Stranger in the Lake

by Kimberly Belle

  Micah pushes to a stand, and he and Sam stand there for a minute, discussing the best way to proceed. Micah wants her out of the water, like yesterday, but I don’t see how. There are all sorts of obstacles in the way—the boat, the dock posts and floats, a patch of alligator weed Paul thought he got rid of last summer, spiky fingers reaching up from the water. There’s no direct way to get her on land without going around one of them. Micah eyes the distance to shore, a good twenty feet, debating the flattest, most gradual spot.

  Finally, they come up with a plan.

  Paul is to let the boat drift far enough away from the dock to not disturb her, then start the motor and steer over to Micah’s dock. Once the boat is gone, Micah will lower himself into the water, swim her as gently as possible to shore and slide her onto an awaiting tarp.

  “That lake must be, what—fifty degrees?” I raised a wild-haired brother known up and down these hills for his talent for making dumbass decisions, but not even Chet would dip a toe in the lake this morning. Not in this weather, and not on purpose.

  Micah shrugs. “More like forty, probably. And that’s what the wet suit and towels are for, so I can dry off as soon as I get out.”

  “That’s crazy. You’re crazy. Even in a wet suit you’re going to freeze to death. You’re literally going to get hypothermia and die.” I look to Paul for support, but he lifts a shoulder. “Excellent. So you’re both completely out of your minds, and now we’re gonna have two dead bodies instead of one.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Micah says.

  Paul backs him up on it. “Seriously, Charlotte. He’ll be fine. In and out before you know it.”

  I shake my head, roll my eyes. “What is it with you Southern men? Y’all aren’t made of rubber, you know. You don’t have nine lives.”

  Something catches Micah’s attention at the top of the hill, and I turn to spot two more uniformed officers, new recruits the chief poached last month from the county sheriff’s office, hustling around the side of the house. They’re young, no older than me, which means they’re probably straight out of police academy. I wonder how many crime scenes they’ve worked. How many dead people they’ve seen. They’re about to get on-the-fly, on-the-job training.

  Sam pulls a radio from a clip on his belt and calls up to them, rattling off a list of supplies they are to bring down from the cars.

  He slides the radio back onto his belt. “Charlie, if you don’t mind, the towels?”

  “I’ll get them,” Paul offers. “I need to grab the boat keys anyway.” He turns for the house, kicking into an easy jog up the stairs.

  “There has to be a better way,” I say to Micah.

  Micah shoots me a sideways look. “If you think of one, I’m all ears.” He sighs, and his voice softens. “Look, Char, I appreciate your concern, but somebody out there is wondering where this woman is and why she hasn’t called home to check in. My goal is to get her back to them as quickly and honorably as possible, while also preserving whatever evidence she’s still carrying. Even if that means I have to freeze my balls off to do it.”

  He’s right, of course. If that were Chet or Paul under that dock, I’d want someone to cradle his head and swim him to shore, too. And I’d want him to do it now.

  “You’re a good man, Micah Hunt. Crazy, but good.” I step back and let him get to work.

  7

  The recruits make it down the hill first, arms heavy with equipment and supplies.

  Chief Hunt is here, too, an older, paunchier, grumpier version of Micah pacing the shoreline, barking out orders at anybody who comes within hollering distance. The chief’s temper is well-known in these parts, a micromanaging control freak who terrorizes his staff with shouted commands and icy stares and doors slammed hard enough to fall off their hinges.

  I’m sitting on a backyard step, watching the activity farther down the hill, when Paul sinks down next to me. A thick stack of towels is pressed to his chest. “Oh, good, you brought the big ones.”

  The ones we use on the boat or take to the beach, the ones I can wind three full times around my torso. They’re like blankets, big enough for Micah’s bulk, and plenty warm, too.

  Paul studies my face. The wind whips the bare branches on the trees above his head, making an awful clacking sound, like a wind chime made of bones. His gaze dips to my stomach, toasty under the goose down. “You okay? I’m worried about you.”

  “Because of Sam?”

  Paul tilts his head, solemn. “This isn’t your fight. It’s mine. You shouldn’t let him get to you.”

  “I married you, which means it is my fight, and Sam’s always been a sore loser. He needs to let this grudge go, especially when he’s standing in your backyard.”

  Paul reaches for my hand, warms it in both of his. “It’s yours, too, you know. The yard. The house. My heart. All of me belongs to you.”

  I melt, despite the icy air. Paul is so good at this part, at spoken sentiments and physical touch, at outward displays of affection. Kisses when he comes through the door, hand squeezes across the car console. Whispered I-love-yous in the dark. An aftereffect of losing Katherine so suddenly, he told me once. He’s learned the hard way not to waste any time.

  But after growing up in a household where people were either screaming, throwing things or passed out cold, Paul’s brand of affection is something I’m still getting used to. Whenever we fight, which isn’t all that often, it always feels like the end. Every time he leaves, a not-so-tiny part of me holds my breath until he comes back. As easy as it was to fall in love with Paul, I’m still getting the hang of how to be a married couple.

  “Hey, Paul,” Micah hollers up the hill. He shifts from foot to foot on the middle of the dock, tipping his head to the boat in an obvious let’s go. He’s already in his wet suit, his clothes and jacket in a heap on the dock, the golden necklace I watched him tuck carefully into a pocket. Paul has one just like it under all those layers, and so does Jax—Oh, crap, Jax.

  “Paul, I forgot to tell you. I—”

  “Can it wait?” Paul drops the towels onto my lap and stands, wriggling the boat keys from his pocket, casting an impatient glance down the hill.

  “Of course. Go.”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He leans in for a lightning kiss, then takes off for the dock.

  I clutch the towels to my chest, stuffing my hands into the folds, searching for a warm spot. The snow has started up again, tiny white flakes that swirl in the wind like confetti. Not the kind that sticks or does much damage, just a visible and annoying reminder of the cold.

  Micah waits for Paul at the mouth of the ramp, and together they walk up to the boat. I can’t hear them from here, but I see the focused tilt of Paul’s head, his solemn nods, and I know he’s listening hard. Instructions, I’m guessing.

  Paul takes his seat at the helm, and Micah unties the ropes. He gives the vessel a gentle shove, and the currents catch the draft, the wind and the water carrying the boat away from the dock. Once Paul’s made enough distance, he leans over the side, craning his neck for a better look. He catches sight of her, and his entire body stiffens.

  Aw, hell.

  I should have insisted on going on that boat with him. I should have known the dead woman would be a trigger. There’s something distinctly different about being told there’s a body and seeing it for yourself, feeling the horror—especially for Paul. He tries very hard not to talk about Katherine with me, but there’s no way this isn’t digging up old wounds, pulling at painful threads. As awful as this is on me, for him this has to be a million times worse.

  Micah gives the signal, and Paul starts the engine, swings the boat around, inches forward on the throttle and motors away, careful not to leave a wake.

  Micah’s descent down the ladder is just as quick. Quiet, too, all but the sucking in of a hard breath before his head disappears below the dock.
>
  I shiver and inch closer, stepping right up to the lake’s edge, doing the math. Fifteen seconds to swim under the dock to her, another fifteen to drag her out, maybe more. Behind me, the techs are antsy, too. They shift their boots in the dirt at the top of the tarp, their arms loose by their sides. The body bag is spread across the ground behind them. I stare at the empty water and hold my breath, the glare of snow and daylight rippling across the lake’s surface making my eyes burn. What’s taking him so long?

  Micah’s head reappears from under the dock, his hair slicked back, his face fish-belly white. So is the hand he’s got hooked around the dead girl, who he carefully wrests from under the dock. He hasn’t flipped her over yet. She floats facedown beside him in steady dips and bobs, white hair skimming the water.

  Thanks to the cold and the dead weight, it takes him way too long to drag her to shore. He frog-kicks and drags his free arm through the water, his breath wet and sharp with effort, but he’s still a good thirty feet from shore.

  Hurry up hurry up hurry up.

  The waiting tightens the back of my throat.

  “Get back,” Chief Hunt snaps, and I look down to see one of my boots has landed inside the tape. “I don’t need you contaminating the crime scene.”

  I move a few steps back up the hill.

  Paul jogs up, panting lightly from his sprint back from Micah’s dock, right as Micah makes land. He plants his feet on the lake’s slippery bottom and shifts her so she’s in front of him, steering her carefully to shore. The techs run down the hill, wading a good couple of feet into the water.

  “Grab her under the arms,” Micah says, his voice tight, his teeth chattering loud enough to be heard clear across the lake.

  “Gently,” Chief Hunt yells. “Be careful with her, for crap’s sake.”

  Between the four of them, they guide her up and out of the water, sliding her carefully onto the tarp. She settles at an awkward angle, hair hanging on either side of her face like a slick white curtain, smothering all but a sliver of porcelain jaw.

  Micah hugs his sopping arms around his belly and leans over the body, careful not to drip on her. “I can’t tell if this rigor is from mortis or the temperature, but the ME will know. Skin’s intact, as far as I can see. Clothes and shoes look expensive.” He’s so cold his body is practically vibrating.

  I rush down the hill, shaking out the towels on the way.

  Sam stops me at the edge of the tarp with a hand in the air. “Stay back,” he says, but he passes the towels to Micah.

  He wraps one around his shoulders, but tosses the others on the ground. He turns to the two techs. “Okay, let’s get her into the bag. Sam and I lift her up, and y’all slide the bag underneath. You two—” he points a finger at the recruits, flinging them with icy water “—hold the bottom edge of the tarp so whatever’s on her doesn’t wash back into the lake. Everybody clear on what they’ll be doing?”

  Head nods all around. Everybody moves into position. Chief Hunt moves to where he can get a better look.

  “One...” Micah wedges an arm under her hips. “...two...three.”

  What happens next is a blur of hurried movements and moving limbs, of male grunts and shouted orders. From their voices, I get that it’s not her weight but her rigidity that’s making the task difficult, and they handle her like a piece of their grandma’s best crystal. They lift her body in the air like it weighs nothing, cradling her to their chests and shuffling until she’s hovering over the body bag. I try to get a peek at her face, but they’re clustered all around her, a wall of shoulders and backs, and I’m standing at the wrong end. All I see are the bottom half of her pants and her shoes. Micah was right; they do look expensive.

  Brown suede ankle boots with a thick stacked heel, not too high, fastened with a dark leather strap at the top. Like nothing in my closet, or anything I’d ever buy for myself—too prim, far too impractical on these muddy hills. City shoes.

  Something slips across my mind, something important, but I’m too much in shock to catch it.

  “Gentle now,” Micah says.

  They lower her into the awaiting body bag, tucking her hands and feet inside. I take in their words with a silent sigh of relief. They don’t know her. A stranger from out of town.

  I toss a relieved look to Paul, but he doesn’t look up. He’s standing at the top edge of the tarp, staring down at the woman nestled in shiny black plastic. His face is as white as the terry cloth slung over Micah’s shoulders, and I wonder whose face Paul is seeing—this woman’s, or Katherine’s?

  “Oh, baby.” I shove past the other officers, moving up and around to the other side of the tarp. “Oh, Paul.”

  “I’m fine,” he mumbles, his face a death mask. He takes a step backward, his sneakers slipping on a patch of rock and dirt. “I’m fine.”

  He’s not fine. This is Paul from last March, when he took to bed claiming to be under the weather, when I brought him hot tea and chicken soup that he left untouched on the nightstand, on a day I later found out was Katherine’s birthday. This is him pretending to be asleep so I wouldn’t worry, even though under the covers his entire body was trembling. Most days, it’s just me and Paul in our relationship, but for a few days a year, on her birthday or their anniversary or the anniversary of her death, there’s a third. The beautiful, funny, sexy, smart, perfect ghost of Katherine.

  “What’s wrong?” At first I think Sam’s question is directed at me, until I see the way he’s watching Paul. I can see Sam thinking, processing Paul’s distress, landing on the most obvious reason. “Mr. Keller, do you know this woman? Do you know her name?”

  Paul swallows, and then he shakes his head. “No. I just thought...”

  “You thought what?”

  A gust of sudden wind blows up the hill, whipping Paul’s hair. He looks at me, and his cheeks, already pink from the cold, turn even pinker. We don’t talk about Katherine; that is the unspoken agreement between us, and now here she is, standing between us like a live grenade.

  “You thought what?” Sam says again.

  I take a step to my left, blocking Paul’s view of the body. “Shut up, Sam. If you’d stop to think for one freaking second, you’d know what he thought. Just let it go, will you...”

  The words die in my throat, because it’s then I happen to look down. To get my first good look at the face half-hidden beneath plastic and a weedy fall of wet hair. Milky skin with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Pale lips parted on a silent gasp. Sunken, clouded eyes open in a lifeless stare with pupils the color of a late-summer sky.

  It’s the woman from yesterday, the one I found Paul talking to in town. The one who was trying to get her hooks in my Keller.

  “Get to town,” Chief Hunt is saying to Sam. “Find out her name, where she was from, anything you can about who she was and what she was doing here, including where she was staying. Start with the hotels, and if they don’t know her, work your way through the rental agencies. Or on second thought, start there, at the agencies. If she came here looking for a quiet getaway, she’ll be in one of the cabins.”

  Start with the hotels. The thought slices through my mind, but I somehow force myself not to say it out loud. Whatever that woman came to Lake Crosby looking for, it wasn’t quiet. I think of the way she looked at me yesterday, her strange reaction when I introduced myself as a Keller. A flash of surprise, and her gaze went immediately to Paul. “Keller,” she’d murmured, and something about the way she looked at him put me on edge. She knew the name, knew its significance in this town. I’m certain of it.

  I whirl around, and Paul is staring at me silently, urgently, from a few feet away. I meet his gaze, and everything goes still. My entire body changes in that moment of understanding. At his message, sharp and sparkling.

  Stop talking.

  “Call me as soon as you’ve got an address,” Chief Hunt is say
ing, “but do not go inside. Until we know otherwise, we’ll be treating her last known location as a potential crime scene. Now scoot. Micah, I’ll be waiting for your paperwork.” He turns and lumbers back up the hill.

  Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe Paul is just embarrassed at his reaction, at this sudden swell of post-traumatic stress he tries so hard to stuff down. Maybe I’m reading more into this.

  No. No, that’s not right. Paul looked her straight in the eye, and he talked to her. Even if she only asked him for directions or a restaurant recommendation, he would remember. Her face is too pretty not to be noticed, and Paul notices everything.

  So why did he just lie?

  By now Micah is dressed. He clomps down the ramp in his boots, pointing to the techs. “Seal the bag and take her up to Harris Regional. I’ll call the medical examiner, let her know you’re on the way. Don’t forget the tarp. She’s gonna want that, too.”

  The creak of the body bag’s zipper is like a knife, cutting through the cold and crawling all over my skin. The tech pulls it snug, then slips a plastic tag through the pull and draws it tight, essentially padlocking the bag until the next person to touch her clips the tag. Chain of custody, Sam told me it’s called, during one of our gas station talks.

  “You okay?” Micah’s lips are blue, but his eyes are bright with excitement. He’s itching to strap on an oxygen tank, sink to the bottom of the lake and dredge up whatever the woman dropped. He probably doesn’t even notice the cold.

  Paul nods. His expression is parked in Neutral. His face is completely closed off, like those metal shutters people roll down the windows of their summer cabins, familiar but guarded. He glances up the hill at the house. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

  Micah shifts his gaze to mine. “You don’t have to stay down here, either. I’ll call up if I run into any snags. Just keep your cell close. The cops’ll need an official statement at some point, so don’t go anywhere without telling them, got it?”

  I nod. Paul grabs my hand and tugs me toward the stairs, but I tug back.