Lonesome Lake

by Lesley Appleton-Jones

  She turned to face him. Her eyes must have gleamed with a ferocity that was startling because he recoiled a little. “I know who did it.”

  “You don’t think it was your sister, do you?” he asked with astonishment.

  “You read about that?”

  He nodded. “Online.”

  She sucked in a noisy breath before blurting, “Dad had nothing to do with that accusation. It was his lawyer’s idea. Dad said the lawyer tried to create reasonable doubt by suggesting Melody freaked out that night and killed Mom. But he just wanted the jury to see there were other possibilities the police hadn’t investigated. Dad told me he wouldn’t have actually let anything happen to Melody.”

  “Who’s the killer, then?” he asked.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Outside the barn, the wind picked up, and the candlelight flickered as the cool October air found cracks in the worn, wooden boards.

  Abbey looked him right in the eye. “Scotty Pepper killed her.”

  Jesse leaned closer, interested. “Who is Scotty Pepper?”

  “He was the last person to see my mom alive. After my dad left the party, Pepper walked her home.”

  Surprised, Jesse asked, “Wasn’t he a prime suspect?”

  She huffed. “You’d think, but the police claim the attack took place half an hour after Pepper returned to the party.”

  “How do they know that?”

  “Because the kitchen clock was knocked off the wall and had stopped working.”

  “And your sister heard nothing?”

  “She claims she had her headphones on.”

  Jesse pulled the blanket tighter around her. “The smashed clock gives Scotty Pepper a good alibi.”

  Abbey shook her head. “He’s a smart guy. He could have easily faked it. What better way is there to throw off an investigation than by providing the police with an exact time? Plus, he was a soldier and is fit. I mean freaky fit. He could have given himself extra time by running back to the party instead of walking, or he could have had a car stashed somewhere.”

  “But if the scene were as bloody as you say, he would have been covered in blood. Had he changed?”

  “They said no, but jeans are jeans. I don’t think the police considered him because he’s a wounded war hero, but I read an article about PTSD. He could have snapped that night and killed my mom. It adds up. Since he’s returned, my mother and now Mrs. Milbourne have been murdered. In a town this size, what are the odds of that happening?”

  Jesse didn’t respond right away, but by the way his brow furrowed, he seemed to be mulling it over. “So, what do you want to do?”

  A thrill shot through her. Someone believed her. “I want to search for evidence over at the Milbournes.”

  “We’re not going to find anything. The cops have been crawling all over that place.”

  “Except they’ve been searching in the daylight. Nighttime is different. Things shine when a flashlight hits them, which is why you hid your bike from the police cruiser’s lights. Plus, it’s close to the time he set the fire. We’ll see everything through his eyes.”

  Jesse frowned. “We’ll be tampering with a crime scene.”

  She shrugged. “They’re all finished, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, I have a feeling we’ll get lucky. The only problem is that cruiser. I can’t be spotted.”

  “That’s not a problem,” he told her. “The police are parked on the street to block anyone going down the drive. There’s a trail leading from here all the way to the back of the Milbourne house. We just have to be careful when we get there not to make any noise. Sound travels at night.”

  “Great!” She jumped up and held out her hand to him. “Let’s get busy.”

  He took her outstretched hand. As he stood, he pulled her to him. “You’re crazy. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Not as crazy as you are for agreeing to come with me!” she said a little breathlessly as she let go of his hand before things got even crazier.

  The moonlight cast enough light on the grass for Abbey to see the trail. Once in the woods, though, the night closed in around them so thick and heavy, even the bike’s headlight seemed dimmer.

  Jesse rode with caution down the trail, swerving now and then to avoid obstacles that suddenly loomed before them. Anxious to get there and find some evidence to free her father, she stared over Jesse’s shoulder. The bike’s beam of light tunneled ahead of them into the blackness, giving her the weird sensation that they were going down a rabbit hole.

  When the first whiffs of acrid, burned wood filled their helmets, Jesse pulled over. “We should walk from here. The cop could hear us even if he’s parked on the street.”

  Retrieving the flashlight he’d stuffed inside his leather jacket, they left their helmets behind and made their way in silence. The closer they got to the house, the stronger the smell of damp ashes grew, pervading the sweet pine-scented forest with an ominous, sulfuric bitterness.

  Reaching the tree line that bordered the Milbourne property, Abbey shivered. Darker than the night sky behind it, the charred, skeletal remains of the cabin gaped open like the ribcage of a burned carcass. The cruiser was not there.

  “It’s so creepy,” she whispered.

  “Do you want to leave?” The moonlight cast an eerie pale glow across his face.

  “No. I have to do this. Not just for my father, but for Mrs. Milbourne, too. She must have been terrified.”

  They spent the next half hour searching the property, staring down at the circle of light cast by the flashlight until their necks ached. They found nothing except the scattered remnants of a life: some stainless steel cutlery and saucepans, a screwdriver and hammer and a two-drawer filing cabinet.

  As they were about to give up, they heard the unmistakable roar of an engine. Headlights flickered through the trees. Jesse snapped off the flashlight and grabbed Abbey’s hand, fully intent on running for cover. But she didn’t budge.

  “We need to get out of here,” he hissed.

  “Suppose its Scotty Pepper returning to check out his handiwork? That would be all the proof I need. You go. I’m staying,” she said and dropped to her knees on the damp grass two feet from the end of the driveway.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” he muttered, sinking down beside her.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The headlights dipped as the vehicle traversed over the uneven ground.

  “Is it a pickup?” Abbey asked, her voice loud with excitement. “Scotty Pepper drives a black Dodge Ram.”

  “I can’t tell,” Jesse whispered. “We need to be quiet. He could have the window open.”

  The vehicle kept coming, heading straight for them. As it neared their position, it slowed and seemed to inch forward.

  Abbey tried to force her body right into the ground, fruitlessly attempting to get lower than the short grass. She held her breath as the lights crept closer and closer.

  Moonlight glinted off the light bar on top of the roof.

  “That’s a cruiser,” Jesse whispered.

  The car stopped less than fifteen feet from them. Abbey’s heart thudded against the soil so hard she wondered if Jesse could feel any tremors.

  The door opened, and a bulky man exited. They couldn’t make out his features because the interior light hadn’t come on when he’d opened the door.

  If he spotted them, they would be in serious trouble.

  When he turned on a flashlight and scanned the ground in front of him, she pressed herself down into the grass, hoping the blades would hide her. The beam flickered closer.

  Time seemed to slow down. She smelled the sweet loaminess of the earth and felt damp, dewy moisture against her cheek. She waited for the inevitable shout of detection. Finally hearing nothing and realizing she couldn’t see the light, she glanced up. The man was walking away from them toward the trees. She watched him stop and stare into the forest. Had he spotted something they’d missed? Or seen someone? The unmistakable unz
ipping of his pants followed by a steady stream of urination told her exactly what he was doing.

  Abbey stifled a bout of hysterical giggles by covering her mouth with her hand. She was prone to fits of laughter at stressful times.

  After what seemed like an hour, the man rezipped, turned and headed back to the cruiser. Again she pressed her head hard on the ground and waited. She heard the door open and close, the engine start, followed by the squeal of tires as the man cranked the steering wheel around to make a U-turn. As he did, the car moved forward in a tight arc, the headlights swinging out over a lawn the color of coal. The bright beams missed them by mere inches before circling back to the driveway.

  Abbey let out a sigh.

  Once the cruiser was out of sight, Jesse jumped to his feet. “We need to go. Now!”

  Abbey didn’t argue. She’d spent long enough at the house to realize the likelihood of finding anything incriminating was absurd. As they hurried back through the wood to the motorcycle, Jesse must have noticed how dejected she felt because he said, “It was a long shot at best.”

  The adrenaline Abbey experienced earlier at the anticipation of finding evidence to exonerate her father had worn off. Drained and disappointed, she mumbled, “I was so convinced that I’d find a weapon, or something.”

  After retrieving the bike from behind a clump of bushes, they got on and rode slowly back the way they’d come. He veered off the trail about half a mile from the Milbournes’ place, heading toward her house. At one point, he had to steer down a steep ditch to cut over to the trail, forcing Abbey’s weight to thrust forward. Her hips slammed against his butt, and the front of her helmet bumped the back of his. Her cheeks burned with mortification. Fortunately, the bike soon lurched up the other side of the ditch and gravity yanked her hips away from him. Desperate to keep a safe, less intimate distance from his body, she gripped the underside of the saddle behind her.

  As they neared the paddock area where she rode Granite, she tapped him on the shoulder. He rolled to a stop and cut the engine. Clouds obscured the moonlight, turning the familiar field and trees into a sinister landscape. She pulled off her helmet and handed it to him. “Po will hear if we ride any closer.”

  “I’ll walk the rest of the way with you.”

  “No. Our dog barks if he hears so much as a leaf rustle. He’s paranoid the squirrels are going to attack us. It’s not far. I ride here every day, so I know where I am.” She hesitated for a moment. “Can you meet me here tomorrow after school, say four o’clock? I made a mistake going to the Milbourne place, but I have a better idea.”

  He removed his helmet. “Sure,” he said in a low voice as he stepped closer to her. Clouds drifted past the moon, and the dim light revealed something serious and determined in the way he looked at her. It not only rooted her in place, it also twisted her stomach into a knot so tight she couldn’t breathe.

  But when he took another step closer, she turned and took off down the path toward the house. Over the soft thud of her footsteps, she heard him chuckle.

  Abbey ran down the trail that flanked the paddock fence as fast as the night sky would permit. She didn’t hear Jesse leave, and wondered if he’d pushed his bike home. Approaching the barn, she was now well within sight of the house and the safety of home when her plans were foiled again by the intrusion of an unwanted vehicle. She knew it was her uncle, and he was driving too fast for her to beat him to the back door.

  Crouching down in the blackness, she waited for him to park and enter the house. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, the security lights encompassing the compound came on, illuminating everything as though it was a Friday night football game. Worse still, Po walked out to meet him with a couple of beers in his hand.

  Retreating in a hurry, she stumbled over a tree stump. Landing with a thud, she froze. The men turned in her direction and scanned the area. She held her breath until they looked away and resumed their conversation. Abbey didn’t hang around. Slowly, she got to her feet and crept toward the trees as quietly as she could.

  Once concealed behind a pine tree, she glanced back. The men were now strolling over to the paddock, very near to where she’d fallen. Swigging beers, they appeared to be discussing something important and not going anywhere fast. So she headed deeper into the woods where she would be safe from their trained eyes and honed instincts.

  The further she walked, the darker it grew. Her shins hit a fallen log, and she tripped over it. Deciding she was far enough away from them, she plopped down on the offending tree limb to wait them out. She could still see the lights from the house through the branches, which was a comfort.

  Less than a minute later, she heard a soft crackling but couldn’t tell from which direction it came. She glanced over her shoulder but could see nothing in the dark. The more she stared into the black void, the more it seemed to close in on her. She shivered and turned back around to the light, telling herself it was only a deer moving through the bushes.

  As Abbey sat there, the temperature seemed to drop and the wait went on forever. Finally, she saw the men start to walk back to the house and disappear around the side of the barn.

  After they switched off the lights a few minutes later, she could see nothing. She shivered and blinked. Eeriness settled about her, weighty and tactile. An owl, disturbed by something, hissed like a snake. She cringed and closed her eyes.

  Anxious to get moving, she knew that she had to give her uncle enough time to get upstairs and into bed. She decided to wait another five minutes and started counting off the first sixty seconds. As she mumbled “thirty,” she heard something moving behind her again. She turned to scan the woods, but the darkness rendered her sight useless. She whispered, “Jesse? Is that you?”

  Silence greeted her. She tilted her head to listen. At first, she heard nothing. Then something rustled through the dead leaves on the ground, something big. And it was close. Maybe two feet away.

  The hair on the back of her neck bristled. Was it an animal? A twig snapped, and she almost screamed. No way was that an animal! It was time to go, but as she leapt up from the log, someone grabbed the hood of her sweatshirt and yanked her backward.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Abbey struggled to keep her body weight moving forward. The hoodie bit deep into her throat, choking her. She knew that if she fell back, gave into the pressure, it would be all over.

  With an agility learned from darting out from under the hooves of her rearing horse, she feinted to the left. The grip on the hoodie loosened enough for her to take another step forward as well as let her get a good grip on the fabric around her neck.

  She could feel the man’s breath on her nape as he closed in behind her. She smelled something gross like he’d just burped garlic.

  He wrenched the sweatshirt with greater force, but this was one game of tug of war she wasn’t going to lose. Training Granite had been like wrestling with a thousand-pound gorilla. If she could do that, she could beat whoever was trying to drag her back into the woods.

  She clutched the fabric around her throat even tighter, dug the balls of her feet down hard into the soft forest floor and plowed forward as if she were a Clydesdale pulling the Budweiser wagon.

  Her momentum started to build until he hauled her back against his chest like she weighed nothing. Her knuckles dug into her throat, and she couldn’t breathe.

  Her mind raced. She thought about Granite. About how much she loved him. How much he needed her. About the bad mood he’d be in if she failed to feed him in the morning. How he’d kick at the stall door to get her attention. A flash of inspiration hit her. She smashed her heel backward, right into the man’s knee. She felt him buckle and the hoodie went slack.

  Abbey stumbled forward, almost falling, but she was used to keeping her seat on those rare occasions when Granite refused to jump a fence. She was a pro at stopping herself from toppling over his neck, so she didn’t fight the forward momentum of the stumble. Instead, she windmilled her arms
wildly as if she were swimming for her life. Her thigh muscles, powerful from riding Granite across fields at a breakneck gallop, strained to support the weight of her falling body so that her feet could keep moving under her. One step. Two steps. By the third, she’d righted herself and was free.

  She didn’t waste time by looking behind her. She didn’t need to. She could hear harsh breathing and feel fingers clawing at her arm.

  A branch slapped her across the face. It barely registered. She didn’t slow down. She ran straight for home as if the hounds of hell were chasing her.

  As she broke through the trees, an afterschool special about self-defense suddenly popped into her head. Scream, she told herself. Scream!

  And she did. She put everything she had into it, and the shriek that came out of her sounded like nothing she’d ever heard before. It was as if she’d finally given her shattered soul a voice. Fear, anger and desperation ripped free from her body and turned her into a screeching banshee. The shrill craziness of it scared her. She wanted to cover her ears so that she couldn’t hear it, but that would slow her down.

  From the barn, she heard Granite whinny a response, echoed by Truffle. In the house, Memphis barked. Lights snapped on and lit the ground for her. She was almost there, but she didn’t slow down. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to stop running again.

  She heard Granite strike at the stall door.

  And she screamed again.

  Then she saw her uncle sprinting toward her. She screamed his name and kept on screaming it over and over. In the light, she saw him pull out his Sig-Sauer from its holster as his long strides consumed the distance between them. Seconds later, she slammed into his chest. He hugged her as if he’d never let her go. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice breaking. “You’re safe.”

  Abbey sputtered, “He’s out there.”

  He moved her behind him, protecting her with his body from whatever it was that was chasing her.