“Why did you move her?” The question still burned, needing an answer, even as Annie inched closer to the edge of the dock and the three-foot jump down to the gravel where she would break into her sprint toward the gate. “Why not just let Daniel take the fall right from the start and leave her in the lake?”
Walt tilted his head, brows lifting as though the answer were obvious.
“I’m not an evil person, Annie. I didn’t want Daniel to take the fall for this any more than you did. That’s why I took the trouble to move her body out into the woods. In a perfect world, it would have been blamed on Justin Grimes the way it was supposed to, but that’s not how the cards fell. The fact that Justin had already been caught was bad luck, but when all’s said and done, Daniel’s the outsider. He never would have truly fit into this town, and it’s better for him to take the blame for this than for it to land on my shoulders and destroy my family. I’m a deacon, Annie, a deacon of the church and a pillar of the community. Do you have any idea what it would do to this town if the truth came out?”
This man was a sociopath. A narcissist. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Jake trusts you. Laura trusts you.Itrusted you. How could you do this?”
She had reached the end of the dock, and her heels teetered over the edge. Just one quick twist and she’d be down on the ground, running for her life.
“You’re right, Annie.” He nodded slowly. “My family trusts me. This town trusts me. And they’ll go on trusting me once all this is over and done with.”
His voice was calm, his face stoic, and Annie knew it then. Knew it with a certainty that filled her veins with ice. Walt Proudy was going to kill her.
For one last moment, they met each other’s gaze, both unblinking, both full of defiance, then Annie turned and threw herself from the dock.
She hit the gravel hard and stumbled forward onto her hands, skinning her bare knees as her feet slid for traction. Behind her, the old boards creaked as Walt lunged across the dock, but he was too late, she was already back on her feet with her sights on the gate gleaming across the clearing like a beacon of safety.
One of the propane tanks rattled as Walt lifted it from the dock, and Annie broke into a sprint, not daring to look back.
She heard it coming.
Heard it parting the air behind her, the very particles singing as the heavy can came sailing toward her, and she offered up a wordless cry for deliverance a moment before the tank slammed into the back of her skull and everything went black.
Chapter 42JAKE
The tires spun over gravel, spitting sharp pebbles out behind the car with a sound like falling rain as Jake sped up the hills of Lake Lumin Road.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he urged the cruiser, foot hard on the gas.
It had never taken so long to reach home, and the twisting fear in his gut told him he was running out of time. Annie was smart. And fiery. And impulsive. If she had managed to put it all together, she would confront Walt by herself, Jake had no doubt of that, and there was no telling how his father would respond. Jake knew better than anyone else that Walt was stronger than he looked, ex-military, and if backed into a corner, he was capable of anything. If Annie had figured it out, then she was in danger.
The Proudy house appeared on the left, the home of his childhood, serene and lovely where it sat in dappled sunlight beneath the pines, the place where his best and earliest memories had been formed.
It would not register. It would not sink in, and Jake had sense enough to know that he was probably in shock, but he would deal with the emotional fallout later. There was no time to think, only to act.
As he whipped the cruiser left into the driveway, he slammed the heel of his hand into the center of the steering wheel, blaring the horn until the front door opened. His mother appeared, her face lined with confusion as she took in the sight of the police car, lights whirling as it skidded to a halt in front of the house.
Jake jammed the cruiser into park and threw open the door, stepping out with one foot on the ground.
“Where is he?” he shouted. “Where’s Dad?”
She pointed an arm up the road. “He went for a walk with Annie. I saw them heading that way about an hour ago. What’s wrong?”
Jake allowed himself one more breath before delivering the news no one should ever have to receive.
“He killed Jamie, Mom. Dad killed her.”
Laura’s face went blank as stone, completely expressionless, and with everything in him, Jake wanted to go to her, to wrap her in his arms and offer her the comfort that they both needed, but there was no time.
“Stay inside,” he shouted, pointing at the house. “Lock the doors and windows and don’t let Dad in if he comes back, no matter what he says, understand? I called Austin and he’s on the way with backup.”
Jake left her where she was, wide-eyed on the stoop, and tore out of the driveway.
The woods blurred past as the cruiser shot uphill toward the clearing, every passing second ratcheting up his urgency, and when the firstNO TRESPASSINGsign appeared, he reached for the loaded Glock waiting on the passenger seat and flipped off the safety.
Ahead through the trees, the lake waited, bathed in sunlight and sparkling blue, but Jake’s eyes were on the boathouse—on the flash of movement there on the dock.
