Pine Lake Read online

  Jack turned to stare at her. “You think he’s well-adjusted?”

  She laughed. “Relatively speaking. We all have our weaknesses. Mine is sleepwalking and a pathological fear of falling.”

  “If those are the worst of your weaknesses, I’d say you’re in pretty good shape.”

  “Maybe so.” The intensity of his look tingled all along her backbone. She focused on the water to mask her disquiet. “It’s nice out here,” she said after a moment. “I’ve always loved this lake. It’s so eerie and primal. Listen.” She cocked her head. “That was an alligator bellowing.”

  “The eggs have hatched,” Jack said. “And the mothers are protective of their babies. Not a good time to go swimming.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Personally, if I owned this place, I would just sit here on the dock all day and night and watch the wildlife. From a safe distance, of course.”

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance,” Jack said. “Nathan wants to buy the cabin.”

  Olive turned in alarm. “You’re not going to sell, are you? It’s your decision, of course, but I hope you don’t. Leon loved this place. He’d be so happy knowing you’re here even if you only manage a weekend now and then.”

  “We’ll see,” Jack said noncommittally. He motioned to the deck chairs. “Can you stay?”

  “For a bit.” Olive had nothing on her agenda until the following morning, but she didn’t want Jack to think she was settling in for the night.

  They sat side by side on the dock, cooled by a soft breeze that blew through the pine trees. The lake grew still and shadowy, a haunted forest of drowned trees and trailing moss. Sinewy bodies glided through the dark shallows. Frogs plopped, herons fished and the water lilies closed up tight, their bloom heads drooping drowsily in the waning light.

  Darkness fell swiftly, a moment of complete blackness before the moon rose over the treetops. Olive placed the beer bottle on the dock between the chairs and then tipped her head back to stare up at the sky. Her nerve endings were taut and strumming. Jack was right there beside her, so near she could reach out and stroke a fingertip along his arm. All she had to do was turn her head, part her lips in invitation and she knew that he would kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her. More than anything at that moment. But she kept her gaze focused on the night sky because the last thing she needed was to get in over her head.

  Beside her, Jack stirred. She could feel his gaze on her, but she didn’t turn. Instead she said softly, “It really is an extraordinary place.”

  “I’d forgotten what it’s like out here. Nothing but moonlight and water and the sound of all that nightlife.”

  “Not the kind of nightlife you’re accustomed to,” she teased.

  “No.”

  “Do you like living in the city?”

  “I like the anonymity.”

  She said in surprise, “But you have friends in Houston, don’t you? Coworkers, acquaintances. People know who you are.”

  “They know my name. They know what I do for a living. They don’t know me.”

  Olive swallowed, daring to probe deeper. “There’s no one special?”

  “No, not anymore.”

  She waited, wondering if he would elaborate.

  “I was married for a time,” he said with reluctance. “It didn’t take.”

  “What happened?”

  “We decided we were better friends than spouses. We ended things on good terms.”

  Olive liked the idea of Jack being on good terms with his ex. No tears, no recriminations, no sleepless nights. No unrequited love. No pent-up passion. “I’ve never married,” she said. “I came close a couple of times but they didn’t take, either.”

  He picked up the beer from the dock and lifted the bottle to his lips. The gesture seemed unbearably intimate in the dark.

  Olive shivered and searched for a safe topic. “Earlier when Nathan asked for a word alone with you, what did he want? You don’t have to tell me, of course. But I can’t help thinking it had something to do with me.”

  “He knows you were sleepwalking Monday night.”

  “You told him?”

  “He guessed. For the record, I didn’t confirm. I think it’s best we stick to our story even with Nathan.”

  She glanced at him with a frown. “You don’t think he had anything to do with Jamie’s death, do you? He was very fond of her. He did a lot to help her.”

  Jack’s gaze met hers in the moonlight. “Did you know that he lied about his whereabouts on the night Anna was murdered?”

  “What?”

  “He and Tommy swore they were home all night, which gave each of them an alibi. But they lied. Both of them left the house at some point.”

  “Surely you don’t think—” She placed her hand on his arm and then she didn’t quite know what to do, jerk it away or leave it there. She slid it back to the arm of her chair. “What motive would either have for killing Anna?”

  “I never said they killed her. But they lied and I’d like to know why.”

  “Did you ask Nathan?”

  “He told me that he’d gone out to find you. He said you were sleepwalking that night.”

  The evening was balmy, but an icy breath blew down her collar. Had she gone out that night? She remembered sleeping in the next morning. The sun had been warm and bright in her room when her mother had awakened her to tell her the news. Like everyone else, Olive had been devastated by the tragedy. Anna Grayson’s brutal murder had rocked the whole town. To think that Olive may have been out wandering around in the dark when it happened—

  “You don’t remember?” Jack prodded.

  “No. But I rarely recalled anything that happened during an episode. I told you before, amnesia is common in sleepwalking.” She’d been gripping the chair arms, but now she made an effort to relax. “Did Nathan say where he found me?”

  “On Lakeside Road near the bridge.”

  “The bridge...” Olive’s heart thudded painfully as she stared at Jack in horror. “That’s a disturbing coincidence.”

  “You never knew about any of this?”

  She tried to shake off the glacial fingers that gripped her spine. “Nathan never said a word. You...don’t think I had anything to do with Anna’s death, do you? Or Jamie’s?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you think I saw something.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I didn’t,” she said almost desperately. “My mind is a complete blank. Just like yours is for the past twenty-four hours. I even asked Mona Sutton about the possibility of recovering memories through hypnosis. She said the procedure would be unreliable at best.”

  “I imagine that’s true. But if you ever want to give it a try, I know someone in Houston who could help you.”

  Someone he’d worked with? Someone he’d seen professionally? “I’ll keep that in mind. Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  She’d meant to ask him something else regarding Nathan’s visit, but instead she sat forward in her chair suddenly, her gaze traveling along the moonlit channel. “There’s a light down there. Look. I think someone is on the bridge.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jack swung around, searching the darkness and then rising quickly to stride to the edge of the dock. He stood for a moment tracking the light before he turned back to her. “Wait here. I’m going down there to have a look.”

  “In the boat?” Of course, in the boat. Did she think he was going to swim to the bridge?

  He was already loosening the dock lines. She got up to help. “Let me go with you.”

  “It’s best if you stay here.”

  “Why? What do you expect to find?”

  He glanced back toward the flickering light. “Someone’s walking the bridge
with a flashlight. The better question is, what do they hope to find?”

  “Evidence,” she said on a surge of excitement. “Something that got left behind.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Even more reason I should go with you. Another pair of eyes.” Or another target. She wasn’t a particularly brave person. Where was all this sudden pluckiness coming from?

  Jack stepped down in the boat and reluctantly offered her a hand. “We’ll leave the lights off. He’ll hear the outboard, but he may not be able to place the sound until we’re already closing in.”

  Olive was buzzing from head to toe. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He gave her a warning look. “Running dark is risky in this water. If we hit a stump, we may have to swim ashore.”

  “Duly noted.” She jumped down into the boat and then Jack started the outboard, slowly backing out into the channel. Once he’d cleared the dock, he turned the wheel sharply and hit the throttle. The boat swung around so swiftly, Olive almost lost her balance. She sat down hard and clutched the edge of the seat as the bow lifted out of the water. Jack hit the trim button and they picked up speed, skimming across the dark surface as if the devil himself were behind them. Olive liked the lake and she liked boats, but racing through a dark, perilous channel, possibly toward a murderer, was a thrill like nothing she’d ever experienced.

  Behind the wheel, Jack was little more than a silhouette. She watched his profile for a moment and then turned to peer through the flying darkness as the wind buffeted her face and tore at her hair.

  He didn’t back off the throttle until they approached the bridge and then he shifted into idle speed. The flashlight Olive had spotted earlier was nowhere to be seen. Undoubtedly, the searcher had taken to the woods as soon as he’d heard the outboard. But as Olive scoured the shadowy deck, she could have sworn she saw a dark figure huddled near the guardrail.

  “There!” she shouted over the rumble of the motor.

  Jack flipped on the spotlight and the powerful beam tunneled through the darkness, leaping out of the water to climb the iron support beams. Olive almost expected to see glowing eyes in a pale face staring back at them. There was nothing but shadows.

  Jack turned off the engine and they sat in inky silence as he played the light all along the bridge and up into the truss. Olive traced the beam, shivering as she imagined herself up there asleep but a part of her brain still cognizant.

  A car engine sounded in the distance. Jack started the outboard and plowed toward the bank, heedless of the choking green coils clutching at the propeller. As they entered shallow water, he put the throttle in neutral, hopped out and then turned to push the hull back toward the open water. “Can you handle the wheel?”

  “Yes, but what about you?”

  He was already gone, wading ashore and then running through the woods toward the road. Olive took the wheel, slowly reversing away from the bank and trying her best to avoid those perilous tentacles. Once in deeper water, she turned the boat and headed into the channel, but she felt like a sitting duck in the moonlight. She glided up under the bridge and found a place to tie off.

  She sat in the rocking boat and listened to the night. The car engine had long since receded and she heard nothing from Jack. The air was very still. She seemed completely alone on the water and yet she had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She grew uneasy and fearful. Perhaps hiding out underneath the bridge wasn’t such a good idea.

  She thought about starting the trolling motor and making a pass along the bank to see if she could find Jack. Surely he would have called out to her if he’d returned, but an awfully long time had passed. What if he’d run into trouble? What if he had caught and confronted Jamie Butaud’s murderer? Or worse, been ambushed?

  On and on Olive’s thoughts churned as she huddled in the boat and waited. After a bit, the feeling came to her again that she was being watched. She scanned the banks and treetops and just as she was about to start the motor and head back into the passage, footsteps sounded overhead. Someone was on the bridge.

  She wanted to believe Jack had come back and she had the strongest urge to call out to him. Whoever had been up there earlier with a flashlight would have fled once he or she heard the sound of an approaching boat. That person was probably already in town by now. But what if he wasn’t? What if he’d driven down the road, parked and doubled back in order to continue his search?

  What if that person had seen Jack disembark and head into the woods, leaving Olive alone on the lake?

  What if he knew that she’d been on the bridge the night Jamie Butaud’s body had been thrown into the water and had come back to eliminate the only witness?

  Olive’s imagination exploded as her heart thundered. She kept her gaze trained on the underside of the deck, following the footfalls, and didn’t notice that the boat had drifted too close to the support. The scraping sound jolted her. She pushed off and tried to use the paddle to keep free of the pier, but the water lapping against the fiberglass hull sounded as loud as a crashing wave.

  A light shone through the floorboards and then almost immediately went out. Olive pictured someone on the deck staring down into the water. At her. She told herself she was hidden in the shadows. No way could she be spotted. But for all she knew, she had been stalked from the moment she’d backed away from the bank.

  She felt for the spotlight and then angled the bulb upward. If she flipped the switch, she might be able to catch a glimpse of whoever was up there through the cracks in the floorboards. She gathered her nerve to do exactly that when another sound came to her. A metallic click that might have been the chamber-check of a weapon.

  Olive reacted instinctively, casting off as she started the outboard. She pushed away from the support and pressed the throttle forward as she cleared the bridge.

  A bullet hit the water in front of her, another beside her. She hunkered behind the wheel until she was out of range and then she brought the boat around to neutral. Water sloshed against the hull, pushing her toward the bank, but she couldn’t worry about aquatic entanglements. Someone had just shot at her. Twice.

  If not for a powerful surge of adrenaline, she might have collapsed from shock. Instead, she angled the spotlight toward the bridge, playing the beam all along the guardrail and into the shadows on the far side of the deck. No one was there.

  For a moment, Olive wondered if she had imagined the footsteps, if she had fantasized the pepper of bullets in the water. Then she saw another form sprinting across the bridge, unmindful of the rotting floorboards and creaking support beams. She was too far away to see his features, but she knew that it was Jack. He had seen something, too. Or else the sound of gunfire had brought him running. Olive kept her gaze on that racing silhouette as she goosed the throttle and the boat shot forward.

  He was gone by the time she got back to the bridge. She cruised through the first span, turned and coasted back through the other. After a couple of passes, she heard Jack calling to her from the deck. She eased into the channel until she could see him. He walked back and forth along the guardrail, the beam from his flashlight app trained on the floorboards.

  “Pick me up over there,” he called down to her. He motioned to the opposite bank where he’d disembarked earlier.

  She found an opening in the vegetation and glided through until the bow ran aground. Jack pushed off and climbed aboard.

  “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.

  “I’m fine.” She took a moment to catch her breath. “Jack, someone shot at me just now. He was on the bridge.”

  “I heard.” Anger edged his voice as his hand came up to tuck back the hair that had blown loose from her ponytail. “Are you sure you’re okay.”

  “I think so.” As adrenaline subsided, shock pummeled her. She lifted a trembling hand, observing it almost dispassionately in the moonlight.
“Maybe you should take the wheel.”

  “Okay. But something tells me you could get us out of here just fine,” he said as he slid into the bucket seat.

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, they floated up to the dock and Jack tied off at the cleats. They climbed the steps in silence and once they were inside the cabin, he went straight to the kitchen and poured them both a healthy shot of whiskey.

  “Better not,” she said when he handed her the glass. “I still have to drive home.”

  “Suit yourself.” He set the glass on the counter nearby. “But there’s no need to drive home. You can stay here tonight. In fact, I think it would be a good idea if you did.” Before she could accept or protest, he nodded toward the living room. “I’ll take the couch and you can have the bed.”

  “That’s... I appreciate the offer, but I really should go home. I have an early day tomorrow and...” She trailed away, realizing how silly it sounded to worry over mundane things like meetings and budgets when she could have been killed moments earlier. “On second thought...” She picked up the glass and downed the contents in one swallow, gasping out loud at the burn in her throat. “That’s potent.”

  “Leon liked the good stuff.” Jack carried his glass with him as he checked the front entrance and then the door to the deck. “Has your alarm been installed yet?”

  “They’re coming tomorrow,” Olive said. “Another reason I should get home.”

  “Not a good idea to be there alone, at least until your security system is activated.”

  She turned on the barstool to watch him make his rounds. “You think whoever shot at me from the bridge would come to my house?”

  “What makes you think he wouldn’t?”