He steps away from the window, clomping in his boots across the rug and into the kitchen. He doesn’t bother to ask, just moves around the island and flips the switch on the coffee machine. Chet knows his way around Paul’s kitchen, and the two share a taste for strong espresso, which is about the only thing they have in common.
I sink onto a stool at the counter, taking in his grungy jeans and the ring of scruff around his mouth and along his chin. His hair is even shaggier, long and slicked back off his face, curling up where it hits the collar of his coat. I know we live in the Appalachians, but still. He’s taking the mountain man look a little too far.
“What’s up with the hair? Are you interviewing for Hells Angels or something?”
He rears back, frowning down his nose at me. “What’s wrong with my hair? You never complained about it before.”
No need to define what he means by before. Before Paul, when my boyfriends looked just like Chet, all denim and leather and hair one week away from shaggy. Sometime in the past year, Paul’s style, short and well clipped, has grown on me.
“Besides, you’re one to talk. You don’t look so great, either.”
Chet doesn’t have to tell me. I saw myself in the hallway mirror earlier, the unwashed hair I worked into a messy braid down one shoulder, the clothes that look dug from the bottom of the laundry basket, my face pale and shiny with sweat. I know I look like hell. I feel like it, too.
“Yeah, well, you walk up on a dead body in your backyard and let’s see how you look afterward. She was under the dock, Chet, just...bobbing there. She looked like a mannequin or something. Her skin was practically see-through. And then they flipped her over and I saw her face.” I shudder, a chill hijacking my spine at the memory of her one-eyed stare into the sky, at the shock of Paul’s words: No, I don’t know her. “I’m pretty sure my heart stopped.”
Chet frowns. “What, had you seen her around or something?”
I shake my head. “I just meant it freaked me out, is all.”
That’s the thing about lies, that they demand commitment. Once you spout one off, you have to stick to your story, to think before blurting the next words. Even at home, and even with Chet. Especially with him. He’s the last person in Lake Crosby capable of keeping a secret.
He brushes it off with a shrug. “Understandable, I guess. Remember all those nightmares I had after Uncle Jerry’s funeral? The way they just laid him out on that refrigerated table, his eyes all sunken in and stuck together with glue. I don’t care what anybody says—he didn’t look asleep. Creeped me way the hell out, too.”
“Exactly.” I steer us to a safer subject. “So what’s the big emergency?”
“Who says there’s an emergency? Can’t a guy drop by to see his favorite sister?” Chet steps to the fridge, sticks his whole head inside. “Hey, you got any of that pumpkin spice creamer? That stuff was the shit.”
“I’m your only sister, and it’s gone.” I don’t mention that Paul dumped it after he spotted it at the very back of the fridge, half-hidden behind a tub of Greek yogurt and some organic orange juice. As long as I’ve known him, Paul’s position has been, if it doesn’t come from a farm or the organic market, it has no business going in the body.
“Palm oil, cane sugar, artificial flavoring,” Paul said, squinting at the back label, “but you know what this stuff doesn’t have? Milk.” He twisted open the top, turned it upside down in the drain. “Imagine that, a coffee creamer without so much as a drop of dairy. You’re going to grow a third ear if you keep drinking this crap.”
The carton went in the recycling bin and Paul on a mission, rummaging through the kitchen for more Piggly Wiggly contraband. He found all the good stuff—the cheese in a can, the toaster pastries, the fruit rollups and snack cakes.
“Not the Moon Pies,” I said, laughing even though I was serious. When you grow up like Chet and I did, you don’t waste food, and you definitely don’t throw any away. I came up behind him as he rummaged through the pantry, distracting him with a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Just as long as you don’t find the SpaghettiOs I’m making for dinner.”
He turned in my arms, and the side of his mouth quirked up. “You’re joking, right?”
“Yes, Paul. I’m joking.” I tried to give him a serious look, but I couldn’t hold back my giggle. “We’re having Spam.”
The memory gives me a pang, both sweet and sour at the same time. I calculate how long he’s been gone, picture the map of Lake Crosby in my mind. Twenty-six miles of shoreline—the equivalent of a marathon if you go all the way around, which Paul won’t, and he can’t be moving that fast, not after a run and with that backpack strapped to his shoulders. Still, even with tired legs, he can cover a lot of ground in three days.
But my brother’s right. That pumpkin stuff was the shit.
“Please don’t tell me Annalee threw you out again.”
It’s a logical assumption, because ever since Chet moved into her house, a tiny ranch on the outskirts of town, the two of them have spent half their time breaking up and the other half getting back together—most often loudly and in public. Annalee loves drama, and she loves when others share in hers. He makes a face and I know that I’m right.
“Oh my God, y’all are the most wishy-washy couple I’ve ever met. At what point do you just throw in the towel and take the loss?”
He scratches his head. “Have you two been talking on the phone or something? Because now you’re sounding just like her.”
I inhale long and slow, blow it out even slower. I love my brother, honestly I do, but sometimes I wonder if I’m going to be the only one. Oh, women like him well enough, but then the initial glow fades and shines a spotlight on all his faults. He’s messy. Immature. Aimless and possibly very lazy. But he loves with his whole, enthusiastic heart, which is both his best and his worst quality. He’s constantly getting it smashed to pieces.
I soften my tone. “Want to tell me what happened?”
He grabs the cups from under the dispenser, slides one across the island to me and leans on the counter with both elbows. “Okay, so you know how I thought Ted was looking to expand, buy up that other shop in Cashiers and let me run it?”
“Yeah.” Ted is his boss, the ancient mechanic who owns Lake Crosby Automotive.
“Well, he wasn’t looking to buy, but to sell. Some chain out of Asheville swooped in and bought up a whole bunch of shops, including his. They sent everybody home but the master mechanics.”
“So go back to school, get a certificate.” Up to now, Chet’s training has consisted mostly of YouTube videos and trial and error on my old clunker, which he’s managed to keep running for fourteen years and over two hundred thousand miles. That’s got to count for something. “And you know more obscure car facts than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re like the car version of the Rain Man. You can always learn.”
He gives me a look over his coffee cup. “Nobody’s ever accused me of being smart except you, which is how I know you’re full of it. And even if I was smart enough, what am I gonna do in the meantime? I can’t pay my share of the rent until I get another job, and even then, it’ll take a couple of weeks before the pay kicks in.”
“So she just kicked you out? Not cool.”
At the same time, the realization he’s got nowhere to stay wilts that hard knot between my shoulder blades. This house is too big, too made of glass to sleep in alone—especially with a murderer on the loose. With Chet here, maybe I won’t look out the darkened windows and feel eyes, watching my every move. Maybe I’ll actually sleep.
“It wasn’t just the job. It’s also...” He winces and shifts from foot to foot, boots scraping against wood. “Okay, so Annalee’s been dying to go to Disney for, like, ever. It’s her dream vacation, to drive down to Florida and spend a week visiting all the parks. Every Sunday night, she’d make us empty our wallets into the cookie
jar. She said after a while, we’d have enough. She even made a little sign she taped onto it, with drawings and everything. She called it Mickey Money.”
“Cute.”
“But I’ve been asking around, and do you know what that place costs? Not just the tickets for the parks, but the hotel and the gas and these special passes so you don’t have to stand around in line, and apparently everybody walks around with these giant turkey legs that cost ten bucks a pop.” He shakes his head. “How am I supposed to pay for all that?”
For people like Chet, living month to month, vacations are not a luxury but a liability. What if his roof springs a leak or he needs a new refrigerator? Any money left over at the end of the month should go into an emergency fund, and Chet’s question was rhetorical. He can’t pay for a Disney vacation. He shouldn’t.
Chet sighs. “And then the rent came due and I couldn’t make my share, and there was that cookie jar full of cash, just sitting there on the counter...” His words dissolve into a shrug.
“Chet. You didn’t.”
“What? Half of it was mine anyway, and I was going to put her half back as soon as I found another job. I’m gonna pay her back. I just need for her to give me a minute.”
This is the part where I’m supposed to reach for my wallet, to offer up some cash he’ll never spend a second thinking about repaying. Chet pauses, waiting. I press my lips together and say nothing.
He sighs. “Honestly, Char, in this weird-ass way, it feels like maybe the universe is giving me a sign. I mean, that mechanic thing felt like something I just fell into, you know? I’m decent at it, but it’s not what I love to do. Maybe it’s time for me to branch out. To find my passion.”
A mechanic, a concrete pourer, a leaf blower, a valet, a window washer. Chet changes jobs like other people change out their toothbrushes. I try to be supportive, but he’s running out of new professions to try.
“What’s your passion?” I say, my voice dubious. Sometimes I wonder how we’re related. All I’ve ever wanted out of life is stability, but Chet seems to thrive on upheaval.
His gaze roams the kitchen, landing on the cup of coffee in his hands. “Okay, but you gotta promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“I’m serious, Charlie. Not so much as a snicker.”
“I promise, Chet. Now tell me.”
“Fine. Okay.” A pause, his gaze wandering away from mine, then sticking. “I think I want to be a chef.”
At the thought of food, my mouth waters, and a stab of hunger slices through the acid churning in my empty stomach. I think of last night’s dinner, shrimp stir-fry I was too excited to eat much of, and the oatmeal I just stuffed down the drain. I need food, and fast, and Chet’s taste buds are like mine. He likes things deep-fried and smothered in cheese.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? I like to cook.”
“I know you do.” I smile across the kitchen at my baby brother. “You can start by making me an omelet.”
11
I tear into the eggs like I haven’t eaten in days, gobbling half of them down before Chet has cracked his own into a bowl. The omelet is delicious, light and fluffy and perfectly salted, without even the tiniest touch of browning. And just like I knew it would be, it’s heavy on the cheese.
“You know, this chef thing isn’t such a bad idea,” I say, working off another bite with the side of my fork. Hot goo gushes out of the center, an avalanche of cheese and tomato and translucent onion. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”
Chet shrugs. “TV. YouTube. It’s not that hard.”
The toaster pops, shooting up two slices of bread, and he cuts them into perfect triangles while rattling off his repertoire. Eggs and hash browns wrapped in bacon, anything that can be fried in a pan or grilled, fat cheese dogs smothered in chili. Behind him, onions sizzle in the pan.
I am digging out some organic jam from the top refrigerator shelf when the mudroom door opens, and Micah’s voice calls out, “Hey, Charlotte.”
“In the kitchen.”
A few seconds later he appears in the doorway in his socks, a thermos dangling from a finger. “Why does it smell so good in here? Hey, Chet. How’s it hanging?”
Chet eyes him from across the island. “Sheriff.”
Micah gives him a good-natured smile. “Better not let Chief Hunt hear you say that. He likes being the only sheriff in town. And you know neither of us are sheriffs, right? I’m not even officially a cop.”
Chet knows all this, of course, but he also knows that Micah’s father is scary as hell, and that at the first sign of trouble, he and his deputies will roll through the trailer parks on the other side of the mountain and whoop their sirens at anybody who happens to be sitting outside. He knows they’ll search the trunk of an old hooptie but let a BMW fly by without so much as a warning. He’s grown up fearing men like Chief Hunt with their guns and billy clubs and handcuffs chinking from their uniform belts. Micah may not be a cop, but he’s still connected to law enforcement, and not only because he’s the police chief’s son. He worked in search and rescue for years until founding his underwater criminal investigations training and consulting company, Lake Hunters.
Chet turns back to the stove with a shrug. “If you say so.”
Micah lets it go, lifting the thermos into the air. “Can I bother you for a refill?”
“Of course.” I motion him over, abandoning the rest of my breakfast. “You look like you’ve warmed up some.”
He’s no longer corpse-white but pink from the chill, his lips no longer a vibrating blue. If he was smart, he used one of the towels I laid out downstairs to soak up some of the lake water.
“The coffee helped some. Thanks.” He hands me the thermos and I settle it in the sink, rinsing it out along with the dripper cone. “Sam just called with a lead on the woman. She was staying at one of the B and Bs in town.”
“Oh. That’s good news, right?”
“Mostly, it is. It’s good news that they know her name and where she’s from, which means they can contact her next of kin. But word’s gonna get out soon, if it hasn’t already. Sam’s trying to get out in front of it. It’s better for everybody if her family doesn’t hear about it from the news.”
He’ll have to hurry. It doesn’t take much to ignite talk in this town, and a tourist found floating in the lake will be a fast flame. As soon as the cops show up at that B and B, as soon as they start slinging around the crime tape and interviewing witnesses, conjecture will spread through these hills like a late-summer forest fire. I give it until the end of the day before people start showing up here.
I look up, and Micah is watching me. “‘No comment.’ Dad asked me to impress upon you that those are the only two words he would like to hear coming out of your mouth—except he didn’t say it that nice and he didn’t ask. He wants you to say it to friends, to family, to whoever comes knocking on your door wanting to know what you saw down there at the lake. If somebody won’t take no for an answer, maybe don’t send them to Dad. Send them to Sam instead. Let him deal with them.”
I nod, settling the dripper on the thermos rim. “Sounds easy enough.”
“Don’t be so sure. Reporters are a persistent bunch, and they will go to all kinds of crazy lengths to make you think they’re not one. They’ll pretend to be a friend or a prospective client. They’ll ambush you in parking lots and at the grocery store. They will follow you around town like your shadow if they think they’re gonna get the first word out of you. Dad says his team is going to be strategic in which details of this investigation they release to the public, and he doesn’t want things getting out there he’s not ready to talk about, okay?”
“Okay, okay, I get it. ‘No comment’ to anyone and everyone.”
He nods, satisfied. “Where’s Paul?”
“He had a work thing. He left about an hour ago.
” I reach for the electric grinder, pry open the plastic top. I can’t quite make myself look Micah in the eye.
“How?”
I frown, my fingers freezing on the cord. “How what?”
“How did he get to his work thing?” Micah clarifies. “I thought his car was in the shop.”
Shit. It’s a point Paul and I didn’t think through, how we’d explain his transportation. I can’t say he went bobbing up the driveway with a thirty-pound backpack on his shoulders. Micah knows Paul too well, and he’ll know if there’s something I’m not telling him.
Out on that hill, Paul and I made a decision, a silent pact. Our lie tipped over that first domino, setting off an avalanche that now there’s no stopping. The only way forward is to spout off another one, cloak it in an occasional truth to serve as a decoy, pile on the details to build a believable story. My pulse flickers under my skin, turning it hot and sticky—or maybe that’s the heat of Micah’s stare.
I clear my throat. “He didn’t say. I just assumed somebody was picking him up. There’s a replacement car waiting for him at the office.”
I busy myself with the coffee while Chet finishes up his omelet, sliding it onto a plate he carries in a wide arc around Micah, now tapping away at his cell phone screen. He presses the phone to his ear and I know who he’s calling. I also know there’s no way in hell Paul is going to pick up. Not after he made me swear not to tell Micah where he was going. Better to ignore the call and make up some excuse when he gets back.
Micah hangs up without leaving a voice mail, and I feel him in the room, taking up space, sucking up all the air. This is a man who knows how to dig up the truth, and from dangerous and watery depths. If he thought I was keeping something from him, he would poke poke poke at me until he cracked me like one of Chet’s eggs. That’s why he’s so good at finding things people want to stay hidden, he’s relentless, and why I clamp down on my expression.
Stranger in the Lake Page 8