Shadow Lake

“You’re fighting to keep your eyes open. Try to get some rest,” the doctor said quietly. “You’ve had quite the ordeal.”

He had no idea.

“You’ve never had memory loss, have you?” She hadn’t meant for the words to come out so sharply, and she instantly regretted them. “I’m sorry. It’s just…difficult to have huge chunks of missing time. Black holes in which you have no idea what happened to you. What you did. What you could or should have done differently.” No, she thought, you just wake up to the consequences. And to people demanding explanations when you had none.

“No, I haven’t,” he said quietly. But she could tell he thought there were worse things than not being able to remember.

“When can I leave the hospital?”

“I want to keep you at least overnight for observation,” the doctor said quickly. “You need to get your strength back.”

She closed her eyes, suddenly just wanting to be left alone. She would have prayed for sleep but she knew her prayers were no longer answered. Her weakened body and mind were exhausted. But lately sleep evaded her or was fraught with pieces of memory that churned in her thoughts giving her no peace or answers.

She couldn’t even remember what had happened last night. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered.

So why couldn’t she hold back the nagging thought that she had to remember? That there was something she desperately needed to recall?

How could she not be worried? She couldn’t imagine why she’d been on that road last night. She’d never even heard of Shadow Lake. Why would she come up here at that hour of the night in a thunderstorm?

What she did remember only made her anxious. The bitter, numbing cold of the lake water, the bite of the seat belt into her breasts, the horrible metallic taste of her own fear. Air. Her lungs had been bursting with a need for air when—

Her eyes flew open. Heart pounding, her mind veered away from what she told herself couldn’t be a memory.

“Are you sure there isn’t someone I can call for you?” Dr. Brubaker asked in concern, surprising her that he was still in the room.

“Yes.” Her voice broke. “I’m sure.”

He glanced toward the window again where a sliver of the lake could be seen through the rain and pines.

“Just ring the call button if you need anything.” He seemed hesitant to leave her alone, but finally started toward the door, and, just as quickly, she didn’t want to be left alone.

“Where did my car go into the lake?” she asked.

He stopped and came back to point to a spot through the trees in the distance. “See those cliffs up there on the mountain? You went off right before the road drops down into town.”

Anna gasped. How had she survived? “How did I get to the hospital?”

“I can only assume that when you surfaced, you swam toward the shore, which would have put you out just down the hill from the hospital,” he said. “It’s the first building on this side of town. The nurse found you barely inside the door. Given the temperature of the air and water, you were lucky the hospital was so close.”

She felt a chill and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders.

“You’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”

Why didn’t she believe that?

“Rest. I promise you it’s the best thing you can do to regain your strength—and your memory.”

Anna glanced out at the lake. How had she survived last night? Why, she wondered, as hot tears scalded her cheeks.

The six months in the coma were completely lost to her. The two months since she’d awakened had been a living hell. The panic attacks had started the minute she’d gone home from the hospital. Without warning she wouldn’t be able to catch her breath. She would start shaking, her heart pounding so hard she was sure she was having a heart attack. Hoping she would.

Like now when she looked at the lake. Her pulse raced, her mouth went cotton-ball dry. There was something she desperately needed to remember.

DEPUTY WALKER MOVED TO THE edge of the road to watch as the wrecker crew snaked the steel cable down the steep mountainside to the lake.

He’d already been warned that the crew would have to inch the car up the mountainside since they didn’t have enough single cable to reach the car and would have to use an extension. The town wrecker was old, the winch outdated.

When he’d reached the site, he’d been informed divers had gone back down to run a strap through the interior of the car. The car had come to rest upside down in about thirty feet of water.

“No sign of any other passenger?” he asked the head of the dive squad on the shore via the tow truck’s radio.

“Not in the car.”

“Was there a child’s car seat in the back?” Walker asked.

“Negative.”

“You’re sure?”

“Affirmative. There’s a suitcase that had been in the backseat but is now resting on the headliner. That’s all.”

Walker rubbed his jaw. Why wasn’t the suitcase in the trunk? “What about the trunk?”

“Don’t know. It’s resting in the mud.”

“Thanks.” He handed the radio back to the tow-truck operator.

Where had this woman been headed? he wondered as he waited. He told himself the answer might be in the car.

Walker had the town’s two other officers handling traffic. Not that there was much this time of the year. But word had spread and since this was probably the biggest news all spring, the locals had come up to get in the way. Shadow Lake residents, especially those who’d just gone through a long boring winter, weren’t about to pass up free entertainment.

As Walker looked down the path the Cadillac had taken, he couldn’t help wondering what had happened last night up here on this mountain. Anna was recently divorced. When he’d talked to her she’d been more than a little despondent. Had she purposely driven off here? Panicked once the car hit the water and changed her mind?

Or had she picked this spot, knowing that the hospital was close by, as some ill-conceived plot to get her ex’s attention. That’s something Walker’s ex would have done. If she’d wanted him back, that is.

He hated the bitter taste in his mouth. But he’d noticed some things about Anna Drake Collins that were just like his ex. Anna clearly came from money, lived in Seattle in a posh neighborhood, had that air of privilege about her and was model attractive—just like his ex.

What worried Walker was how far a woman like that would go. And if she really wanted to get back at her ex, Walker feared the kid had been in that car.

“We’re ready to bring her up,” Mac called from the tow truck. “Did you hear me?”

Walker looked up, startled to find the wrecker operator standing in front of him frowning.

“We’re ready.”

“So bring her up.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t stand there. If that cable should—”

“Just pull her up,” Walker snapped, anxious to see what was inside that car.

Below him, the emerald lake lay in the tree-lined basin, the surface dimpled by the drizzling rain. There was no warmth, only wet and cold as the motor on the tow truck revved. He stood next to the wrecker, wanting a clear view when the car broke the surface.

He’d found a business number for Marc Collins and left a message to call the Shadow Lake Police Department. That the man’s ex-wife had been in an automobile accident but was fine.

Walker hoped the boy was with his father, but from the way the mother was acting, he had a bad feeling that wasn’t the case, and his cop instincts were seldom wrong.

His cell phone rang. He stepped away from the whine of the wrecker to take the call.

“Walker?”

He almost didn’t recognize the voice. “Chief?”

“Just wanted to let you know I won’t be back for a few days.”

“Is everything all right in Pilot’s Cove?”

“Yeah, I just need to take care of some things over here.”

Before Walker could tell him what was going on in Shadow Lake, the police chief hung up.

Walker snapped his cell phone shut, telling himself he had to be wrong. The chief had sounded drunk.

As Walker started back toward the tow truck, his phone rang again. This time it was the dispatcher. She had Marc Collins on the line.

“Put him through,” Walker said.

“What’s this about my wife being in another accident?” the man demanded the moment Walker answered.

“Don’t you mean ex-wife?” Walker asked, instantly irritated with the man’s tone.

“Is that what she told you? We’re still married.”

“Why would she lie?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Collins said.

Walker explained about Anna’s so-called accident. “She was lucky.”

“Anna wrecked another car? But she’s fine. Another hit-and-run or can’t she remember?” Marc Collins asked with sarcasm. “Isn’t it just Anna’s luck.”

Walker bristled. “She almost drowned,” he snapped, beyond irritated with the man. Surely Anna Drake hadn’t wanted to get back with this man. “Look, I just need to be sure that your son Tyler wasn’t with her.”

Marc Collins let out a brittle laugh. “Didn’t she tell you? She killed Tyler eight months ago.”

THE MEMORY CAME IN A RUSH. Rain, the narrow dark highway, in a hurry for some reason, then a sudden movement as something sprang out onto the pavement. A deer? It had been a deer, hadn’t it?

Anna saw it happening in her mind’s eye. Her losing control of the car. Skidding along the highway through the deep puddles, blinded by the spray until…

She felt the start of a panic attack as she remembered crashing down the mountain and into the water. The car had sunk so quickly. She was breathing hard now, remembering the freezing cold water rising around her and the seat belt… There was something…

Her heart pounded harder and harder. She tried to push away the memory that seemed to crush her chest, as she tried to catch her breath.

In a panic, she reached for the nurse’s call button, but her fingers were slick and she was shaking so hard it slipped from her fingers. My God, she was dying.

Deep breaths. Think about anything else. Anything but last night.

She flopped back, gasping, tears running down her face. The panic subsided slowly, her rapid pulse roared in her ears.

She’d tried to convince herself that it didn’t matter how she’d ended up in a hospital room in Shadow Lake.

But her mind wouldn’t let it rest. She hated driving at night, especially in the rain. What had forced her to do it?

Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. The movement sent a wave of nausea through her, forcing her to grip the bed until the wooziness passed.

As she stood, she was half surprised to realize she’d completely forgotten about the IV in her arm. She rolled the stand along with her as she shuffled to the closet, practically leaning on the flimsy thing, shocked by how weak she felt.

At the closet, she gripped the door frame, fearing she was going to pass out. She slid open the closet door and drew back in surprise. This was what she’d been wearing last night?

Dread filled her as she touched the slinky black dress and lacy black undergarments draped over the hangers, her fingers brushing her good gray wool coat. Where had she been going dressed like this?

There was a small puddle of water beneath the still sopping-wet coat. Next to the puddle on the floor was a single strappy black high-heeled sandal. What struck her was that the black dress was Marc’s favorite.

Like a splinter under her skin, the thought of why she would have worn it worried at her.

To make matters worse, she could think of no reason she would have driven to Shadow Lake dressed for an evening out. And driving in those shoes? What had she been thinking? No wonder she’d ended up crashing into the lake.

Leaning against the closet door frame for support, she searched a pocket of her coat, hoping for some clue.

Given where the doctor said her car had gone into the lake, how had she been able to get out, let alone swim in what she’d been wearing? Especially in apparently only one high-heeled sandal. Had she literally stumbled out of the lake and into the hospital?

What kind of luck was that?

Unbelievable luck.

A memory tugged at her. She felt another panic attack coming on and quickly shielded herself from the memory.

She stuck her hand in the other pocket. Her hand froze as her fingers found something soggy and hard. She pulled out the contents and frowned down at four balled-up twenty-dollar bills and a credit card with what appeared to be a wet receipt stuck to it and…

Her frown deepened. A folded scrap of paper. It appeared to have some writing on the inside but the ink had run some and the paper was still wet and fragile. She gave up trying to unfold it while it was still wet.

She tried to peel the receipt from the credit card. The thin paper started to tear. It was impossible to read what had been printed on it anyway.

Why had she stuffed all of this into her coat pocket? Where was her purse? Still in the car, no doubt. Just the sight of what she’d found in her coat pocket proved she’d been upset about something. It wasn’t like her not to take the time to put her credit card back into her wallet in her purse. Or maybe she’d lost her purse even before she’d crashed into the lake.

That thought made fear quake through her. What in God’s name could have happened that she would have lost her purse?

Her body suddenly felt too heavy for her leg muscles to hold her any longer. Dragging the IV cart, she stumbled back to the bed, taking the items she’d found in her coat pocket with her. She dropped everything into the nightstand drawer. Her legs felt like water. It was all she could do to climb onto the bed and draw the covers over her.

Sleep dragged her down like the lake had taken her car to the bottom. On the edge of sleep, she saw herself going into the lake again, the car sinking, panic taking hold of her as she saw herself upside down under the water, trapped in the car.

As exhaustion finally pulled her under, she had one fleeting terrifying thought: There’s something out there in the murky water. Someone.

CHAPTER FIVE

WITH MORE THAN A little relief, Dr. Brubaker checked his only patient and found her sound asleep. Telling the nurse to beep him when Anna woke again, he left the hospital to go home, shower, shave and change clothes.

As was his routine, he turned in the gate to the cemetery on his walk home and headed for his wife’s grave.

Gladys had picked out the two plots, saying she wanted to be able to catch the morning sun. She’d always loved that about her kitchen window. He’d so often see her standing in front of the sink, her face tilted up to catch the morning sun, that sometimes even now when he came into the kitchen he caught glimpses of her for just an instant.

Better to see her there, in the sunlight, rather than the hospital bed where she’d spent the last months of her life. Gladys had wanted to die in their home so he’d moved one of the hospital beds into the living room.

She’d been so small lying there. He’d watched her grow thinner and thinner, disappearing from his life with each passing day. At the end, he’d feared that he would wake from the bed he’d made next to hers and find that she had wasted away to nothing as if she’d never existed.

As it was, she’d been nearly child-size by the time she’d died, way too small for the casket he’d picked out for her.

He recognized the names on the gravestones as he walked through the rain-soaked cemetery. A light drizzle fell, the clouds gray and dark over the lake. He’d known a lot of the people buried here.

Some of them he’d brought into the world, a lot of them he’d kept alive as long as he could before they’d passed on. The thought gave him little comfort.

Through a weathered iron fence and veil of pine boughs, he caught a glimpse of freshly turned earth. The wind must have blown off the green tarp the funeral home used until it quit raining long enough to lay the sod. Or had the tarp come off when Big Jim Fairbanks started rolling in his grave, Brubaker wondered.

Unlike Gladys, Big Jim had fought until the very end. He’d wanted to live and had said he was too damned young to die even though he was older than most, Doc included. Big Jim hadn’t gone peacefully. Nor did Doc suspect Big Jim Fairbanks rested easy, either.

Brubaker realized as he stared at Big Jim’s grave that he believed in retribution, if nothing else. There was a price to be paid for what was done on this earth. A man had to pay for his sins. And a man like Big Jim Fairbanks would be paying dearly about now.

And soon so would Gene Brubaker, he reminded himself.

Turning, Doc went to spend time with his wife as he had done every day since her death.

“OH DEAR, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

Anna woke with a start as an older gray-haired nurse rushed to her bedside. “Pulled out your IV, have you?” Her name tag read Connie. “Must have really tossed and turned in your sleep to do that.”

Anna said nothing as the nurse reattached the IV. She’d lost the scrap of memory she’d had just before she’d been awakened. In frustration, she looked toward the window, saw the lake and closed her eyes to keep from shuddering.

“There, that should hold this time,” the nurse said. “How are you feeling?”

Anna could only nod.

The nurse studied her. “You want me to call the doctor?”

“No. I just want to sleep.” She really just wanted to be alone, not sure she wanted to call back the memory. She could feel an uneasiness and knew that if she tried to force the memory it would turn to anxiety, then panic.

“I’m fine,” she told the nurse and closed her eyes, waiting for her to leave.

The moment the nurse closed the door behind her, Anna sat up, feeling desperate and scared.

Calm down. Calm down. She heard her husband Marc’s voice. Calm down. Only he was no longer her husband. The divorce was to be final yesterday. Was that true? Only yesterday?

Her hand was shaking as she picked up the phone and dialed. Gillian Sanders had been her friend since college and was now a successful lawyer. Anna knew she wouldn’t have made it through the past two months without Gillian.

Gillian’s cell phone rang four times and voice mail picked up. “It’s me, Anna.” Her voice sounded panicky even to her. She considered leaving the hospital number but knew that would scare Gillian. “I’ll try back later.”

She hung up, disappointed she hadn’t reached her. Right now she needed Gillian’s logical calming influence. Gillian had a way of seeing to the heart of things. Like when Anna had come to her for advice about Marc.

“Don’t fight the divorce, honey,” Gillian had advised. “He’s a bastard. Have you ever really been happy with him?”

“Yes, when Tyler was born…”

“Come on. You were happy because of Tyler—not Marc. Admit it.”

Anna had started to cry. Admitting that her marriage had been anything but happy from the beginning was devastating.

Gillian had pressed a business card into her hand.

“What is this?” Anna had asked through her tears.

“A damned good divorce attorney. But you didn’t get it from me.”

“I want you as my lawyer.”

“Anna, I’m not a divorce lawyer and I know both you and Marc. You want someone who is impartial and tough as nails. Believe me, Marc will get the toughest lawyer money can buy.”

“But I want someone who will protect my interests.”

“I am, sweetie,” Gillian had said, taking her hand. “Divorce the asshole before he can file first. You can do better.”

But Anna had waited and let Marc serve the papers on her. The divorce lawyer Gillian had recommended had taken care of everything. All Anna had to do was sign the papers and wait for the dissolution of her marriage to be final. She’d only managed to get through it by pretending it wasn’t happening. She’d lost her son. Now her husband.

Coward that she was, she’d also pretended that she didn’t know why Marc had wanted the divorce.

As of yesterday, she was no longer Mrs. Marc Collins.

She realized she was still gripping the phone. She needed to talk to someone. If not Gillian, then Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen was a mutual friend of Anna and Gillian’s, a college sorority sister. Blond, buxom, a bit scatterbrained, but a talented interior designer, Mary Ellen had gotten through life on “cute” and good taste.

Anna dialed Mary Ellen’s number trying to get into the mood to talk to her always bubbly friend. She was tired of calling her friends crying and desperate. She was tired of being depressed and morbid and scared. And she knew they were even more sick of it than she was.

The phone rang four times and Anna was about to hang up when Mary Ellen finally picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Oh, hello.”

Anna was momentarily taken aback by Mary Ellen’s blasé reaction. This was not like her. “Is everything all right?”

Silence. “Yes, I’m in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back?”

Anna sat up a little straighter in the bed at Mary Ellen’s overformal tone. “Okay, I mean, no. I…” She glanced at the phone, unsure of the hospital number. “I’ll call you back later.”

“That would be fine.” Mary Ellen hung up, but not before Anna heard a man’s voice in the background.

She stared at the phone as she replaced the receiver. What had that been about? The voice she’d heard definitely hadn’t been Mary Ellen’s husband, David.

The voice had sounded like…

Anna felt a wave of nausea wash over her.

Marc. The voice had sounded like Marc’s, but that wasn’t possible. Marc didn’t like Mary Ellen. He’d never liked any of her friends. But while he made fun of Mary Ellen, he was much harsher when it came to Gillian. He could barely be civil to Gillian—and vice versa.

So it couldn’t have been Marc’s voice Anna had heard in the background.

She fought her disappointment in not being able to talk to Mary Ellen. She needed to talk to a friend. Gillian and Mary Ellen were the only ones she still saw. The rest of her so-called friends had disappeared.

She thought about calling Marc, just to prove to herself that it hadn’t been his voice she’d heard at Mary Ellen’s. But she had nothing to say to him. Gillian was right. Tyler had been the reason Anna had stayed with Marc. She’d so desperately wanted Tyler to have a father even if Marc had been a disappointing one. She’d hoped that as Tyler got older, Marc would get better.

Her throat closed at the thought of Tyler, her chest aching as tears again burned her eyes, blurring everything.

You have to stop this, Anna.

Marc’s voice again and a memory so clear it hurt. “You have to stop, Anna, before you drive us both crazy. I can’t take any more.” Possibly his last words to her before he moved out of their house. Or maybe more recently. They’d had so many fights she couldn’t remember the last one.

She dried her eyes and dialed Gillian’s cell again. Still no answer. She hung up without leaving a message.

Had it only been yesterday that she’d had Gillian and Mary Ellen over for lunch? Mary Ellen and Gillian had made a point of not mentioning the divorce or the fact it was to be final later that day.

Needless to say, the lunch had been strained. Anna frowned as she recalled how distracted Gillian had been. Even Mary Ellen had been unusually quiet. At the time, Anna had thought it was just her pending divorce causing it, but now she recalled she’d picked up an undercurrent. Mary Ellen and Gillian had seemed upset with each other.

Funny she would realize that now. She’d thought she was doing so well yesterday, but apparently she’d been numb to what had been happening around her.

She felt a sliver of anxiety burrow under her skin. Since she’d come out of the coma she’d been picking up weird vibes from everyone, especially Marc. But often Mary Ellen and Gillian, as well. Either they were all walking on eggshells around her, or they were keeping something from her.