Shadow Lake

The cop glanced at the doctor, then at her, before taking out his notebook. After a moment, he removed the pencil from behind his ear and held it over the paper. His gaze rose again to hers.

“You have a global-tracking device in your car, Mrs. Collins?”

She frowned. “Yes,” she said hesitantly.

“When your car went off the road and the air bag deployed, a call went out to the police station here. I talked to your in-car system provider. It seems your last communication to them was a request for a route from Seattle to Shadow Lake.”

This town had been her destination? “I have no idea why I would have done that.” She could hear the apprehension in her voice. “As far as I can remember, I’ve never even heard of Shadow Lake before.”

“There was a suitcase in the backseat of your car,” he said.

A suitcase? She had a flicker of memory and saw herself packing furiously. “Maybe I was going on a short vacation.” But the clothes hanging in the hospital room closet certainly didn’t go with that theory. She feared what she would find in her suitcase.

“It’s a little early for a vacation in Shadow Lake,” the cop said. “Most of the motels and cabins aren’t even open yet.”

She sighed, exasperated by his inability to accept that she couldn’t remember. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t know?”

“You also asked for directions to the Shadow Lake Police Department,” Walker said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Dr. Brubaker swing his attention to the cop in surprise.

Anna tried not to let her own shock show. She couldn’t imagine any reason she would be interested in where the police department was located in Shadow Lake. Maybe someone had programmed her car. Even as she thought it, she knew how ludicrous that sounded.

For some reason she’d come to Shadow Lake—and thought she was going to need the police.

“I have no idea why I did any of those things. Please, tell me why you’re asking me all these questions.”

“Why don’t you tell me, Mrs. Collins?” Walker said. “Why drive up here in the middle of the night?”

“Don’t you think I would tell you if I knew?” Anna said, hearing the panic in her voice. “None of this makes any sense to me. You act as if I’m hiding something from you. I’m telling you everything I know.”

“But you didn’t tell us about your son,” he said.

“I think we should give Mrs. Collins a chance to rest,” Dr. Brubaker said.

“Just one more question,” Walker said, without looking at the doctor. His eyes were locked on Anna. “I want to hear about this person who you say was in the lake with you.”

“Not with me. In the water outside the car.” She swallowed, afraid that when she told him what she’d seen, he really would believe her a liar. She took a breath and let it out slowly, reassuring herself that she’d seen the man. He had to have saved her life. How else had she gotten out of the car?

Maybe more important, the man would be able to back up her story. He must have seen her lose control of the car and go into the lake. He could prove she was telling the truth.

“I saw a man at my side window,” she said, knowing her story would be met with more than skepticism. “I couldn’t get my seat belt to release. I thought I was going to drown.”

The cop was waiting patiently.

“The car was upside down and I was under the water. I remember thinking I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I heard what sounded like someone tap on my side window. I turned and…” She faltered. “I saw a face.”

“A face?” Walker asked.

“It was a man’s face. He had black hair that floated around his face and—” She grimaced. “His face was badly scarred.” She turned her own face away for a moment, jarred by the memory of the man’s monsterlike appearance. She was reminded of her own scar, her own shame that went with it.

“Scarred how?” Walker asked, his voice sounding oddly strained.

Her fingers trembling, Anna touched her face, starting at just below her left eye and swinging over the bridge of her nose and down under her right eye across her cheek to her jawline.

“And his eyes,” she added quickly. “I’d almost forgotten about them. They were a pale smoky gray reminding me of a wolf’s.” She saw the doctor exchange a look with Walker.

“You know someone with a scar like that?” she said. “It’s a small town. If he’s from here—”

“You’re telling me that you saw all of this on the bottom of the lake in the dark,” Walker demanded, now clearly angry.

“There was a light coming from somewhere,” she said, uncertain, though. “Maybe he had a flashlight or I saw him somehow in the glow of my car’s headlights. But I saw him.” She had, hadn’t she? She couldn’t make something like that up.

Obviously the cop thought her capable of making up just about anything—including being in the car at the bottom of the lake.

Her fingers went to her scar again. She traced its path nervously as she caught another exchanged look between the two men.

“I saw a badly scarred man under the water. He saved my life,” she said as she looked from the cop to Dr. Brubaker and back, confused by their reactions. “Don’t you see? The seat belt was jammed. He must have gotten me out and brought me here. I can’t imagine how else I survived. If you find him, he’ll tell you—”

Walker let out a curse. His face was crimson, his brown eyes wild with anger and something she’d hadn’t seen in them before—pain.

The doctor clasped a hand on the cop’s arm. “Walker, I need a word with you in the hall, now, please.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Anna demanded, her voice rising as high as her emotions again. “You keep looking at each other. Do you know this man I described? Is that it? If you just find him, he’ll tell you—”

“Please, Mrs. Collins,” Dr. Brubaker said as he forcibly ushered the cop out the door. “Let me speak to Officer Walker a moment and I will be back.”

Before the door closed, Anna saw the brief heated exchange before the cop said something that silenced Dr. Brubaker. The doctor glanced back at her. She saw his expression as the door swung shut.

Fear made her fingers tremble as she reached for the phone and tried her friend Gillian’s number again. She needed more than a friend now. She had a bad feeling she needed a lawyer.

And she had no idea why.

Or why Marc would tell the police she’d been threatening to kill someone last night.

Gillian didn’t answer her cell phone this time, either. Anna left a message to call the Shadow Lake Hospital in Shadow Lake. “It’s urgent.”

When she tried Gillian’s office, she was told that her friend had taken a few days off. She’d left no forwarding number. Odd. Gillian hadn’t mentioned anything about it when they’d had lunch. Nor was it like Gillian to take any time off. Anna couldn’t remember the last time her friend had gone on vacation.

Something was terribly wrong.

WALKER ONLY MADE IT AS far as his patrol car. He sat in the darkness, his head swimming, anger eating him up inside. All he wanted to do was storm back into the hospital and make that woman tell him the truth.

She’d lied.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of any reason she would do that.

He ran a hand over his face.