Page 19

FOURTEEN

PATRICK

I’d thought the effort of pulling weeds would calm the anger pulsing through my veins, but it was a temporary fix. After talking to Samantha, it boiled over again.

It was incomprehensible to me why she, and our friends, refused to report a murder in our own backyard. Even if Samantha and her friends didn’t care at all about a man who’d been murdered, I would have thought the note would scare them into wanting the police to find out who had done this. Why was I the only one who appeared to wonder who he was? Why he’d been murdered?

I pulled off my gloves, tossed them into the back of our SUV, and dragged the waste container to the side of the house. I needed to get away from here, from all of them. I grabbed my hat from the driver’s seat where I’d left it after the grocery run. I slapped it on my head and walked to the end of the driveway.

I wanted to find a trail to hike. I began walking along the side of the road. Maybe I’d stumble across a marker indicating a trail, a path leading to the lake where I could walk and enjoy the view, forgetting about murder and people I couldn’t understand.

The power had finally been restored, but now I was hesitant to report the body in our pool. The others were right about that—law enforcement would pick at us and question us as if we were suspects. Failing to report it immediately, and now the baffling disappearance of the body, were guaranteed to make us look guilty. In a way, we were guilty.

Walking along the side of the road calmed me. Because the two properties were somewhat isolated, there were no cars regularly traveling on the single-lane access road. It was about half a mile from our house back to Highway 89, so I’d be able to walk for a short distance in peaceful quiet. The only sounds were my feet crunching on dry pinecones and gravel, punctuated by the occasional Jay protecting its nest.

After only a few hundred feet, the natural world began offering its usual calming effect. The horrifying events of the past twenty-four hours seemed less like an existential threat and more like a problem to be solved. All I needed to do was find the body. Unless it was in the lake. I wasn’t equipped to go diving in fifty-degree water, scouring the bottom of a lake for a dead man who might have been carried hundreds of feet, even a mile along the shore, or out to deeper waters.

I increased my pace, hoping to shake loose the paralyzing thought that it would be impossible to find a body someone didn’t want found. There had to be a way.

After I’d gone about a mile, I heard a sound behind me. Footsteps, maybe. Thinking Samantha might have followed me, wanting to apologize and tell me she’d changed her mind, that we were on the same team after all, I turned.

About twenty feet behind me I saw Linda’s daughter. She wasn’t behaving as if she wanted to catch up, but it felt like she was following me. And she didn’t seem to care if I knew that.

Her dishwater blonde hair was hanging on the sides of her face, thin pieces of it plastered to her skin, the rest draped over her shoulders and upper arms. She looked uncomfortably warm.

Facing forward, I continued on, moving more quickly now, trying to put space between us. Because of the increased sound of my feet hitting the ground with greater force, I was no longer aware of Jordan, but I was certain she was still there. Was she following me? If she was, it made no sense for her to be so obvious about it.

Had she been sent to get an answer to Linda’s question about why I was digging? The reason that Samantha offered had not been believable. Sam had made our situation worse because now Linda’s curiosity had probably morphed into suspicion. Why lie about digging a hole? It must mean something. That would be anyone’s conclusion.

I glanced over my shoulder. She was still there. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses, so her piercing gaze was clearly visible. She didn’t smile or wave and still didn’t try hurrying to catch me. Neither did she turn away and look for another path.

It wasn’t that I thought I was in danger from her, but her presence and her lack of acknowledgment gave me the creeps. Her unsmiling demeanor was equally disturbing.

I came to a complete stop as a thought slammed into my mind with the force of someone shoving me. Had our neighbors moved the body? It was possible they were the ones who had tied him up and shoved him into the pool to sink like a stone. Why hadn’t any of us considered that? We were too busy arguing about reporting the crime. It was right in front of our eyes.

They might have known exactly what I was doing. If they’d moved the body, they would be watching for a suggestion of anyone trying to locate it.

I crossed the street, gave her a half-hearted wave that she didn’t return, and walked quickly back to the house. As I headed up the driveway, it looked like something wasn’t quite right with our SUV, but I wasn’t sure what. I moved closer. The back side window on the passenger side had been smashed. A single jagged piece of glass stuck up from the door. The rest was scattered across the driveway. I ran to the car and looked inside to see more glass on the back seat and floor.

I opened the tailgate. My tools and gloves were still in the unzipped duffel bag where I’d left them. So this wasn’t a theft. It was more of the same—something to do with the dead man, although I hadn’t a clue what that might be.

Without thinking, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called 911.

After being told this wasn’t an emergency and waiting for a transfer to the main line, I was assured an officer would be out to take a report within the next two hours. I could only imagine what the others would say when they saw the police arrive at the house.

FIFTEEN

SAMANTHA

The latest note chilled me to the center of my bones. What had they seen? It made me think it was the murder itself. But why were they watching us? Or was I misunderstanding. Maybe it meant they’d seen us pull the body out of the pool and leave it out in a thunderstorm.

All I knew was that for now, I wasn’t going to tell anyone else. Patrick wouldn’t change his beliefs based on a new note. And if I told Emily, she might blurt it out to Patrick if he got under her skin. I shoved the rough paper into the waistband of my jeans. I hid it in a zippered pocket of my suitcase, then went downstairs.

A moment later, Patrick charged into the living room holding his phone up in front of him. Just the sight of that device filled me with anxiety. Had he decided to report a murder that couldn’t be proven? We’d sound like lunatics. They would search our property. They might search our houses back home. They would ask a hundred unanswerable questions.

“Someone vandalized our car,” he said. “The police are on their way, in an hour or two.”

“Vandalized our car?” I asked.