Shadow Lake

“You need to get control of yourself,” Dr. Brubaker had told him as he’d led him down the hallway away from Anna Collins’s hospital room.

“You heard her in there. She’s lying.”

“You don’t really believe that woman in there killed anyone last night, do you?” Doc had demanded.

“Her husband seems to think she might have.”

“Go home. Get some rest. You aren’t thinking clearly. Give her some time to get her memory back. I’m sure all of this can be sorted out.”

Walker had seen the way Doc was with the young woman. Protective, as if she were his own daughter. Who wasn’t thinking clearly? he’d wanted to demand, but he’d had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and get out of the hospital before he did something he’d regret.

He didn’t need Doc to tell him that he was running on emotion right now. A lot of loss of his own.

Maybe he’d pick up a six-pack and drop by Billy’s. He went off shift over an hour ago.

Walker dialed the police chief’s cell. It rang four times before Rob finally picked up.

“Yeah?”

Nash sounded funny.

“Sorry to bother you, but I thought I should give you a heads-up on this case I got last night around midnight,” Walker said.

“The car that went into the lake,” Chief Nash said.

“Yeah.” He wondered how the chief had heard about it. “Anyway, I suspect it was an attempted suicide. The woman’s over at the hospital. Doc seems to think she’s going to be fine. But she swears she can’t remember a thing including an argument with her husband when she threatened to kill someone.”

“People make threats all the time, you know that,” Nash said.

“Yeah. I just have a gut feeling about this one,” Walker said, a little thrown by the chief’s response. Nash always had questions, convinced the answers were always in the details. “How are things over in Pilot’s Cove?”

“Fine. I got through sooner than I thought. I’m on my way back to town now.”

“Anything you need help on?” Walker asked, still wondering why Nash had let him believe it had something to do with the Pilot’s Cove Police Department.

“No.”

“We tried to get the car out, but Mac had to find a larger, newer tow truck,” Walker said, just for something to say since clearly the chief wasn’t interested. “Once we get the car out, maybe we’ll know more.”

“Sounds like you have everything under control. So if there’s no problem…”

He bristled at the chief’s irritation. No problem except for who she said saved her life last night. The chief was probably just tired and trying to get home to his young new wife. “I got it covered.”

“Good.”

Walker hung up, wondering what the hell was going on with the chief. Something, that was for damned sure. Nash had sounded like he had more important things on his mind. Like what? Walker wondered.

The chief’s job had been all that Rob Nash had had for so many years Walker couldn’t imagine the old man giving it up. But maybe the position would be coming open. And sooner than Walker had even hoped.

ANNA HAD NEVER FELT SO alone. Everyone in her life had abandoned her. Even Gillian, the one person she’d depended on the most since Tyler’s death. She’d finally reached rock bottom. What did it matter if the cop didn’t believe her story? Nothing mattered. It hadn’t from the moment she’d awakened to find that her son was dead.

But Anna found herself getting angry. She was tired of just lying down and taking it. Then she picked up the phone and called Marc’s number, planning to demand to know why he had told Officer Walker all those awful things about her—and find out what she’d done last night to make him say them.

But when Marc’s voice mail came up, she hung up and dialed Mary Ellen back.

“Anna.” Mary Ellen sounded relieved to hear her voice. “Where are you? I tried to call you back—”

“Tell me why Marc didn’t go through with the divorce.” Anna felt anger bubble up inside her. “He’s the one who wanted it so badly.”

“You don’t know how hard it’s been on him,” Mary Ellen said. “For six long months he didn’t know whether or not you’d ever wake up. He’d already lost his son—”

“I lost my son, too,” she interrupted.

“Yes, but Marc had months of not knowing if he was going to lose you, too. Then when you came out of the coma and didn’t even know what had happened…”

Anna couldn’t help but bristle at the words. She’d tried so hard to remember the hit-and-run accident that had taken Tyler and nearly killed her as well. The driver of the car that had hit her and her son was never apprehended because Anna couldn’t provide a description. With what little the police had to go on, they hadn’t been able to find out who had hit her car, killing her son and putting her in a coma. She’d never known if she had been somehow partly responsible.

“Marc had to relive it all again with you,” Mary Ellen was saying. “He was dealing with all of it and then…”

Yes, Anna had come back from the darkness to make Marc’s life even harder. She’d often gotten the impression he’d wished she’d died along with Tyler at the scene.

“I think Marc thought divorce would put an end to the pain by distancing himself from you and the memories,” Mary Ellen said.

Anna sniffed and wiped her eyes. She wasn’t insensitive to Marc’s pain. But she had also overheard him question the doctor about whether or not it was possible she’d stayed in the coma because she couldn’t face the truth. “I know it was harder on him than it was on me.”

“But you can put things back together again,” Mary Ellen said brightly. “That’s really what Marc wants. To start over, no more secrets between the two of you.”

Anna had wanted that, too. She just hadn’t expected Marc wanting to come back to her to be so bittersweet.

“He said he told me all of this last night?” Anna asked.

Silence, then Mary Ellen said hesitantly, “Yes. Are you saying he didn’t?”

Had Marc told her? Then why had she taken off to Shadow Lake alone?

Anna had a flash of memory. A nasty argument. Had it been last night? She couldn’t be sure.

Maybe it was last night, because she had a strong feeling that something had happened. Last night. And while she was in a coma. Something that Marc and her friends were keeping from her.

Marc’s change of heart made her suspicious, given what he’d told the Shadow Lake police. Not that she was about to share that with Mary Ellen.

She’d learned that Marc was very deliberate in his decisions. Maybe that was why the outcome always benefited him the most.

If Marc had told her last night that he hadn’t gone through with the divorce, he would have been expecting her to fall to her knees in gratitude. So maybe the argument she vaguely recalled had been last night, because she doubted she’d indulged him in that fantasy.

In fact, she suspected she hadn’t been even gracious. If anything she would have been angry.

You scare me, Anna.