She sat up and swung her legs to the floor. She looked out into the night. Leaves rustled. Willow’s branches swayed in the breeze. Her mother said it wasn’t her fault, what had happened to Sara. Maybe she was right. But she couldn’t just sit here feeling they way she did. She had to do something. At the very least, she wanted to know what was happening down at the lake. She was still wearing her T-shirt and shorts, so why not go and find out? Carefully, she lifted the screen out of the window and slipped through.
She had figured out how to crawl out the window undetected when she was ten years old. She’d had a bad dream about a wolf scratching at her bedroom door and trying to get inside to bite her throat. She had been so scared, she had wanted to flee, to climb in Willow’s branches, the one place a wolf couldn’t reach her, and hide. She had been surprised at how easily the screen had lifted away, but in truth, the cabin was old and in need of repairs.
Ever since the night of the wolf dream, when she wanted to escape, she’d crawl out the window and up the willow tree. No one ever thought to look for her there, and she felt safe. Once, she had spied her brother making out with a girl on the corner of the dirt road. She had stayed hidden in the tree and watched her brother slide his hands underneath the girl’s top, the girl batting his hands away, but eventually giving in. She felt guilty watching her brother do these things, and she felt dirty, too, but she couldn’t stop herself from staring. No way she’d ever let a boy touch her in that way.
Tonight, instead of curling up in one of Willow’s branches, she jogged down the dirt road toward the lake, keeping to the edges near the trees. She felt a strong pull toward the water, and it was more than curiosity about the progress of the search. She knew she had to be at the lake, to see whatever there was to see.
Rather than take the Lake Road and risk running into anyone, she turned right, sneaking between two cabins that led to a small trail through the woods. Voices echoed from the ballpark, possibly Johnny and his friends drinking in the dugout far away from the recovery team and law enforcement.
She continued slipping through the shadows as quietly as possible. A dog barked and she froze. She looked left and right. The dog stopped and after a few moments, she started moving again. She didn’t stop until she reached the parking lot on the other side of the Pavilion. The lake was deserted. The Pavilion was dark and empty but for the upstairs bar. She made her way closer to the dock, and from there at the far end of the lake she saw two large spotlights and a boat, but no sign of the recovery team.
Voices near the dock drew her attention. She took a few steps back under the cover of the trees. Stimpy and two other men she recognized from the Pavilion sat on the fishing pier with a couple of empty traps, hard at work tying lines. She inched closer.
“What do you have for bait?” one of the men asked.
“Crappies,” Stimpy said. “What did you think I had?”
“Are you sure Heil knows we’re doing this?” another man asked.
“He knows this is the best way to find that girl.”
A twig snapped under her foot.
“Shhh,” Stimpy said. All three men looked around. She didn’t dare move.
“Shit. We’re getting jumpy, and all we’re doing is helping. There’s no way they’re going to find that girl their way. It’s been too damn long. Too damn long.”
“How many snappers do you think we’re going to need?”
“At least a dozen. Maybe more.”
Caroline understood what the men intended to do. The idea frightened her, and she backpedaled farther into the trees before turning on her heels. When she reached the cabins near the trail, she paused, peering at the lake over her shoulder, feeling as though she was playing some obscure part in a horror movie.
In the next second, she shot through the woods, no longer caring about making noise, about being seen, about being chased by a dog. She thrashed through brush and tore up the hill, slowing only when she reached the dirt road that led to the colony. She tiptoed as she got closer to the cabin, her stomach twisting and turning. She slipped under Willow’s branches and crawled through the window before putting the screen back in place and curling into a ball on her bed.
Everyone on the lake knew about snappers and what they were capable of. Snappers bit off fingers and toes, chewed through fishing lines and nets, fed on dead and decaying flesh.
She pulled the covers over her head and tried hard not to picture Sara’s body at the bottom of the lake covered in mud and grime. And bite marks. But no matter how hard she tried, the image flashed in her mind’s eye over and over until she thought she might scream.
CHAPTER NINE
Jo walked through the colony, checking her phone every few minutes, searching for a signal. Slivers of moonlight sliced through branches of trees, lighting bits and pieces of the dirt road. She sidestepped potholes, the ones she could see, and kept walking.
The colony consisted of roughly thirty cabins. Most were named after birds that populated the area—Wren, Sparrow, Meadowlark. Gram caused a commotion with the lake association when she named her cabin, The Pop-Inn. Heil and a few other cabin owners claimed she had broken tradition and interfered with the continuity of the summer rental properties. Gram argued that she owned the cabin and could name it as she pleased.
Besides, Gram enjoyed the play on words—“popinjay” named after the bird, although not a local bird, “pop-in” visitors coming and going as they wished, and her favorite, “Pop’s” Inn, the idea that amused Pop immensely. But the most compelling reason Gram fought hard to name the cabin The Pop-Inn was to piss off Heil and let him know she couldn’t be controlled the way he manipulated the other members of the lake association, the community, and even the sheriff.
Gram had gotten her way.
Jo continued walking and searching for a signal, her thoughts on Caroline, regretting rushing out on her when Gram had walked into the kitchen. But Jo had found herself shying away from Caroline. Sometimes the way her daughter looked at her made her uncomfortable. It was as though her daughter could see through her, as though she could see straight through to Jo’s own guilty heart.
She kept moving, not having any luck getting a signal in the colony, so she decided to walk down by the lake. Across the parking lot, the first floor of the Pavilion was dark, but the second floor bar was lit up. Voices were hushed. Under the circumstances, it was a slow night for Eddie. Heil must be losing a whole lot of money. She checked her phone again and finally had a connection.
“Hello, Rose,” she said. “Sorry to call so late, but something’s come up and I’m going to need a couple days off.”
“Oh no, you need to give me more notice. Who am I supposed to get to cover for you this late?”
“I know. But this is important.” It’s Billy. They may have found his bones. But she couldn’t say this so instead she said, “My mother needs my help.”
Rose continued as if Jo hadn’t spoken. “I’ve got a full workload. People want to come home from their vacations to a clean house. And I’m already down two maids this week.”
“I wouldn’t normally ask.”
“Then don’t.” Rose was a fair boss, but she demanded a minimum of two weeks notice if you needed time off.
“But I only need a few days,” she said. “Can’t you make an exception this one time?”
“If I make an exception for you, then everyone else will expect the same kind of treatment.”
“I understand. I do. But just this one time. I swear, I won’t do it again. Rose?”