by Lisa Jackson
It’s nothing. With a kick, she turned over and dove deep again, but the eerie sensation chased after her into the murky depths.
*
“Shiloh?” Ruthie McFerron called nervously.
“She’s fine.” Katrina couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice as she peeled off her tank top. Shiloh could be such a bitch, a hothead who was always barreling through life and damning the consequences.
Well, fine. Let her swim off alone. Cool her jets. Katrina could deal with Ruthie. “Don’t worry about her. She talks before she thinks.” Standing near the edge of the water, Katrina tightened the band pulling her hair away from her face and noticed that the greasy smells from the fryer at Big Bart’s still clung to her.
She glanced at her friend. Ruthie was having one helluva time taking off her clothes. Katrina unhooked her bra and tossed it onto the small heap where she’d kicked off her flip-flops. Then she dropped her shorts and panties in one fell swoop. “Come on,” she said to her newfound friend.
Anxiously eyeing the surroundings, Ruthie was carefully undressing, even bothering to fold her skirt and sleeveless blouse over her sandals. “I don’t know about this,” she whispered but managed to take off her bra and tuck it under her blouse.
“You wanted to come,” Katrina reminded her. The truth was that Ruthie had practically begged Katrina earlier in the day when the preacher’s daughter had come into the diner for an iced mocha and had overheard that Kat was meeting Shiloh for a midnight swim.
“I know, but …” Ruthie held her hands over her breasts. “But it’s all kind of weird, and I swear I saw something. I mean, Shiloh, she was just joking about cougars and wolves and all that. Right?”
“Of course she was,” Katrina said tautly. But she slid another look into the fringe of trees surrounding the lake. There was something off tonight, a little bit of electricity in the air she couldn’t explain. Or maybe Ruthie’s case of nerves was just making her edgy.
“Well, it’s not funny. I know I’m a little jumpy, but I’m still not used to the country. When we lived in Denver, everything was total suburbia. Malls and neighborhoods and Blockbusters and stuff. Dad said the area was losing its frontier charm. I’ve only been here a year, and the wilderness takes some getting used to. I really did see something. It’s … it’s probably nothing,” Ruthie said. “My mother accuses me of jumping at my own shadow.”
“Yeah, well, don’t worry about it.” Katrina tried to soothe her friend, tried to ignore the skin-crawling doubt, that little bit of subconscious anxiety suggesting that things weren’t as they appeared. A warning. She narrowed her eyes on the darkest spot in the surrounding trees, where the tree limbs nearly canopied over the narrowest point of the lake. A frog was croaking and mosquitos were buzzing, a fish jumping in the water and sending out ripples. But she saw no one lurking in the shadows.
The thought was ridiculous, wasn’t it? No one would be out here.
For a fleeting second, she thought of the two girls who had disappeared two years before on a summer night just like this. Not here at the lake, but at a brook where they had gone wading. Rachel and Erin, two teens from good families. Katrina’s father was still working on their missing persons cases. And then, just last month, Courtney Pearson had also gone missing one night after fighting with her boyfriend, Rafe. No one had been surprised about Courtney. She had been suspended from Prairie Creek High School numerous times because of her piercings and tube tops with jeans cut so low you could just about see her girl parts. Katrina and Courtney had been lab partners in earth science class, with Courtney repeating the class after failing it twice. Courtney Pearson had gained a reputation as the bad girl of Prairie Creek High School. Her image wasn’t helped by the fact that her boyfriend was Rafe Dillinger, a spoiled rich kid who’d gotten caught stealing a few times.
Three girls gone. Some people, like Shiloh, discounted them all as runaways, but Katrina wasn’t sure that was correct. Since the girls had vanished on Patrick Starr’s watch, she had overheard a lot of the details, and it sounded like none of the girls seemed eager to get out of town. Kat worried they’d been kidnapped, and her father seemed to agree. Dogged as he was, Detective Starr wasn’t giving up the investigation, not until he found them.
Katrina shook off her dark thoughts and lifted her arms to the humid velvet air. She was safe with her friends. “It’s a good night for this.” She glanced back at Ruthie. “Are you coming or not?”
“Sure.” Ruthie didn’t seem sure at all with her arms folded to cover her breasts.
“Then come on. We’ll ease in from the beach.”
Ruthie let out her breath. Stepped out of her panties. Hid them in her tidy stack of clothes. “Okay,” she said, tentatively following Katrina off the dock to the sandy shore. They waded into the lake, the water so cold it could steal your breath.
Katrina hissed, sucking in air through her teeth, her abdomen concaving.
“Wow,” Ruthie whispered as she checked to make sure the pins holding the knot atop her head were secure. “It’s freezing!”
“You just need to get used to it.” Katrina scanned the lake. Shiloh had submerged again. Insects buzzed over the surface, and she felt rather than saw a bat fly by, but she wasn’t going to say a word about it and spook Ruthie even further as they picked their way carefully over slick stones and sand.
Katrina loved coming here. To get away. Not only from her summer job as a waitress at the diner, but from other troubles—troubles related to her family. Her father was wrapped up in his work, a detective who worked overtime. Sometimes Katrina thought work was just a handy excuse for Patrick Starr to avoid facing what was happening at home. With Mom.
“She hasn’t come up.” Ruthie was eyeing the water, searching the depths.
“She will. It’s a game Shiloh plays, holding her breath for as long as she can. Ignore her.” She was done pandering to the anxious girl. In one quick movement, Kat dived in and knifed through the water.
Shiloh was untamed and tough, sixteen going on forty, or so Kat had overheard her father grumble once. As a lawman, Patrick Starr didn’t really approve of his daughter’s association with Shiloh and the troublesome Silva clan, but he tried to keep himself from nagging too much, she could tell. No doubt he would prefer to find out that Kat was hanging out with Reverend McFerron’s daughter, since Ruthie walked the straight and narrow as a rule, while Shiloh didn’t give a hot damn for convention of any kind.
“Hey, wait up!” Ruthie called, and Katrina saw that the timid girl had actually started dog-paddling after her.
Katrina began swimming again.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed her leg.
Her heart leapt to her throat, and she yelped in shock.
The hand slid away, and Shiloh shot out of the water not a foot from her.
“Gotcha,” Shiloh said, grinning as she tossed her wet hair from her face.
“I knew you were there,” Kat lied, more than a little pissed. She was nervous enough as it was with all of Ruthie’s fears coming to the fore. She didn’t need Shiloh playing her stupid games.
“Nah. Ya didn’t. Race ya.”
“You’ll lose.”
“No way.” Shiloh grabbed Kat’s shoulder and pulled her back.
“Hey!” Kat sputtered, spitting water.
“That’s cheating,” Ruthie called from across the lake, but even she was laughing as Shiloh started swimming again and Katrina, still burned, her heart racing, took off after her, only to be beaten.
Shiloh heaved herself onto the shore, moonlight dappling her sleek skin. “You should have seen your face,” she said to Kat, who glowered at her from the water. “Looked like you saw a ghost.”
“More like the bogeyman,” Kat snapped back.
“Shhh. Don’t say that,” Ruthie said, slowly making her way across the lake, all the while careful to keep every strand of her red hair piled high and dry on her head. “You shouldn’t talk about the bogeyman,” Ruthie warned in a worried whisp
er as she reached the opposite bank. “That’s tempting fate.”
“Oh, it is not.” Kat kicked and splashed water at her. Ruthie pulled away fast. “Don’t tell me you’re superstitious.”
“I’m not. Not really.” But the tremulous tone of her voice said differently.
Another splash.
“Stop it! You’ll get my hair wet! My dad will notice.”
“He already thinks you’re in bed, so he won’t see you when you sneak back in,” Kat assured her for the thousandth time. Maybe Shiloh was right; maybe she shouldn’t have let Ruthie come along. Even now, as if tired of Ruthie’s complaining, Shiloh had slipped back into the water and vanished without making a ripple.
“She’s a damn fish,” Kat said, half admiringly.
“A cold fish,” Ruthie agreed. “She doesn’t like me.”
“She doesn’t like many people.” Why try to argue when it didn’t matter anyway? It wasn’t like Shiloh and Ruthie were going to start hanging out.
Especially when Ruthie, standing chest-deep in the water, was once again staring anxiously at the darkest spot in the thicket of trees, trying, it seemed, desperately to pierce through blackness to discern what might be hiding behind the thick boles. “We should go back.” Nodding to herself and worrying her lower lip, Ruthie added, “Yeah, I think it’s time. You know … it might not be so safe here. Let’s go.”
Shiloh broke the surface of the water again to stand next to her. “What are you talking about?”
“Ruthie’s thinking about the missing girls,” Kat said.
“I didn’t say that!” Ruthie protested.
Kat said, “But you were.”
“No, I—”
“But nothing happened to them, okay?” Shiloh cut in. “Some people don’t know this, but Rachel and Erin took off after going to a rodeo—happens all the time. Sometimes teenagers just don’t come home.” Shiloh barrel raced in the local circuit, so she considered herself an expert on all things rodeo.
“Rachel Byrd wouldn’t just not come home!” Ruthie argued.
“You know her?” Shiloh was skeptical.
“No, but her family attends a church where my dad sometimes preaches.”
“Oh God.” Shiloh rolled her eyes. “So what? Here’s a news flash, Ruthie: Even churchgoers cross moral lines, just like the rest of us. Trust me, I know. Some of them are the biggest hypocrites around!”
“No—” Ruthie started to argue, but Shiloh ran over her with, “Even the police think those girls ran away. End of story. No big deal, really. Maybe they needed to leave. Maybe things weren’t all that great at home. Maybe they were really bad.” Her expression, already shadowed in the moonlight, turned even darker. “When I turn eighteen, believe me, I’m taking off.”
“You mean to college.”
Shiloh shot her a searing look and didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm from her voice. “Sure. College. That’s the plan.”
Stung, Ruthie winced, but asked, “Where would you go?”
“Somewhere else. Anywhere else.” Shiloh was emphatic. “Like those girls who got the hell out of here.”
“They didn’t just run away,” Ruthie said, spinning in the water. “Isn’t that right, Kat?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Your dad doesn’t think they’re runaways. That’s what you said about Rachel and Erin, right? And Courtney Pearson …”
“Give it a rest,” Shiloh muttered, her voice hissing across the lake’s surface.
But Ruthie went on, “Courtney’s been all over the news, and I told you, Rachel used to attend our church. But everyone talks about them. Right, Kat? And … and, Shiloh, you really shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”
Shiloh snorted. “Kat’s dad is a detective. He’s paid to be suspicious, but no one’s saying anything bad happened, like—foul play.” She looked to Kat for corroboration.
“Not officially,” Kat agreed, “but Dad doesn’t tell me everything. He can’t.” Especially when he wasn’t around all that much, when he was avoiding coming home.
“I’m telling you all that’s going on is that a couple of girls took off to get away from some kind of bad situations. They probably had dads or stepdads who knocked them around and had weak mothers who didn’t believe them, or even want to believe them. Or maybe their mom was a drunk, or on pills, or a sicko cousin or some creeper of an uncle tried to get into their pants.”
Ruthie actually gasped, treading water with some difficulty.
“Oh, get real!” Shiloh rolled her eyes at the younger girl’s naïveté. “For God’s sake, Ruthie, it happens, okay? Not everyone has a perfect mom and dad who go to church picnics and hold hands and dote on their children and wear halos over their damned sanctimonious heads!”
“Shiloh, enough,” Kat warned.
In the moonlight, Ruthie’s face started to crumple, but she kept her head above the waterline and managed to lift her chin a fraction. “Why are you so mean?”
“I’ve had lots of practice,” Shiloh said tautly. Not backing down an inch, she added, “Remind me again, would you, why you were so hell-bent on coming here?”
Ruthie’s lips tightened. “I don’t know anymore.” She spun in the water and took off for the dock where they’d left their clothes.
Kat glared at Shiloh. “Do you always have to be such a bitch?”
Shiloh was hot. “Yeah. I think I do.”
“You went too far this time. Look what you did.”
“What I did? What you did,” Shiloh shot back furiously. “Bringing her was your idea.” Before Kat could say a word, Shiloh dove deep and disappeared again.
“Damn it.” Pissed as hell, Kat saw Ruthie’s head bobbing over the water’s surface. What a colossal mistake this whole skinny-dipping thing was. Well, it was the last time. Shiloh was right: Ruthie was a wimp, but with three girls missing, it was kind of stupid to be out here like this. And Ruthie wasn’t wrong about Shiloh, either. At times Shiloh was an angry, heartless bitch.
Who needed either of them? Kat thought, as she cut across the water after the shyer girl. She had her own problems. Big ones. Unbidden, her mind drifted back to her mother, never far from her thoughts. I’ll … dying … And no one in her family knew what to do.
Nope. She didn’t need Shiloh or Ruth. She vowed with each stroke that, starting tomorrow, she was going to find new friends. Normal friends.
Chapter 2
Ruthie shivered and tried not to think about someone hiding in the woods, about the eyes she felt watching her, about sensing an evil presence. The other girls would just laugh at her, but as she worked her way across the lake, she scanned the perimeter, searching the gloom and feeling a gnawing fear.
Beneath the surface, something slimy slid across her leg, and she let out a startled cry, but whatever lurked in the water moved on. Or maybe it was just in her mind.
It was all probably because of Shiloh. The truth was, Ruthie was starting to think she wouldn’t really care that much if Shiloh left town. Good riddance to bad news. Isn’t that what her mother always said? For once, maybe Beverly McFerron had a point.
Katrina had said Shiloh was fun to be with, sort of, but she also had a blazing mean streak and the tongue of a viper. It was almost as if she reveled in being a bad girl or a rebel or whatever. The bottom line was that it was dangerous just hanging out with her.
Ruthie had been a fool.
What had she been thinking, sneaking out here in the middle of the night? Just to fit in? Just to make friends? Well, no, there was more to it than that, of course. It was because she needed to get close to Kat to gain access to her brother. Ethan Starr was like a real-life cowboy, having won junior rodeo competitions in barrel racing for the past few years running. So adorable, and humble too, as he said hello to Ruthie every morning when they passed in the hall at school. Some days she lived just for that hello from Ethan. She knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, so why the heck couldn’t it be her?
Because everyone k
new Ruthie was a minister’s daughter, doomed to be chaste and boring until she got married.
She bit her lip and mentally chided herself. Coming out tonight had been a stupid idea. If Ruthie happened to get caught by her mother or father as she tried to sneak back into the house, she’d be in deep, deep trouble. Punishment at the McFerron house was meted out by measure, determined by the magnitude of the crime, and usually accompanied by a stern reprimand from her father while her mother’s eyes welled with tears. Ruthie shuddered to think what her father would consider appropriate for lying and leaving the house without permission, allowing her parents to think she was safely asleep in her bed when she was out wandering the countryside and swimming nude while dreaming of Ethan and what it would be like to kiss him. Or more. She blushed at the thought.
Sin after sin after sin.
Quickly she climbed the slimy ladder onto the dock and, feeling goose bumps rise on her flesh, beelined for her tidy stack of clothes. She was reaching for her underwear when she heard a noise.
The rustle of dry leaves?
Big deal. A breath of wind, that was it. Nothing sinister or menacing.
The crack of a twig snapping?
Footsteps drawing nearer?
Her heart froze.
But the other girls were still in the lake. She could see their dark forms as they swam closer to the shore.
She was alone.
Right?
Don’t do this, Ruthie. It’s just your imagination gone wild.
But there it was again: the steady footsteps of something or someone drawing nearer. Thoughts of a wolf prowling, hidden in the night, its head low, its eyes focused on her made her heart thump. Slowly she lowered herself to the pile of clothes, then gasped at the sudden flash of light in the trees.
Heat lightning?
Dear God, please let this be my imagination.
Shivering, she folded her arms across her chest as she heard splashing, the other girls arriving. Good. Then they could leave!