“We better get back to work,” she said, stooping low to gather an armful of the loose branches scattered across the ground.
She carried the limbs to the burn barrel and threw them in, watching as the hungry flames inside hissed around the damp boughs, sending up billowing plumes of smoke.
Behind her, Daniel had joined Jake, and they were discussing how to reframe the back corner of the boathouse and hang the drywall.
“Shouldn’t take more than a week or two, but let’s get the trunk sawed into rounds. You can chop them up later for firewood,” Jake said.
“All right, but let’s save a fifteen-foot section out of the middle. I’m gonna make a canoe.”
Jake laughed. “A canoe? Why?”
“Why not?”
Annie turned to find Jake giving Daniel a three-fingered salute. “You got it, Boy Scout.”
They all took turns with the chain saws, slicing the trunk into short sections that they rolled one at a time around the side of the boathouse. It was grueling work as the sun climbed higher, and the back of Annie’s shirt was completely soaked through with sweat by the time she set down the chain saw to give her screaming forearms a break.
Again, as though pulled by some force, her attention was drawn to Daniel, and she found him frozen, staring at something across the clearing.
Annie followed his gaze, and her mouth dropped open. A young woman was jogging through the open gate as if she owned the place, as if theNO TRESPASSINGsigns were welcome mats and it was the most natural thing in the world. She wore a lime-green tank top and black shorts, and Annie blinked at her in astonishment. It was Jamie Boyd, from down the road.
Annie turned back to Daniel, confused. He was no longer looking at Jamie, but was rolling a section of the trunk toward the pile like it was the most urgent task in the world.
“Hey, neighbors,” Jamie called as she jogged past, waving at Walt and Jake, who gave her identical head bobs from where they sat taking another smoke break. She ran straight toward Daniel, ponytail bouncing, and Annie wasn’t close enough to hear what was said, but Jamie rested her hand on his arm for a moment and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. Daniel gave a quick nod and she bounded toward the lake, wriggling out of her shorts and shirt on the bank, revealing the orange one-piece swimsuit underneath.
Annie watched in mute disbelief as Jamie climbed up onto the dock and stepped to the edge, pulling her ponytail free from the scrunchie that held it and executing a perfect dive into the water, slicing the surface with barely a splash.
As her body arced in the air, the sun caught her loose hair for asplit second, lighting it up like spun gold. Annie stared. It was the honey-blond hair of the passenger she’d seen riding in the Ranger.
It said so much, that ten-second interaction she’d just witnessed. Why else would Daniel let a woman have free rein of his land and lake? They must be together.
Jaw clenched, Annie turned back to the chain saw and yanked the motor to life.
Jamie was a stranger to her. And for that matter, Daniel was, too. The emotion in her chest was unwarranted, but she couldn’t deny what she felt.
Betrayal. Hot, nauseating betrayal.
She could kick herself for being so naïve. Here she was trying to catch Daniel’s eye all day when he was obviously with someone else. Someone a few years younger and a whole lot prettier. That strange pull she’d felt between them in the boat had been imaginary—a product of her lonely, aching heart, no doubt. It was pathetic to admit it, but she had wanted to look into a man’s eyes and see desire there, and so, she had invented it. It was as simple as that.
“Well, well, well, Mr. Barela,” Jake joked as Daniel returned for another round of the cedar trunk. “You got something you want to share with the class?”
Annie drove the humming chain saw hard into the trunk, drowning out Daniel’s reply in the spitting of bark and dust.
Chapter 15ANNIE
The mortuary was windowless, the wooden bench outside the door unadorned and perfunctory as it held Annie and Jake with their elbows on their knees, shoulders rounded in identical slumps.
The dead woman’s parents had arrived thirty minutes before and quickly identified the body on the table as their daughter, Hannah Schroeder. Mrs. Schroeder had burst into noisy tears as she stepped out through the suctioned door of the morgue, burying her face into her husband’s shoulder as his own went ashen. He seemed to Annie to be on the verge of fainting, and her instinct had been to look around wildly, wondering if there were smelling salts in any of the drawers, but Jake had jumped forward without hesitation, offering his own arms and shoulders for support as he guided the grieving parents to a set of chairs and took a knee before them, leading them in a prayer for peace.
Scolding herself, Annie had offered them paper cups filled with cold water from the cooler in the corner, and when they left with their arms tight around each other’s waist, Jake used the phone in the office to notify the Landers police department. Sheriff Smith informed him that he and his deputies were already tracking down Hannah’sboyfriend and would have more news soon, which left Jake and Annie free to resume business as usual. Neither felt like returning to the station right away, and they had been sitting outside in subdued silence ever since.
“You did good,” Annie said, straightening her back and reaching out to rest a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “What you did in there, for the Schroeders, it was good of you.”
Jake nodded his bowed head. “Mom always says it’s not the burden that breaks you, but whether or not you have someone to help you carry it. I sure do hope they find the guy and get some sort of confession out of him. Until then, those poor people are just going to be grieving over something senseless without answers.”
“Hey there, Jake.”
A tall man with silver at the temples of his dark face stepped up onto the curb, and Jake stood to shake his hand.
