Shadow Lake

Now when he neared the church, the street deserted, his jacket pulled around him as he huddled against the cold, he wondered what he was doing. Possibly just taking a walk to clear his head. The rain had left the night air damp and filled with the smell of the wet street, and he was struck with the thought that it was too cold for late April even for a town in the Northern Cascades of Washington.

Fortunately, there was no one around this time of the night. Or this time of the year in the town of Shadow Lake. Still too early for tourists with Memorial Day weeks away.

The town’s only stoplight flashed yellow down the street as he climbed the broad stone steps to the front entrance of the church, half-hoping to find the door locked. Not that there was much chance of that. Shadow Lake was so small and isolated from the real world that there was no need for anybody to lock their doors. Especially churches.

The door was heavier than he remembered it. But then again he was getting weaker each day. He had to push hard to get it to swing open and when it did, he hesitated. This was crazy. Wasn’t this the last place he should be?

A dim light burned inside. What was it he thought he’d find here? he wondered now. Salvation? Or redemption?

He had started to turn to leave when he heard the rustle of clothing and saw an elderly priest rise awkwardly from one of the pews up front and turn toward him.

Father Tom Bertonelli met his gaze. With the flick of the priest’s arthritic fingers, his old friend motioned him inside.

Brubaker let the church door close behind him, the smell of the rain and night quickly replaced by the familiar scents of his thirty-eight-year marriage. It evoked both longing and sadness. A lump formed in his throat and he felt close to tears again. Christ, he needed to get some sleep. These nightmares were killing him. His life was killing him.

He wanted to laugh at the irony of that as he glanced toward the confessionals, the church feeling too large, too vacuous. The priest gave a faint nod. Like a sleepwalker, Gene moved toward the polished wood of the confessional, his footsteps echoing across the marble floor.

He was glad when the confessional door closed behind him and he was sitting on the worn seat in the dark, the seclusion giving him a sense of safety if not peace.

Tom Bertonelli had been his friend for years. They’d fished together, shared meals up at the house, talked politics. But that had been before Gladys died, before Gene Brubaker had lost all faith.

Leaning back in the shadowy darkness, he closed his eyes as he heard the door to the adjacent confessional open, then close softly as the priest arranged his robes.

Brubaker didn’t open his eyes.

“What troubles you?” Tom asked in a voice dry as parchment.

The lump rose in his throat again. He swallowed. “Father, I have sinned.”

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, ROB Nash parked under the wide branches of a large old pine tree along the quiet street next to a pile of dirty snow. Cutting his headlights and engine, he settled in to wait.

Rain dimpled the mud puddles along the unpaved back street. All the houses were dark except for one. The other houses were mostly summer cabins, boarded up for the winter. The seasonal residents wouldn’t be returning until Memorial Day weekend and it was only April.

A drenched cat crept across the muddy street and disappeared into a honeysuckle hedge. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

It was Tuesday, a notoriously slow night of the week in Shadow Lake, Washington, in the Northern Cascades. Not that there was much trouble in the town this time of year, given that few people wintered-in. The number of residents dropped drastically during the cold months.

It was another story in the summer, though. Tourists flocked to the lake to boat and fish and shop for antiques and curios, causing traffic problems and all the disturbances that came with the increase in population.

Nash hated summers. The town got too hectic, too crowded. That was one reason he wasn’t looking forward to another busy season and wondered if it wasn’t time for him to retire. He had a new bride to think about.

He’d put in thirty-five years and yet he was still young. Relatively. Fifty-five wasn’t that old anymore. He could spend more time fishing. Spend more time with Lucinda, something he wished he had done more of lately.

Headlights flashed at the other end of the street as a car turned and headed toward him. Nash slid down a little in his seat and picked up his binoculars to watch through the half circle in the steering wheel and the low-slung branches of the thick pine he’d pulled under.

He felt like a fool. Worse, he felt disloyal. He’d made a point of letting everyone believe he would be in Pilot’s Cove for a couple of days. He hated this kind of deception and had always believed he was a better man than that. Right now he wished both were true.

The approaching car’s headlights went out just before the vehicle pulled into the driveway of the only house with lights on down the street, a single-level white brick rancher with a two-car attached garage. Nash felt a jolt as he recognized the car—and the driver.

The front door opened and a young, slim woman rushed out of the house. She’d obviously been expecting her visitor because she wore her red raincoat, the one Nash had bought her for her birthday.

Nash saw her face and the driver’s for only an instant as she opened the car door, the dome light coming on. Lucinda Nash slid into the passenger seat. The door closed and the dome light shut off.

Son of a bitch. Nash sat up with a jerk, throwing open the patrol-car door as he drew his weapon. And just moments before, he’d felt bad for being suspicious and deceitful. Apparently he’d had every reason. Hadn’t he known something was going on with his wife?

His mind racing, he tried to come up with a reason other than the obvious one for why she would have gone out this time of the night—let alone with that particular man.

Nash had witnessed his share of affairs over the years. It’s what a man got for spending a good part of his life on dark streets when good people were in bed asleep. He was no stranger to the uglier side of humankind. He’d seen things he hadn’t wanted to see, the kind of things that left him with a nasty taste in his mouth and a shitty impression of humanity in general.

Now he tried to catch his breath, to still the trembling in his limbs. His radio squawked. He ignored it. He stumbled out into the muddy street, the rain pounding out a staccato beat on the car’s roof as he slammed his door behind him. Fuck retirement. He was going to kill the bastard. Kill them both.

The car in front of his house backed out slowly. Nash stopped and gripped the weapon in both hands, willing the driver of the car to turn down the street toward him.

But the driver turned back the way he’d come, keeping to the dark pines along the edge of town.

Nash raised the gun as the car took off, the taillights disappearing in the rain and darkness before he could get off a shot.

He took a couple of steps after the retreating car before staggering back under the weight of his discovery. His palm came down on the warm wet hood of the patrol car as he caught himself to keep from falling.

For a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He fought to breathe, his chest heaving. His stomach convulsed. Launching himself toward the dried weeds under the tree, he retched until he was almost too empty to stand.

Behind him, his radio continued to squawk. He caught only snatches of what was being said. The operator from one of those fancy in-car emergency systems had called about an accident on the way into town.

Leaning against the car, Police Chief Rob Nash wiped his eyes, then slowly holstered his weapon before stumbling back to drop into the front seat of his patrol car. He had started to reach for the radio when he heard his second in command take the call.

CHAPTER THREE

ANNA COLLINS TRIED to open her eyes, the weight of her lids like concrete shutters. Light filtered in at the edge of her vision, growing brighter.

“She’s awake, Doctor,” a female voice said nearby.

The room swam in a sea of green and white. She focused on a nurse standing at the end of the bed. A hospital room?

Head pounding, she blinked in confusion, time and sense of place lost, leaving only one thought: She’d been here before. Or had she? She closed her eyes again, preferring the darkness.

“How are you feeling?” said a deep, older male voice next to her.

She forced her eyes all the way open. An elderly man stood beside her bed. His thick gray hair was rumpled as if he’d just gotten out of bed. His face was deeply wrinkled, skin weathered as if from the sun and wind. He wore canvas hunting pants and a flannel shirt beneath the white lab coat that flapped open as he moved closer. He smelled of cinnamon.

She watched him move something around in his mouth. He made a smacking sound, then pushed what appeared to be a round candy into his cheek as he eyed her with pale blue eyes faded by age.

Although he had a stethoscope around his neck, he looked nothing like any doctor she’d ever seen.

“Hello,” he said, giving her a smile, the candy making his cheek protrude on the one side. “I’m Dr. Gene Brubaker.”

She was in a hospital. Anna wet her dry lips as she glanced around the room, her thoughts jumbled, her head aching. The drapes were drawn on the window, but she could see through a slim opening. It was dark out.

She glanced at her wrist. No watch. Instead, she found that her arm was hooked up to an IV. “What…time…”