin. “Look at him. He’s begging you. How can you say no?”

Kevin looked at Billy. In his eyes he could see that Billy’s sincerity was real. Damn him. How did he do it? How did he make Kevin feel like the bad guy every single time?

“Fine.” He put the guitar down next to Jo, stealing one last look at her in the bikini, his erection long gone. He followed Billy to the docks, where Eddie and the boat awaited them. Eddie was shirtless and wearing cut-off jean shorts. A cigarette was pinched between his lips. He wiped his hands on a towel. “She’s ready to go. All I need is someone to run up to the cabin and grab the tackle box.”

“Great.” Billy turned to Kevin and poked him in the chest. “That means you. Oh hey, while you’re there, grab some sandwiches and some cold ones.”

“I thought all I had to do was show up?” Kevin didn’t wait for Billy to reply. Instead he turned and marched back the way he came, arms pumping at his sides. He overheard Eddie ask Billy, “What’s wrong with him?”

Eddie’s cabin was only a few feet away. It wasn’t like he had to walk miles. But still. Still. He stomped inside and yanked open the refrigerator door. He pulled out cold cuts and a couple of beers. Fuck it, if Eddie’s dad noticed he was missing a few cans. He threw the sandwiches together and tossed everything into a small cooler. On his way out the door, he grabbed Eddie’s tackle box and an extra fishing pole. Maybe he was overreacting, but Billy had a way of making him do things he didn’t want to do. Billy made him feel every bit the chump.

He returned to the boat, stashed the gear, and untied the lines from the dock. When they were well on their way to the far end of the lake and miles from the beach, for a moment, a fraction of a second, he thought about pushing Billy overboard and drowning him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Caroline walked out of the Pavilion and into the lot where the tents were being constructed. She took two or three steps before she noticed Adam and his mother approaching. His mother had her hand gripped tightly around Adam’s arm, dragging him through the crowd of men and women blocking their path.

Caroline stopped and waited for whatever was coming. By the look on Adam’s face, it wasn’t good.

“I suppose this was your harebrained idea,” his mother said.

Caroline glared at Adam. He kept his eyes on his dried muddy sneakers. “She figured it out. What was I supposed to do?” he mumbled.

His mother continued. “Sneaking out and releasing those snappers.”

“Yes, ma’am. It was all my idea,” Caroline said, and Adam’s head snapped up. He stared at her.

“Do your parents know about this?” his mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The sheriff’s vehicle rolled to a stop a few feet from where they were standing.

“Well,” his mother said, “here comes Sheriff Borg now. Do you want to tell him or shall I?”

“I’d rather if neither one of us said anything,” Caroline said.

“I’m sure you would, but I’m not the only one who’s going to pay a fine because you two knuckleheads did something stupid.”

The sheriff stepped from his car. After placing his hat on his head, he walked toward them. He tipped his hat at Adam’s mother and said to Caroline, “How’s your grandmother doing?”

“She’s better.” Caroline avoided his eyes.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, and glanced out at the lake before settling his gaze on the three of them.

Caroline didn’t say anything more, waiting for Adam’s mother to turn them in. But she said nothing. The sheriff tipped his hat again and headed in the direction of the docks, where Stimpy and his men were finishing setting up the large tent that would become the control center for the tournament.

Caroline and Adam exchanged awkward glances.

“Well,” his mother said, “maybe he’s forgotten all about it with everything else going on.” She motioned to the festival and then the recovery team on the lake. “I suspect it’s because they’re still searching.” She waved her finger at them. “You won’t be so lucky if there’s a next time. Do you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caroline said.

Adam’s mother grabbed his arm again. “And one more thing,” she said to Caroline. “I’d appreciate it if you two would stop all this wild talk about that horse’s bit and that stupid lake legend.”

Adam’s face was flushed. “It’s not her fault, Mom,” he said.

Caroline wondered what Adam had said to her. She didn’t understand why his mother was so worked up. Unless … “Ma’am, do you believe in the legend?”

His mother hesitated. “I suppose when I was a kid, I did. And I understand why you kids find it fascinating. Finding that metal bit is like discovering buried treasure. I understand that, too. But the whole thing is giving him nightmares.”

“Mom,” Adam protested.

His mother continued. “I think it’s best if you two just stopped talking about it altogether. In fact, maybe it’s best if you two just stayed away from each other for awhile,” she said to Caroline.

The look in Adam’s eyes said he was sorry. His mother held onto his arm and marched him into the Pavilion.

*   *   *

Caroline walked with her head down, kicking up pebbles and dust as she made her way across the lot. She didn’t know Adam was having nightmares. She was having them too, but a different kind. She was sorry she had gotten him in trouble with his mother. She didn’t know what to do to make it right.

By the time she had reached the docks, she decided to stick to her original plan to talk with Chris’s mom. She had nothing to lose. The summer had been ruined, or so it seemed, anyway. And now all she wanted was the truth.

“And the truth will set you free,” she said, wondering where she had heard the expression before. It may have come from Pop. He was always offering up quotes as little life lessons, a habit that drove her mother crazy. Caroline had never minded. Her mother saw them as judgmental, a personal attack on the decisions her mother had made, the ones that revolved around teenage pregnancy. And now Caroline was sure Johnny was at the center of whatever tortured her mother. But why?

Out of guilt, she avoided the pier where the fishermen’s boats were docked and their traps were set, trekking her way through the woods behind the lakefront cabins. She zigzagged around trees, ducked under branches, and counted, the seventh cabin being Hawkes’ cabin. Another one of Pop’s expressions crossed her mind: Be careful what you wish for. She ignored the warning and kept moving.

The shade of the trees did little to block the heat from the sun. She tried to ignore the warm flow between her legs, making her body temperature run hotter than normal. When she reached her destination, she pressed her back against one of the old oak trees. What if Chris was home? She couldn’t face him again, not twice in one day. How would she explain what she was doing here? Would he think she didn’t believe the things he had said about his mom? Would he think she was stalking him? God, he was so cute.

She hid behind the tree in the back of the cabin, when she heard the screen door open and voices coming from the front porch. Two women were talking. Their conversation was stilted at first and then turned into a hushed silence. Caroline imagined them hugging when one of them sobbed. The screen door banged shut, muffling their voices now that they were inside.

She slid down the trunk and sat at the base of the tree. She’d have to wait it out. She picked up a twig and poked some leaves on the ground. Then she made circles in the dirt. She spelled her name and then wiped it away. When she looked up from the ground, she noticed the old fire pit and the rock with the painted initials J+B.

She threw the twig at the rock. She hated Billy for reasons she didn’t fully understand and she couldn’t properly explain. It wasn’t nice hating someone who was dead, but she did hate him. She thought about the old Lake Reporter: Sixteen-year-old local boy William J. Hawke disappeared. Her father said he wasn’t friends with him, but the article in the paper said otherwise. She wondered if maybe her father didn’t like Billy either, since he was once her mother’s old boyfriend. It was possible. Maybe that was why she had such strong feelings about not liking him too.

“William J.,” she said to herself. A disturbing thought crossed her mind. Could the J stand for “John?” William John Hawke. And if it did, could Johnny be named after Billy? Was that the big secret? She did the math, figuring the date Billy died and the month Johnny was born. And then there were the similarities between Johnny and Chris, their smile, their swagger.

Her stomach took a slow roll.

The possibility that Johnny was Billy’s son and not her father’s left her breathless. She sprung to her feet, gasping for air. How could her mother lie to her and her father? Or did her father know Johnny wasn’t his? Then again, maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was working herself up for no reason. But she felt so much rage inside her.

She picked up a large branch and struck the rock with her mother’s and Billy’s initials over and over until the branch snapped. She searched the ground, grabbing rocks and throwing them at random into the woods. She picked up more stones. One of them sliced her palm with its sharp edge. The cut was small, but deep enough for blood to drip down the side of her arm.

I hate you, she said about her mother. With all her might, she lifted the rock with the stupid initials and flipped it over so she didn’t ever have to look at it again. I hate you.

She pulled the baseball cap off her head, covered her face with it, and cried.

Everything felt like a lie. Her family was a lie.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Dee Dee opened the screen door to find a strange woman on her front porch. The woman’s clothes were rumpled, her sandaled feet dirty. The wide-rimmed sun hat cast shadows across her face, and yet there was something familiar about her.

“Can I help you?” She leaned against the doorjamb, holding the door open with her bare foot. She crossed her arms. She had been home for a total of ten minutes, her body exhausted after pulling a double shift. And after sitting in the sheriff’s office the last hour, her emotions were just as worn, cast, and dragged like grappling hooks, sharp with anger but also filled with hope now that the bones were in fact Billy’s and the case was officially reopened. She didn’t have the energy to humor this woman who was holding a small stuffed doll in one hand and extending the other for her to shake. She looked at the woman’s hand, the nails bitten down to the cuticles. She kept her arms folded.

“It’s me.” The woman clearly was on edge, and her voice had a desperate pleading quality.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” The second the question came out, she recognized her as the woman whose little girl had drowned.

“Yes, you do,” the woman said, and launched herself at Dee Dee, wrapping her thin arms around Dee Dee’s neck. She laid her head on Dee Dee’s shoulder, letting the sun hat fall to the porch floor, and sobbed. Her breath smelled like coffee. Her hair was greasy. She was filthy, and she was on the verge of coming undone.

Dee Dee wasn’t the type to offer comfort. Years of nursing had a way of desensitizing her. She considered herself tough, thick-skinned, detached. But she wasn’t unkind. It was just that life on the lake had hardened her. But she understood the woman’s anguish whether she wanted to admit it or not. The woman had lost her child, and Dee Dee knew all about loss.

“There, there,” she said, and patted the woman’s back. The woman collapsed farther into her arms, and it was all she could do to hold the two of them up. The woman continued to burrow in close, wanting the kind of affection a child seeks from a parent.

“Okay, okay,” Dee Dee said. It was then she recognized the scent of the lake on the woman’s skin, an odd mix of earthiness and sunshine and whatever was rotten on the bottom. It was the identifying factor of anyone who had spent any time here, anyone who the lake had claimed as its own.

“Come inside.” She led the woman into the kitchen, where she helped her into a chair. She set a cold glass of lake water she had pumped from the well onto the table. “Drink,” she said.

The woman gulped the water down. When she finished, she wiped her eyes with the doll. “It’s me, Pattie,” she said, and choked back a sob. “Pattie Dugan. You used to babysit me.”

Dee Dee’s hand flew to her chest, surprised at hearing the name of the little girl she had babysat all those summers ago.

“It’s Patricia now. Patricia Starr. My daughter, Sara…” She shook her head, unable to continue.

Dee Dee ran her fingers through her hair, trying to get ahold of the situation. It took a second or two for the shock to wear off, but once it did, something that had gripped her chest all these years loosened. She gazed into the woman’s blue eyes and saw the child she used to be. The guard she kept in front of her heart had lowered just enough for her to reach out to Pattie, Patricia, and hug her tight. It was the most affection she had shown anyone in quite some time.

“I always wondered what happened to you,” she said. She had babysat Pattie every summer since she was three years old. It was as though she were seeing her long-lost daughter for the first time after an unwanted, painful separation.

Dee Dee had so many unanswered questions, she wasn’t sure where to start. She pulled back and collected herself. She had waited a long time, a lifetime, for Pattie to return, and now she wanted answers. She put a pot of coffee on and sat across from her.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. Patricia told her about her parents, their divorce, and later, her awful marriage to Kyle, his affair, how she was alone, how she had no place to go, how she ended up back at the lake after all these years.

“It never left me,” Patricia said. “This place. The lake. It lived inside of me and became a part of me if that makes any sense. I thought by coming here, I would be saved from everything wrong in my life. I believed me and Sara would finally be happy if I could just get us back to the one place I always felt safe.”

Dee Dee understood better than anyone what the lake could do to you, how it could take ahold of you like a lover, drowning you with its beauty, how the mountains could blind you until you could no longer see that there was a whole other world out there, waiting for you, but by then it was too late, and you were too far gone to notice. No, it wasn’t safe at all.

“Why did you wait so long to come to me?” she asked.

“I had planned on coming our first night here. I was going to bake a pie. But Sara…” She broke off. “I swear, I only turned my back for a second,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. Everything happened so quickly.”

Dee Dee reached for Patricia’s hand. “It’s not your fault. A second is all it takes for accidents to happen around here.” She sat quietly for awhile, letting Patricia cry.

When Patricia was able to collect herself, she lifted her head and started talking about Sara. She told Dee Dee about her pregnancy, how Sara had been an easy baby and an even sweeter child. She told her stories about Sara’s determination to tie her own shoes, how she loved bedtime stories and drawing pictures. She talked about Sara’s wild imagination and Sugar, the imaginary Doberman that lived in their attic. “One time during a snowstorm—you know the kind of storm you get around here in the mountains with a foot of snow—well, Sara insisted Sugar got out. She had me driving all over the neighborhood in the middle of the storm looking for her imaginary dog. And I did it. I did it for her. I’d do anything for her.”

She continued telling Dee Dee story after story about her daughter, their adventures, until Dee Dee felt as though she knew everything there was to know about the child. Hours later, when Patricia was talked out, clearly drained, Dee Dee suggested she lie down.

When she was sure Patricia was asleep, Dee Dee lit a cigarette and stepped onto the front porch. She stared out at the water. And for the first time in a long time, she let herself cry.