The Secrets of Lake Road: A Novel

by Karen Katchur

  Her mother crossed her arms. Gram poured a glass of lake water from the jug in the refrigerator. Her hands shook when she raised the cup to her lips.

  “What’s going on?” Caroline asked, startling both women. It was as though they hadn’t seen her sitting there.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Gram said, and shot Jo a look.

  “Is it about Sara? Did they find her?” Caroline had spent the day with Megan, sitting on the public docks and watching underwater recovery, waiting. Initially, she had gone to the Pavilion but the sign tacked to the doors read CLOSED.

  Gram sat next to her and patted her arm. “Not yet, but they’ll find her soon.”

  Johnny waltzed into the kitchen, the screen door banging behind him. He smelled of cigarette smoke and something else, something funky Caroline associated with a boy smell, wet and doglike. Gram must’ve smelled it too, and she crinkled her nose at him.

  “I’m going to change,” Gram said, and stood, leaving them in the kitchen.

  “You need a shower,” her mother said to Johnny.

  He smelled underneath his arm and shrugged but headed to the bathroom anyway. He pushed the back of Caroline’s head as he passed by, making her spill milk down the front of her T-shirt.

  “Jerk,” she said, grabbing a napkin and catching the milk on her chin.

  “Would you two knock it off?” her mother said.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Caroline hated the whininess in her tone. “He started it.”

  “Baby,” Johnny called.

  “Am not!” she yelled back at him.

  “Enough, Caroline.”

  “Why don’t you ever yell at him? Why is it always my fault?”

  Her mother sighed and covered her face. “It’s not always your fault, okay? And you’re right.” She dropped her hands and smiled. “Your brother can be a real jerk sometimes.” She brushed the hair from Caroline’s face.

  Caroline’s chest opened as she looked up at her. Her mother was so beautiful when she smiled. She wanted to tell her, but she was too afraid she would take it the wrong way. Everything she said, good or bad, her mother misunderstood.

  “What?” her mother asked, and furrowed her brow. “You’re looking at me funny.”

  Caroline opened her mouth to talk, not knowing what words would come out. There was so much she wanted to say now that she had her mother’s attention. She was scared and feeling so alone. “I should’ve watched her,” she said about Sara. “She was on the pier, and I knew her mother wasn’t paying attention.” She looked down at her hands and waited for her mother’s reaction.

  Without saying anything, her mother sat next to her and wrapped her arms around her. It was a rare embrace, and Caroline clung to her, elated to gain her mother’s affection even though the reason for it made her feel terrible. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  Her mother pulled back and took Caroline’s face in her hands. “She wasn’t your responsibility.”

  She nodded. “I know,” she said, but still, it felt that way.

  Gram walked into the kitchen, now wearing polyester pants and matching cotton shirt. She yanked open the refrigerator door, not realizing she had interrupted a rare mother-daughter moment. “Who wants dinner?” she asked.

  “I have an errand,” her mother said, and stood. She touched Caroline’s shoulder, pausing to give it a squeeze before she fled for the door.

  * * *

  Caroline lay on her bed and listened. The cabin was quiet except for the murmur of the small TV coming from Gram’s bedroom. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but it was too early for bed. And it was too late to be out with friends. It was the time in-between when she was either too old for certain things or too young for others, a time when there was nothing for a girl her age to do. She wondered what was happening down at the lake, if people had gathered or if everyone had stayed home. Where was her mother?

  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?”

  The other end was silent.

  “Hello? Rose?” She shook her phone. “Can you hear me? Rose?”

  The line was dead.

  It wasn’t as though she liked cleaning houses—hers or other peoples’. Far from it. It was mindless, unrewarding, and more often than not, disgusting. But it was a job, and no one could fault her for that, not even Gram. She looked at her phone. She held it in front of her and continued walking, searching once again for a signal.

  She wound her way around the dock, passing the fishing boats tied and tucked for the night. She was coming up on Hawkes’ cabin, Billy’s cabin, spelled after his last name rather than the bird, but it played into the theme of the other cabins just the same.

  The closer she got to his place, the stronger the feeling in her gut told her to turn around. She shouldn’t be seen near his home. It was a stupid risk. But she was always drawn to do the very thing she shouldn’t, powerless to stop herself. Besides, the cabin was dark, and it appeared as though no one were home. Otherwise, she would’ve kept moving. But she allowed herself to linger and gaze at the place she had once known so well. It had been years since she had seen it. Even in the shadows, it looked taken care of, recently sided, a sign the Hawkes lived here year-round.

  She took a small step forward.

  There were countless times when she had scrambled up these same steps, banged on the screen door, called for Billy. He was always there waiting, grinning in that crazy silly way he had. A part of her wanted to believe if she bounded up the steps right now and knocked on the door he would be there, and she could fall into his arms as though nothing bad had come between them. She liked to think it could happen, but of course she knew it could not.

  The porch swing creaked, pulling her from her thoughts. Its chains rattled. She jumped at the sight of Billy’s older sister.

  “Jo? Is that you?” Dee Dee walked toward her. There was something off about the way she moved, a kind of clumsiness in her stride.

  Jo instinctively backed up. “I—I didn’t know anyone was home.” She diverted her eyes from Dee Dee’s face. It hurt too much to look at her straight on. The resemblance to Billy, what he might’ve looked like had he aged, was too much to bear. She stuffed the phone into the back pocket of her jeans, looking for a way out. She never should’ve stopped here. Why didn’t she turn around? Why was Dee Dee sitting on the porch in the dark anyway?

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you around here.” Dee Dee was wearing cut-off jean shorts, a black T-shirt with a JACK DANIELS decal stamped across the front.

  “I’m helping.” Jo’s words got mixed up. “For a few days. Cleaning out closets.” Although Gram hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “I should get back,” she said, taking another step away.

  “What’s your hurry? You don’t have a few minutes to talk to an old friend?”

  Jo almost laughed at the idea that they were ever friends. For as long as she had known Dee Dee, they never had been. When she was young and had first started dating Billy, she hadn’t understood why his sister hadn’t liked her. But she knew the reason now, knew why Dee Dee had treated her with so much disdain.

  “I really should get back,” Jo said, taking another couple steps backward before turning away.

  “Chris said he tried to find that little girl.” Chris’s father had taken off before Chris had been born, leaving Dee Dee to raise him on her own. The fact that Kevin had stayed when Jo was pregnant around the same time had always left Dee Dee a little bitter. “And Johnny tried to find her too,” Dee Dee added.

  Jo stopped at the mention of Johnny’s name. Leave Johnny out of this, she heard herself say in a whispering voice. By the time she turned around, Dee Dee had caught up to her.

  “What did you say?” Dee Dee asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, trying to sound calm. The last thing she wanted was to provoke her. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Dee Dee grabbed Jo’s bicep with her large hand and squeezed. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  “Hear what?” She tried pulling her arm free, but Dee Dee held on tightly.

  “Shhh,” Dee Dee said.

  There was no telling what Dee Dee heard, but Jo listened anyway, believing it had to be something because Dee Dee always had these crazy animallike senses. She’d turn up wherever Jo and Billy were, appearing suddenly whenever they were fooling around no matter how quiet they whispered into each other’s ears, tugged at each other’s clothes, moaned into each other’s shoulders. It was as though she could not only hear
their bodies coming together, but also smell their pheromones.

  And one time when they were lying on the dock, Billy’s face buried in her chest, she spied Dee Dee watching them from the doorway of Hawkes’ cabin, the little girl she babysat every summer clinging to Dee Dee’s leg. She had glared at Dee Dee over the top of Billy’s head. In a way she had been challenging her, daring her to try and come between them.

  But all Jo heard tonight was the buzz of crickets, the water lapping against the bank near their feet.

  “The water. The lake. It flows through our veins, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Dee Dee said. “We can’t stop it. It’s like venom.”

  “You’re not making any sense.” Jo tried again to pull her arm free, but there was no way she could out-muscle her. Dee Dee was tall and strong and angry.

  Dee Dee moved in close. Her breath reeked of beer. “It runs through our veins. Our family. Our kids. It gets inside you, and it’s so goddamn beautiful, you can’t help but drink it up.”

  “Yes,” Jo said, wanting to sound agreeable if only Dee Dee would let her go. “It can be irresistible.”

  “It was for my brother. I wish he would’ve stayed the hell away from you.”

  Dee Dee was no longer talking about the lake; rather, she was referring to Jo, blaming her for what had happened to him.

  “Did you hear they found his bones?” Dee Dee continued, squeezing Jo’s bicep.

  “So it’s true? They’re Billy’s?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course, they are. And I should have a report soon to prove it.”

  “Right,” Jo said, thinking out loud. “The sheriff would’ve had to send them to a lab or something.”

  “That’s right.” Dee Dee moved in closer, her sour breath warm on Jo’s face. “Do you want to tell me what they’ll find now? Or later?”

  “Nothing. How should I know? It was ruled an accident.” Her upper arm was stinging, her lower arm nearly numb.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” Dee Dee said. “And you know it.” She shoved Jo and stumbled. Jo caught her. Somehow their arms and legs entwined. They took an awkward step backward and sideways as though they were stepping to some kind of strange dance. It took all Jo’s strength to keep from falling, or maybe it was Dee Dee’s sturdy body that kept them off the ground. It happened so quickly, Jo couldn’t be sure. But once they found their footing, they couldn’t get away from each other fast enough. They broke apart and stared at each other. A moment of silence stretched between them.