Diamond Lake Series: Complete Series (Bks 1-7) Boxset

by T. K. Chapin

  CHAPTER 4

  Blinking my eyes open hours later, I leaped up from the couch as dread rose in me like floodwaters. Scrambling, I pulled my phone out of my purse beside the couch and saw it was already 6:30 AM. I had fifteen missed calls from Serenah and a couple of texts asking me if I was okay. She had gone by my house and didn’t see me. Feeling disoriented and with a headache creeping in, I was overwhelmed and flustered. I had thirty minutes to be at work and zero time to go to the Feed the Hungry event. Ugh. She knew I’d fail to show. Glancing over my clothing, I thought, Great, and I’m wearing the same thing! Telling myself I was alive and everything was fine wasn’t working this time, but then I looked over at Hunter still asleep on the couch.

  I smiled.

  He looked so cute as he gripped a couch pillow tightly between his muscular arms. That’d be rude to just leave, I thought to myself. He’d wake up and I’d just be gone. I wouldn’t like that if I were in his position. I’ll wake him to say goodbye. Maybe I’ll get a good night, err . . . morning kiss? Reaching down beside him, I gently tapped his shoulder.

  He didn’t wake.

  With a little more force, I shook his shoulder.

  In a flash, his hand caught my wrist and he twisted it. A glazed and mad look crossed his face, those same crazy eyes I saw the first time I met him. His breaths were quick and short, his muscles tensed and his eyebrows furrowed. My wrist screamed in pain as I couldn’t pull away.

  “Hunter!” I shouted, trying once again to free myself of his grip. “Let go of me! You’re hurting me, Hunter!”

  He snapped out of it. Releasing my wrist, he wiped his face with a hand and his eyes returned to normal. His shoulders sagged and guilt weighted his expression.

  “What was that about?” I asked as I saw red imprints of his fingers on my wrist. It still pulsed in pain. “You hurt me.”

  “You need to go.”

  “That’s why I woke you, Hunter. The movie’s over and—”

  “Leave.” His tone serious and his eyes growing dark, he stared at the door across the living room. My stomach flipped and my eyes glistened. I could not shake the feeling that I had done something wrong.

  “Help me understand. What was—?”

  “Leave, Miley.” His tone was snapped like a frozen branch and chilled me to my core.

  Backing up toward the door a few steps, I shook my head. He felt like a stranger. Turning around, I left, gently closing the door behind me so as not to further agitate him. Was it from the war? I wondered, thinking of my Uncle Jimmy having a similar issue when he came back from fighting in the war. Was he having a nightmare or something? I left with an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Such a wonderful time together ruined by the awkward ending. Glancing back toward the porch as I arrived at my car, I knew I’d see him in a few hours when I brought him lunch. Maybe then he could explain what had just happened.

  Leaving Hunter’s house, I went straight to work. Wendy was setting the till into the cash register as I walked in from the kitchen. She looked over at me for a moment but returned to the routines of opening a moment later. She and I didn’t have a lot in common, but we did both loathe mornings. She and I were like a couple of zombies in the mornings around Dixie’s Diner, getting the place ready to open. Lots of coffee and little to no conversation, if at all possible. Walking around the counter, I went onto the floor and began pulling down chairs off the tops of tables.

  “Miley.” Eric’s voice was concerned and had a shake in it when he called out to me from the kitchen. Turning, I was heading back to talk to him when Wendy stopped me.

  “You can chit-chat on breaks. When you’re getting paid, I’d prefer for you to work.” Wendy looked at me with that same disdain she’s looked at me for as long as I’d known her. Turning around, I went back and continued pulling chairs down. I woke up today. That’s a good thing.

  Eric came out from the kitchen. He walked over and stood between me and the view of Wendy as he lowered his voice. “You know how it’s been an unusually warmer January?”

  I nodded.

  “They found a coat washed up on the shore of Diamond.” Pausing, his eyes found my wrist, my wound. He flashed a worried look. “What happened to your wrist?”

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it. What coat at Diamond Lake?”

  He re-established eye contact with me. “They found it on the west side of the lake. They believe it belonged to Kent something-or-other. They’re going to have dive teams and equipment—”

  “Even though that’s not allowed?”

  Eric frowned. “Yeah. They need to find the body. Think they’ll locate the bell in the process, eh?”

  Shrugging a shoulder, I said, “They could.” I didn’t care about the bell as much as the human life that could have been taken. “Any details to why they think it’s a guy named Kent?” I leaned a hand against a chair that was still flipped upside down and sitting on another atop a table.

  “They found a laminated fishing license in the inside pocket, belonging to Kent. Guess that’s why—”

  Wendy slammed clean coffee cups down onto the counter near the front as she set them out. Eric quieted and returned to the kitchen. It was apparent she was done with allowing the conversation. My mind raced as I thought about the coat washing up on shore. The idea of a dead body being out in the lake made me feel uncomfortable and my stomach a little woozy. A murder? In Newport? He had to have just fallen in.

  Turning on the TV that sat up on a wall mount in the corner of the restaurant, I flipped to the local news. My cravings to know more about the case went unsatisfied as the news drummed on about the weather and other news stories nobody cared about. Then, they finally had an update.

  “Found on the shore twenty minutes ago, this knife was recovered by police.” The news reporter lady faded to black, and a picture of a knife came across the screen. It looked identical to Hunter’s that he had shown me the day before. It’s impossible. I stepped closer to the TV and squinted as I leaned on my tiptoes to see. I just saw the knife. Closing my eyes, I tried to picture his living room from earlier that morning. Was the knife there on the mantle? I wasn’t for sure, and the knife on the newscast wasn’t clear enough to see the inscription.

  Wendy hollered, “If you’re not working, get out of my restaurant.”

  My heart pounded in my ears as I felt my muscles tense at her screeching voice behind me. It took everything inside of me not to walk over and smack her upside the head. People like Wendy helped me realize just how big God’s love was. Jesus dying on a cross for a wretch like her was a love so big I couldn’t fathom it. Leaving the TV, I returned to my duties to help open the restaurant. Thoughts of Hunter killing someone circled my mind as the hours wound down to me taking his lunch to him. He didn’t do it, I thought at one point. No way. I would be able to tell if he was a killer. My wrist pulsed with pain just then. Maybe I don’t know. Part of me didn’t want to go. The other part was curious if the knife was still up on the mantle. I needed to know.

  My mind frazzled, my alert on high, I took Hunter’s lunch, bagged it and headed down the sidewalk to his house. Arriving on his doorstep, I felt stiff, muscles tensed.

  I took a deep breath and let it out. He’s not a killer, Miley. I knocked. My wrist suddenly hurt, forcing me to recall what had happened. It was terrifying. He scared me. When Hunter didn’t come to the door right away, I knocked once more, resolving that if he didn’t answer, I’d leave. The image of the knife from the TV flashed through my mind. It looked so much like Hunter’s. He opened the door, his head dipped, and backed away from the door, letting it swing open, and no crutches.

  Stepping into his house, Hunter returned to the couch and sat down. He didn’t look at me at all. Peering over at the mantle as I walked further in, I saw the knife wasn’t there. My stomach flipped, and my heart began to race. It was his. Closing the gap between me and the couch, I set the sack down on the far end away from him. I turned to leave.

  “Miley?” His
tone was quiet, somber. “I’m really sorry about last night. I just—”

  “It’s fine.” I continued to leave, but he stopped me with his words.

  “No, it’s not.” He stood up from the couch and came up to me. His eyes glistened as his lip trembled. “I have had nightmares since I got back.”

  “From being in the army?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t in the army.” His tone carried a weight of disgust. Then he lifted his chin. “I’m a Marine. I was medically discharged after I got my leg blown off by an IED.” He shook his head. “I’m useless now.” Hearing the words fall from his lips stung. It pricked was like shrapnel, or at least what I imagined it to be, to hear someone who fought for this country to say something like that. He wasn’t useless. He was just hurt and discharged. It softened my heart to hear him speak of himself like that. I wanted to help him, nurture him in some way. Stepping closer, I touched his arm, forgetting for a moment all that was happening and just being there for him right then.

  “You’re not useless, Hunter.” My eyes looked down, trying to change the subject. “Hey! You went and got the prosthetic. Now you can walk. That’s fantastic!”

  He let out a humorless laugh and looked at me. “Really? What good am I if I can’t pick up a gun and protect my country? That’s what I was born to do, Miley. You don’t get that! This leg is fake. It just pretends to be something.”

  “There’s more you can do, Hunter. I’m sure you have passions and goals and—”

  “Yeah, I did. All related to staying in the Marines.” He let out a hopeless sigh and returned to the couch. “I’ll just collect my checks and sit here and rot.” Shaking his head, he looked toward the wall opposite and smirked. “Guess I’ll be like Terrance.”

  “You served this country and risked your life! You lost friends and a leg.” My thoughts jumped to the missing knife. “Speaking of serving, where’s your knife?”

  His eyes peered over to the mantle. Perplexed, he shook his head and looked at me. “What? I don’t know.” He sounded surprised.

  “You didn’t do anything with it?” I asked, tracing his face to see if he was guilty of any wrongdoing.

  He looked genuinely confused as he stood up and hurried over to the mantle. “No! Where is it?” His tone sharpened as he rummaged through the knickknacks and moved pictures around, searching behind the rest of the stuff on the mantle.

  “I don’t know.” Raising my hands, I said, “I didn’t touch it, Hunter.”

  He glared out the window opposite the couch, in the direction of his neighbor, Terrance. “I left this morning to pick up my prescriptions. Someone has to have taken it. I caught him on the porch when I got home. Claimed he was looking for a pair of work gloves he felt he loaned me.”

  “You think he broke in?” I asked, walking closer to him. We both knew who I was talking about as we looked out the window.

  “He wouldn’t have to break in. I left the door unlocked since I only had to walk a block away.” Hunter let out a sigh and smoothed a hand through his hair.

  “They found a knife that looked like yours on the shore of Diamond Lake.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “You didn’t see the news? A coat washed up on shore. That knife wasn’t far from it.”

  His jaw clenched. “Certainly can’t be my knife, since I didn’t go to Diamond Lake.” His eyes traced the floor as he appeared to get lost in thought for a moment. His gaze came across my wrist a moment later, and his expression softened. Gently, he stepped closer and lifted my hand, wincing in pain as he inspected the bruise coming in on my wrist. I could sense the pain he felt as his eyes glistened. His thoughts didn’t go back to the knife. They stayed focused on me, on my injured wrist. He cared I was hurt. Looking up at me from my wrist, he said, “I can’t believe I did this, Miley.”

  Pulling my hand away from him softly, I shook my head and laughed, trying to loosen the awkwardness of the moment. “It was my own fault for shaking a war vet’s shoulder.”

  “No. Stop downplaying what happened. I get it.” He looked away. “The PTSD is why Holly left.” He took off through the living room and went into the kitchen, leaving me with a head full of questions. Following behind him, I met him at the kitchen sink as he rinsed out a coffee mug.

  “Who’s Holly?” I asked, placing a hand on his back.

  Setting the mug down on the counter, he peered over at me, his jaw tight. His eyes traced my face, trying to read me—for what, I didn’t know. I could only speculate he was attempting to see if he could reveal the ‘Holly’ part of his life to me. “We were set to marry when I got back stateside after my first tour.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “You don’t see her here, do you?” Hunter side-stepped me and the conversation, leaving back into the living room. As I caught up to him, he stopped before he sat down. “You should probably get back to work. Right?”

  “Hunter. You can talk to me. You obviously brought up Holly for a reason.”

  “I hurt her.” He shook his head, and his jaw clenched. “Is that what you want to hear? I can’t control it.”

  “Why don’t you get help?” I asked.

  “Who’s going to help me?” He laughed lightly and dropped into the couch. Glancing up at me, he continued. “Some head doctor, whose biggest injury in the last decade was a paper cut? They don’t get it. Nobody gets it.” His eyes fell on his prosthetic leg. It was becoming clear to me that Hunter was stuck in a place that he didn’t know how to get freedom from.

  “You’re right. I’d better get back to work.” I turned to leave.

  “See you Thursday.” He picked up the remote from the coffee table as I walked out and shut the door behind me without a word.

  Hunter was attractive, sweet and could someday be someone I would want in a relationship, but as of right now, he was in no condition. If I only learned one thing over the years of being single, it was the fact that no matter how much you like or love a man, you can’t change him. Ever. Only God can truly change a person. Hunter would be going on my prayer list, but no longer on my short-list of eligible men I could date.

  CHAPTER 5

  Clearing plates from a table the next day at the diner, the local news came on with a development in what they were now calling The Diamond Lake Killer Case. Our little town of Newport didn’t have very many opportunities for real news, so when they did have a story that was worthy, they’d juice it up with words that would captivate their listeners. Killer was a bit of a reach since they still hadn’t recovered a body.

  With the three plates in hand, I peered up at the TV as I walked by. My eyes widened seeing Hunter be led out of his house to a police car. Head dipped, eyes furrowed, they helped him into the back of the cop car. Raising a hand to my mouth, my eyes instantly welled with tears.

  “A suspect has been identified and brought in for questioning today. He is the owner of the knife that police found near the coat that washed up on shore at Fisher’s Point on the west side of Diamond Lake. There was blood found on the knife. Whose blood has not been identified yet, but police are still investigating.” The news began running an old interview clip of Brody, the current Sheriff of Pend Oreille County and I turned away as I tried to process the turn of events. My gut kept telling me there was no way he had done anything. My wrist pulsed with a surge of pain, like my body was trying to tell me something, but I ignored it. He isn’t a killer.

  “That’s Hunter, isn’t it?” Wendy asked as I continued through the restaurant, heading to the kitchen to drop off the dishes. I ignored her. My thoughts and emotions were too scattered about to deal with her, but she followed me through the swinging doors. She pressed again, causing me to throw the stack of plates into the sink. I whipped around to her.

  “Yes. It’s him. Why do you keep asking?” I side-stepped her to get back out to the floor, and she grabbed my arm and stopped me.

  “You better watch yourself . . .” She warned.

  Her grip was firm,
along with her tone. Glaring into her eyes, I pushed her off me. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You’re fired.” Her chin shot up as a sinister grin came across her face. My heart began pounding as anxious thoughts pelted against my mind. My bills, my food, my life. I’d have no way to take care of myself, but then the worry vanished like a vapor in the moment.

  “Whatever.” Undoing my apron, I tossed it onto the counter and walked out the back door. She was quick to follow me once again, catching the door as I walked the gravel to my car.

  “Don’t you dare try to come back here, Miley!” Her tone serious, but agitated. “I run this diner, and that won’t change.”

  Getting into my car, I could hear the back door of Dixie’s close. A touch of fear settled into me. Tears poured down my cheeks as I felt the flood waters of hopelessness rise within me. How could I throw my job away? I knew Serenah had a stake of ownership, but would it be enough to get rid of Wendy? I wasn’t sure, but I had to try. My livelihood depended on it.

  Pricks against my heart pulled my thoughts to Hunter on the drive out to see Serenah. I didn’t know what to believe, but from my initial feelings toward Hunter, I didn’t want to believe he had done what they’re saying he had. The blood on the knife worried me though . . . there is no way this Kent guy could’ve fallen in like I initially thought and hoped.

  When I arrived at the Inn at the Lake, I found Serenah outside, shoveling the driveway. Parking, I got out. Seeing her drop her shovel and scurry across the driveway, I knew she must have seen the news. My stomach flipped as she suggested we go inside for a cup of coffee and a chat.