He stopped walking and turned to face her for a moment. “May I offer you an outsider’s perspective?”
Annie nodded and Walt started walking again, the dappled sunlight falling in patches on his salt-and-pepper hair.
“I hope I’m not presuming too much, and stop me if I’m way off base here, but maybe the reason you’re fighting so hard against Daniel’s guilt is because he’s the one you’ve chosen in your heart, and you can’t bear to face the truth.”
Annie turned to him, the look in her eyes a silent confirmation of what he’d said, and Walt smiled sadly.
“Honey, Laura and I care about you. We want to see you happy aftereverything you’ve been through.” He chuckled softly. “Selfishly, I was hoping that you and Jake would fall for each other so I’d have you for a daughter-in-law, but you can’t force love. The heart wants what it wants.”
Annie had no idea her love life had been so transparent in Walt’s and Laura’s eyes, and she was flattered that they’d privately been hoping for something to happen between her and their son.
“It’s not that I don’t care about Jake. I do. A lot, actually. But with Daniel, it’s… different.” Annie shook her head. How could she explain it? “It’s like there was something about him that called out to me the first time we met. I don’t know exactly what it is, or how to put it into words, but I’ve never felt it with anyone else.”
Annie stopped talking, embarrassed by the emotion she’d just laid bare, but Walt merely nodded and neither commented nor pressed her for more.
“You wanna turn back?” he asked after a quiet minute.
Annie looked up, surprised to find that they’d made it all the way to theNO TRESPASSINGsigns. “No. I… I left something at the boathouse. I need to grab it.”
Walt nodded and they walked on.
The signs didn’t matter. The locked gate didn’t matter. The guardian of this clearing was not at home. It was time to check Daniel on his words. Time to test his claim of innocence.
When they reached the gate, Annie climbed up and over quickly while Walt followed behind, more laboriously.
“Haven’t been up here since that day we sawed up the cedar.” Walt dropped down onto firm ground with a grunt and gazed admiringly around the clearing. “Mighty pretty this time of year with the woods all filled in and the lake lit up like that.”
Annie nodded, but her eyes were on the boathouse. All of a sudden, she didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to walk into Daniel’s bedroom and look inside that nightstand. One way or the other, whatever happened in the next few minutes could alter the course of her future forever.
“Wait for me on the dock,” she said, “I’ll be just a minute.”
Annie jogged ahead, limbs spry with adrenaline, and slipped in through the side door. It was quiet inside, and the place already felt abandoned, the hall dark and much cooler than the warm summer day outside.
With her pulse surging in her throat, Annie stepped into Daniel’s bedroom and crossed to the nightstand. The drawer was ajar and she took a deep breath as she wrapped her fingers around the handle. With one hard tug, she pulled it open, and her heart sank.
There was no lighter inside.
All that the drawer contained were a small stack of novels, a hunting knife in a leather sheath, and a tapered candle, half burned.
Annie lifted out the books and tossed them onto the bed, then pulled out the knife and the candle. She yanked out the drawer with a jerk and stared into the hollow space it left behind, but there was simply no lighter. Desperate, she dropped to her knees and peered into the black and cobwebbed space beneath the nightstand.
She stretched an arm into the gap, hand patting around on the dusty floor as her heart raced. Then, just as she was about to pull her hand away, her fingertips brushed something small and smooth, and she grasped for it.
Annie drew it out—and opened her hand.
It was an orange lighter, wreathed in wispy cobwebs from where it had fallen unnoticed behind the nightstand.
She closed her eyes and let her head fall forward. A sound, half exhale, half laugh, passed her lips, and she clutched the blessed lighter to her heart.
“Thank you,” she offered in the briefest of prayers, and rose to her feet.
Walt was outside on the dock, seated on the edge with his shoes beside him, bare feet dangling in the water.
“Find what you came for?” he asked, turning to look at her.
“Yep.” She held up the little orange lighter jubilantly, turning it back and forth in the sunlight.
Walt gazed at it. “Huh…”
