Shadow Lake

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

LIKE THE OTHER GREAT tragedy in her life, Anna Collins never saw this one coming.

Just minutes before midnight, a deer bounded out of the rain and darkness onto the isolated two-lane highway directly into her path.

She’d been driving too fast, terrified and already out of control in her panicked state. So when she saw the deer, all she’d been able to do was react instinctively.

She slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. Through the driving rain and slap of the wipers the doe’s huge eyes caught for an instant in the headlights, then it bolted, disappearing in the pines lining the road as the car skidded across the wet blacktop.

Anna turned the wheel hard, overcorrecting, sending up a shower of puddled rainwater. She caught the blur of pines and the steep face of a rocky cliff an instant before the large, heavy car left the pavement on the opposite side of the road, and plunged down the mountainside.

Mute with terror, she didn’t have time to scream even if she could have made a sound. Nor would that scream have been heard over the crash of the car as it plummeted downward. Branches snapped off, the sound like gunshots, as leaves and bark pelted the windshield, the car gaining momentum.

A limb slapped the windshield an instant after she saw something dark and deep beyond the glow of her headlights.

Water.

The lake came into view a heartbeat before the car went airborne. The tires crashed down hard, the undercarriage shrieking in a scream of metal on rock before the vehicle hit the rain-dimpled black surface of the water.

At some point the air bag had exploded in her face. Before that, her head had slammed hard against the side window. Now everything glittered before going black, then gray as the front of the car pitched forward, inky liquid lapping up over the hood.

Dazed, Anna lifted her head and touched her temple, her fingers coming away sticky with blood. She stared in confusion. Icy water lapped over her feet, quickly filling the floor-board as the car nosed forward at a steep angle, her seat belt cutting into her breasts.

She could hear static coming from the in-car emergency system just before it shorted out in a flash of orange as the car began to sink. Water gushed over the hood to lap against the windshield.

She tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge against the water already up to the side mirror.

She could hear the motor gurgling and realized it was still running. Would the electric windows still work? Frantically she hit the button as she fumbled with tremulous fingers to unlatch her seat belt.

Her side window hummed down. Ice cold water rushed in. She gasped as the water cascaded over her, filling her lap. The car pitched farther forward, the seat belt tightening painfully as the weight of her body pressed into it.

Hurriedly, she hit the window button. The glass began to whir back up, but a few inches from the top, it stopped. She pushed harder on the button as water cascaded over the top of the window, but the water had shorted out the rest of the electrical system.

Frantic, she grappled again to unlatch the seat belt as the breath-stealing cold water rose higher. The belt wouldn’t unlatch. She tried again and again but it was useless. The seat belt was jammed. The weight of her body seemingly binding it.

The freezing water splashed over her chest to her neck as the car steadily sank. She was going to drown. She gasped, now panicked and choking on the foul-smelling water that flooded her mouth and nose.

She fought to keep her head above water, but it was impossible. The car was sinking too quickly. The interior was almost completely full now, the water only inches from the headliner.

She closed her eyes and sucked in one last breath as the car completed its slow somersault to land on its top with a jarring thud on the bottom of the lake.

For a second, nothing moved. Anna hung upside down, suspended in the icy water by the seat belt, all sense of direction lost. She opened her eyes, still holding the last breath she’d taken. Her gaze followed the eerie dim path the headlights cut through the murky water.

Lungs bursting, mind starting to drift like her hair now floating around her face, she tried the seat belt release one more time even though she knew it was futile.

Her body cried out for oxygen. She had to take a breath. She couldn’t hold out any longer.

A tap at the side window.

Startled, she turned her head as if in slow motion and let out a cry, her last breath rushing from her lips at what she saw pressed against the glass.

CHAPTER TWO

GENE BRUBAKER BOLTED upright in bed. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath and frantically searched the room for whatever had awakened him.

The room was black except for the sliver of moonlight that knifed across the end of his bed through a crack in the drapes. He drew back from the light as fearful of it as the darkness.

He was sweating, his heart pounding too hard, his mouth dry. Another nightmare. The same nightmare. He was left with a cloying sense of dread that clung to his skin.

Lying back, he closed his eyes, opened them again, fearful of sleep. The clock on the bedside table read 11:57 p.m.

Throwing back the covers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, but had to take a moment before he could stand. He cursed the body that was letting him down. He didn’t feel his age, could hardly remember it, but he recalled looking in the mirror one day and being shocked to see a deeply wrinkled gray-haired man squinting back at him.

Stiffly, he finally rose. The floor felt cold on his bare feet as he padded over to the window. He still felt shaken, his legs weaker than usual, as he drew back the drapes. The rain had stopped. He could see the lake through the trees. The water shimmered in the moonlight, the surface burnished silver.

He lifted the window with some effort and took a deep breath of the cold spring night air, letting it fill his lungs. As if anything could chase away the nightmare. He let the breath out slowly as he looked past the trees along the shore of the lake to the expanse of open water beyond.

The night air chilled his clammy skin. He slammed the window and had started to pull the drapes closed again when he noticed a light up the block.

Although nearing midnight, it appeared someone was still up at the church.

He stared at the light, surprised by the sudden ache of need that overcame him. He’d avoided church since Gladys’s funeral and truthfully only attended before that to please his wife.

He glanced back at the huge bed, the crumpled sheets on only the one side. The ache of emptiness wasn’t new. Nor was the loneliness—or the guilt. He reached for his pants.

Gene Brubaker wasn’t a man who believed in omens. In fact, he wasn’t sure what if anything he believed in anymore. That’s why he didn’t stop to consider what he was doing as he left the house and walked the block down the street to the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.

He walked past the church every day, aware that for the past few months he’d moved to the other side of the street.