The Secrets of Lake Road: A Novel

by Karen Katchur

  “What brings you by, Sheriff?” she asked. There was an edge to her voice Caroline heard her use only around people she didn’t care for.

  He removed his hat and turned it around in his hands as he spoke. “There’s been some trouble down at the lake, and I was hoping you could tell me what you know about it.”

  Caroline stood still.

  “Did you find that little girl, yet?” Gram asked.

  “No, I’m afraid we haven’t. Not yet,” he said. “But that’s sort of why I’m here. I got a complaint from some of the fishermen that a couple of kids messed with their traps.”

  Before Gram could answer, Caroline’s mother walked into the kitchen. Her face drained of color, and the hollows in her cheeks looked deeper and darker than usual. If Caroline didn’t know any better, she would think her mother was the guilty one.

  I did it, Caroline thought. Not you. She didn’t want to get into trouble, but why was everything always about her mother?

  Her mother opened her mouth to say something to the sheriff at the same time Gram clutched her chest and leaned against the sink.

  “Gram.” Caroline reached for her.

  Her mother rushed to Gram’s side. “What is it?” she asked. “Your heart? Is it your heart?”

  Gram kept her hand on her chest and slumped to the floor. Caroline’s mother sunk to the floor with her. “Just hold on,” her mother said, and looked at the sheriff. “Call an ambulance.”

  The sheriff shot out the door to radio it in.

  Caroline knelt on the floor at Gram’s side. “Gram, are you okay? Talk to me.” She touched her shoulder. “Please, tell me you’re okay.”

  Gram didn’t speak. She pinched her eyes closed and kept her hand splayed over her heart.

  “Don’t crowd her,” her mother said. “Give her air.”

  Caroline did as she was told and sat back on her heels, thinking she did this to Gram. She gave her a heart attack. “Please be okay,” she begged.

  Gram opened her mouth, trying to talk.

  “Shhh,” her mother said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The sheriff returned and announced the ambulance was on its way.

  “You did this,” her mother said to him, and glanced at Caroline as though she read her mind, letting her know she wasn’t to blame.

  The sheriff stood perfectly still, his face void of emotion. And Caroline hated him for not showing his concern for Gram, the one person Caroline loved more than anyone.

  “Why can’t you leave us alone?” her mother asked him, and turned back to Gram. “Hang on,” she said. “Help is on the way. Hang on.” Her eyes were teary.

  Caroline’s own tears dripped from her chin. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry, and the sight of her tears and Gram on the kitchen floor terrified her.

  * * *

  Caroline heard the sirens long before the ambulance arrived. The sheriff had gone outside to greet them. Two men in uniforms entered the kitchen with a stretcher. The EMT examined Gram, listened to her heart, took her pulse, and asked her basic questions: her name, age, where she was born. He strapped a breathing device around her mouth and nose. “Oxygen,” he said.

  Caroline had been standing to the side, watching, shaking, wiping her eyes. The two men put Gram on the stretcher and lifted her.

  “I’ll be right back.” Her mother rushed to Gram’s bedroom to grab her purse and insurance card. While her mother was out of the room, Gram reached for Caroline’s hand.

  Caroline leaned in close and kissed Gram’s cheek, her skin was thin and dry. “I love you,” she whispered. “Please don’t die.”

  “Stand back,” one of the men instructed.

  As she stepped away to let them carry Gram out, she saw a familiar twinkle in Gram’s eye. The next thing she knew, Gram winked at her. Caroline looked around to see if anyone had seen what she had seen, if anyone had been paying attention. But the sheriff had left to get the door, and the two men carrying the stretcher were busy watching where they were walking.

  Her mother rushed back into the kitchen with Gram’s information.

  “I’m ready. Let’s go,” her mother said.

  As the shock wore off, Caroline realized Gram was faking it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  For the first time in Patricia’s life, she lied.

  She had told Jo and anyone who asked about her husband, Kyle, that he was a workaholic, that it was the reason he had left her alone at the lake even though Sara hadn’t been found. It sounded cruel and it was, but the real reason wasn’t anywhere close to being kind. For Patricia the real reason was much, much worse.

  “Where are you?” Kyle asked on Patricia’s first day there, hours before she had taken Sara to the beach, to the lake, hours before Sara had gone missing. Patricia had been unpacking the groceries in the Sparrow when the cabin’s old rotary phone rang.

  “You leave me this number, but don’t tell me where you’re going. What am I supposed to think?” he said.

  “You’re supposed to think I left you.” She had planned the trip to the lake months ago, packing small items at a time, things they would need there but not at home: extra towels, old linens, books, and art supplies. Nothing Kyle would miss.

  “Did you call a lawyer?” There was a hint of panic in his voice.

  “No,” she said, her own voice cool and even.

  “Good,” he said. “Good. We can handle it ourselves. There’s no need to get a third party involved. I know all those bloodsucking lawyers anyway.”

  You know them because you’re one of them, she thought but didn’t say.

  He continued without pause. “They will try to drag this out and squeeze all the money they can out of us. They’ll bleed us dry, I tell you.”

  “Of course.” He didn’t care she left him. No, this phone call was about making sure one of his colleagues didn’t get a dime of his money. If it wasn’t so pitiful, she might’ve laughed.

  “Okay, then we’re in agreement? No lawyers?” He was in a rush. He must’ve had another call coming in or a meeting or a rendezvous.

  “I guess.” She didn’t care one way or the other. For her it was never about the money. “Would you like to talk with your daughter?” Please say yes, please show her you care even if you no longer care for me. It was the only reason she had left him the phone number in the first place.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “It will only take a second. She misses you.”

  “I have to go. No lawyers, Patricia. Do you hear me? I mean it.” He hung up.

  Sara trotted into the kitchen. “Was that Daddy?”

  “Yes,” she said, and kissed the top of Sara’s head. “He wanted me to tell you how much he misses you and how sorry he is he couldn’t talk to you. And”—she touched the tip of Sara’s nose with her finger—“he wants you to have a whole lot of fun while you’re here. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Yes,” Sara said. “Did you tell him I miss him, too?”

  Patricia nodded and watched her daughter skip back into the family room. She could’ve forgiven Kyle for the affair. Maybe. Eventually. But she could never forgive him for being a lousy father.

  It was hard to believe that had been five days ago, five days that her daughter was missing. She had thought by returning to the lake, the one place from her childhood she had loved, she could escape her troubles back home—six hours west across the state of Pennsylvania in a small rural town where the gossip about her marriage, her once private life, was sure to have spread. She had thought by returning to the lake, she could finally be happy.

  * * *

  Patricia was sitting on the hood of a car with her feet propped on the front bumper in the parking lot outside of the Pavilion. She couldn’t say whose car it was or what the make or model could be, but whoever owned it had parked it lakefront, close to the water’s edge. It was where she had to be. And what difference did it make whose car it was anyway? What could they do
to her that hadn’t already been done?

  Stars filled the night sky, the threat of another storm having evaporated hours ago. Music poured from the Pavilion’s jukebox, glasses clinked, people talked and laughed. The lake spread out before her like an endless, bottomless, black pit.

  She pulled Sara’s cloth doll from the pocket of her jeans and hugged it close to her chest. Sara had slept with the doll, Dolly, since she was born. It was old and torn, and some of the stuffing had fallen out, but it was well loved. She could smell her daughter on the cotton fabric, the way she smelled from sleep, a mixture of sweetness and innocence.

  Men’s voices echoed across the lake and drew her attention. She gazed at the lone watercraft and what she believed was a fisherman. She dried her wet eyes with the doll the way Sara used to when she cried.

  Dolly had dried a lot of Sara’s tears that came with scraped knees and bumped elbows. She was always getting hurt. She was a fearless child. She had demanded riding her bike without training wheels at five years old. And just three weeks ago, in what felt like another lifetime, she had become fascinated with the neighbor’s skateboard. “Look at me, Mommy,” she had called, racing down the hill before Patricia could stop her. She had been going much too fast, barreling toward the neighbor’s garbage cans.

  “Watch out!” Patricia had shouted, and ran down the hill after her. Sara had crashed into the cans before she could reach her. She had scooped her up, inspecting her birdlike arms and skinny legs.

  “I’m okay, Mommy,” Sara had said, and swiped away her tears. “I want to try again.”

  The memory brought a smile to Patricia’s lips. She imagined it was that same sense of adventure that had led Sara into the water. Maybe it was all the talk about the horse and the lake legend that had sparked Sara’s curiosity. Sara loved horses, especially ponies. But Patricia would never know what led her daughter into the lake alone, and she blamed herself.

  * * *

  A light was turned on in one of the lakefront cabins across the way. She hadn’t realized she had been staring, and started counting the cabins closest to the docks. Sure enough, the seventh cabin was Hawkes’, the one with the lighted rooms.

  On their first day here, she had every intention of knocking on the Hawkes’ door, the peach pie she never got around to baking in hand, and introducing Sara to a real family, a loving family. She had never forgotten Billy, of course, but she also had never forgotten his older sister, Dee Dee, who had babysat Patricia every summer when she had been a child. Patricia’s parents had spent most of their nights at the Pavilion bar or the Lake House, dining, drinking, dancing. But to the Hawke family, the lake was home, not some place to whoop it up every night. And Patricia loved this about them. She had felt safest in their care.

  She wished she had stayed in touch with them through the years. She was only ten years old when she last saw them. Her parents had come home fighting after a late night of drinking. Dee Dee had been babysitting. Her father had stormed into the Hawkes’ cabin just before dawn.

  “We’re leaving,” he had said, and grabbed Patricia’s small overnight bag. Her mother had scooped her into her arms. She had stared over her mother’s shoulder at Dee Dee standing in the middle of the family room, the money Patricia’s father had tossed fluttering to the floor at Dee Dee’s feet.

  They had driven home that morning never to return. Patricia had never gotten to say good-bye.

  Things with her parents had gone from bad to worse when her father had lost his job. It had been the last family vacation for the Dugans.

  * * *

  Tonight, sitting on the hood of some stranger’s car staring at Hawkes’ cabin, her daughter still out there somewhere, she wondered how her plans could’ve gone so terribly wrong.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jo pulled the old Chevy into one of the two spots in the far corner of the yard reserved for parking. She cut the engine. They had been at the hospital for the better part of the day. The sun had set hours earlier. The rush of adrenalin she had felt speeding behind the ambulance, the fear for Gram’s health, had all but faded. She was tired, but more than that, she was relieved.

  Gram remained quiet the entire ride home. Caroline was silent in the backseat.

  Kevin was sitting on the steps under the porch light waiting for their return. Jo had called from the hospital to tell him where they were, what had happened. He held a guitar in his lap, but he wasn’t playing. The sight of him sitting there with a guitar aggravated her. A part of her blamed that damned guitar for all her troubles no matter how crazy it sounded.

  He rushed to the passenger side door to help Gram out of the car. He wrapped his arm around Gram’s waist. “You gave me quite a scare,” he said.

  “I’m fine, really,” Gram assured him, and yet she let him help her. She was practically swooning with the attention.

  He had always known how to suck up to her parents. Even Pop had thought Kevin was Jo’s savior, swooping in, marrying her when she had gotten pregnant, protecting her reputation, or rather, wasn’t it the family’s reputation Pop had been concerned about? She didn’t know nor did she care. Kevin had the same effect on Gram, making a huge deal about Gram’s cooking, jumping in to help with chores whenever he was around. He played the part of son-in-law so well, even Jo bought into it.

  “So what did the doctor say?” he asked Gram once he had her seated at the kitchen table with a sandwich and glass of milk.

  “They couldn’t find anything wrong,” Jo said, answering for Gram.

  “You don’t sound too happy about that,” Gram said, but before Jo could respond, Gram continued. “The doctor thought it might’ve been a panic attack.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” Kevin said.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Jo crossed her arms. She suspected Gram had pulled one over on them, but most of all on Sheriff Borg. Maybe Gram had thought she was protecting Caroline by drawing attention to herself and away from her granddaughter. Jo had to admit, it seemed to have worked. Caroline remained suspiciously quiet. She looked over at her daughter. She was wearing a baseball cap, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The front of her baseball shirt was stained with dirt.

  “I’m just glad you’re okay,” Caroline said, and kissed Gram’s cheek before rushing into her bedroom.

  Kevin picked up the guitar he had brought inside with him.

  “Where did you get that?” Jo asked.

  “I found it in the back of the closet when I was cleaning,” Gram said. “It has to be his. No one else plays. Why don’t you play something for us?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a bit out of tune,” he said.

  Jo bit her bottom lip. Kevin and his damned guitar had wooed her, charmed Gram, and enticed women in general every single time. Sure, he was handsome, strong, and lean, but put a guitar in his hands, and he became so much more. What was it about a music man? Whenever he played the thing, his passion, his voice, moved her in ways she didn’t want to think about. Hell, she wanted to throw her bra at him before he even plucked the first chord. Then again, she wasn’t wearing one.

  “I’m going to shower,” she said.

  * * *

  Her mouth tasted funny, and the scent of antiseptic, a hospital smell, lingered on her skin. She tied her hair up and let the cool water wash away the muck of the day. In the kitchen Kevin played a couple of chords. She closed her eyes. He may have been able to bait her with his music, but she had to admit, she had been the one who seduced him.

  She had lured him to the private beach on the other side of the lake and removed her bikini. She stood before him naked and exposed, only sixteen years old, wanting to explore this power she possessed but didn’t quite understand. She had wanted him to see her, all her soft spots and sharp edges as only he could see her, this sensitive boy who she suddenly desired.

  He had seemed frightened at first, unable to move, but drinking her in at the same time, almost drowning in the sight of her. How she had toyed with him, us
ing her body, her sex, moving in close, so close she could feel his breath on her lips.

  When she touched his chest, he gasped, his skin quivering beneath her fingertips. His whole body trembled when she pressed up against him. It was as though he was afraid to touch her for fear she’d disappear. When he finally did reach for her, his hunger was like nothing she had ever experienced, his appetite for every inch of her, insatiable.

  When it was over and he lay next to her in the sand, weak and out of breath, he had wept. She felt beautiful and powerful embracing her sexuality like never before, a woman desired like no other. In the days that followed, they had become addicted to the sex, to each other, and neither could stop if they had wanted.

  She became the fool between two lovers like in the old song from the seventies the jukebox played. She should’ve known nothing good could come from a craving so strong.

  * * *

  She punched off the water in the shower. A woman’s voice came from the kitchen, asking about the ambulance and whether Gram was okay. It wasn’t surprising. Half the colony came out to gawk and gossip. It was typical, and Gram could more than handle herself with a few nosy neighbors.

  Jo thought about Sara and Patricia, Pattie, and her own bit of news. She’d have to tell Kevin what she had learned, but she wanted to talk to Heil first, to get the men back on the lake and searching.

  She slipped into clean clothes and sneaked out the back porch, making sure the door didn’t slam behind her.

  * * *

  Jo’s hands were clammy by the time she had reached the Pavilion. The place was lit up, the jukebox blared, the sound of laughter rang through the air. She marched up the steps, grateful they were empty. On any given night, Johnny and his gang might have been hanging out drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and doing whatever else she didn’t let herself think about.

  Inside, the pool tables were crowded with kids. The Needlemeyer twins looked her way as she strode past. The snack stand was open. On the second-floor bar she heard the scraping of barstools and felt the vibrations of pounding, dancing feet.