An intense feeling of déjà vu swept over Kris. It was as if she were spying on herself as a child, as if the window looked out not on to the present but thirty years in the past, when she was the curly redhead, and her friend … her friend …
She could picture her younger self playing with another child, although the memory was so old and faded that it refused to focus into more than a blur. She must have played with other children during her summers at the lake. Had that helped her cope with her mother’s illness? She couldn’t recall for sure.
A high-pitched squeak blew in on the breeze, then it was gone, then back, then gone, a steady rhythm like clockwork gears in need of oil.
With her cheek resting against the sun-warmed glass, she watched as Sadie swung back and forth, back and forth, her legs pumping as she pulled herself higher and higher into the air. Beyond her was Lost Lake glistening in the bright midday sunshine. She could hear her daughter’s excited yips as the swing carried the girl closer to the sky.
The wind must have picked up, because the empty swing beside Sadie began its own small arc over the weed-infested ground. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Like a friend is swinging with her.
But something was wrong.
The weeds.
They were motionless.
Kris glanced quickly over to the forest and the cover of trees thick with leaves. Not a single branch swayed. Not a single leaf fluttered. There was no wind.
She raised a fist to knock on the window, knowing damn well the noise would be too faint to get Sadie’s attention, but just as her knuckles kissed the pane, she froze.
A face stared out of the woods.
It looked as though it had sprouted from a cluster of buds, the green perfectly framing flesh as gray and bloodless as a slaughtered pig. Half-moons of shadow hung under each eye. The eyes themselves were icy blue, like the water that had sprung up from the depths of the prehistoric lake hidden beneath the Verdigris River.
It was the face of a woman, and she was watching Sadie.
“Oh God!” Kris cried out, her voice echoing through the empty house.
She spun, her knees knocking awkwardly against each other, her entwined legs nearly sending her crashing to the floor, as she bolted from the bedroom. Her bare feet thudded across the hard wood as she rounded the corner at the mouth of the hall. She was across the great room in three leaps, twisting the latch, throwing the French doors open.
On the swing, Sadie had already begun to slow. She looked over as her frantic mother bounded across the deck, hopping down the back steps and onto the path leading to the lake.
“Get inside!” Kris commanded.
“What—”
“Get in the house!”
Sadie did as she was told, not waiting for the swing to come to a full stop before hopping to the ground.
Cutting sharply to her left, Kris abandoned the path and raced through the knee-high weeds, toward the edge of the woods. The teeth of spiny thistles bit into the soles of her feet.
She searched the forest for what she had glimpsed from the house.
The face was gone.
Confused, she slowed to a jog, her heart racing.
There. Behind the wall of trees. A shape. Moving quickly to the north.
“Hey!” she yelled. She picked up speed again, not caring as the dagger like edges of rocks gnashed at her soles.
She raced along the outer edge of the woods, tracking the shadowy shape. It, too, quickened its pace.
She shouted once more, “Hey!”
To her left, the lake house fell away. She was now in the front yard. Her feet were bleeding, she was sure of it. She could feel stones and spiky plants digging into her flesh.
Up ahead, the forest came to a sudden stop where River Road cut through the countryside. The embankment of dried clay and twisted roots created a natural wall along the far end of the property, with only the slim opening where the rotted gate had fallen away allowing entry to the road beyond. Kris sprinted away from the trees and toward that open passage. She pounced—there was no other word for it, for she felt like an animal tracking prey—into the middle of the road and glared down at the neglected street twisting into tree-shrouded darkness.
No one was there.
She stood, panting, her mind racing, trying to piece together the logic that had allowed the woman to escape her.
Behind her, there was the crunch of gravel under her shoes.
Kris spun around.
Two figures were moving up the road, away from her. One was the person she had seen peering out of the trees, a young woman in her twenties dressed in blue jeans and a ragged white shirt. The other woman was older and slightly taller with straight black hair that draped down to her waist and swung like a pendulum of shadow. The older woman had one hand on the younger girl’s arm, the other around her shoulders, quickly leading her away.
“Hey, you!” Kris cried out, still sucking in air as she tried to catch her breath.
The girl started to glance back, but the older woman tightened her grip, stopping her.
They were nearing another break in the trees farther up the road.
“Hey! Answer me!”
The older woman picked up her pace as she guided the girl off River Road and onto a dirt path. Just as they began to pass out of sight, the woman glanced over her shoulder. Her dark eyes found Kris, and her leathery, weathered face wrinkled up in disgust. And then the forest folded them in, and they were gone.
Kris stood in the middle of the road, staring in confusion, the breeze tossing her hair across her face. In her mind, she followed the two women down the path and around the curve of the lake shore. Unless that path suddenly cut sharply to the west, the only place it could possibly take them was—
The other side of the lake.
There was a nearly audible snap as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
The woman’s long, dark hair. Her tall, slender form.
It’s her, Kris thought.
She was certain of it. It was the woman from the cabin on the other side of the cove, the woman they’d seen staring at their lake house as if waiting for it to sprout wings and fly away.
But who was with her? Who was that girl?
Call the police, her timid voice pleaded. Call Ben.
She knew she could. He had given her his card for this very reason. But what would she say? A woman has been standing on her own deck a lot lately? Another woman, her daughter maybe, was walking in the woods, on public land?
“What am I doing?” she asked out loud. Chasing a girl who, as far as Kris knew, was out on a hike. Screaming at neighbors who were just curious about the new family across the cove, who probably came over to introduce themselves.
The surge of adrenaline that had carried Kris to this point suddenly subsided, and in its wake was left a dull throb that worked its way from Kris’s battered feet up her calves to her knees. She stumbled backward just as her legs gave out, and she plopped down hard against the ridge of the embankment.
Around her were the sounds of the woods—the buzzing of insects, the chattering of birds, the rustling of leaves.
Not since the night of Jonah’s death had she felt so alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BY THE THIRD week of June, Kris had managed to tackle most of the home improvement projects remaining on her to-do list. Every loose board had been secured with a few carefully driven nails and a healthy dollop of wood glue. The wiggly stones on the fireplace hearth were cemented in place thanks to a caulking gun and two tubes of anchoring adhesive. The drooping edges of peeling wallpaper in the master bedroom were glued back to the wall, straight and mostly wrinkle-free. By duct-taping several broom handles together, she was able to reach the highest corners of the great room’s cathedral ceiling to swipe at the last of the spiderwebs. The new mattresses had arrived, and the delivery men graciously hauled Sadie’s old one away. Kris did not bother telling them about her old mattress. She hoped they didn’t spot it in its grave of weeds on the side of the house as they drove off.