Jax tried not to roll his eyes. “Prayers only work if you believe, which I don’t.”
Pamela blanched. “I pray for your soul, Jax Edwards. I really do.”
“That makes one of us.”
“I miss her, too, you know.” Her words stabbed Jax in the heart, and he felt that heaviness in his gut like a tapeworm, eating away at him from the inside out. He almost turned around, almost laid his soul bare until, as usual, his sister ruined the moment. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d drop to your knees and beg for forgiveness right this second. Don’t you want eternal life? Don’t you want to see Mom again?”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“It’s called faith. You should try it sometime.”
Her words made him want to punch the wall, because he had tried, damn it. He’d prayed to his sister’s Lord for faith—how messed up was that? Every night before he fell asleep and a million times during the day, he’d beg for even a smidge of belief in this higher power his sister was always yammering on about, if for no other reason than the promise of some of Pamela’s peace. What a relief it must be to know that all this was just temporary, to think that life on earth was only an annoying stepping-stone to something better, a place where no one dies and no one has to miss anyone.
But Jax didn’t believe in Pamela’s Lord, just like he didn’t believe in bigfoot or aliens or the tooth fairy. His mom was buried under a pile of dirt and rock at Whiteside Cemetery, not sitting like a guardian angel on his shoulder. How do you make yourself believe in something when you don’t? How do you convince yourself of things you can’t see? Jax had no freaking clue.
He wanted his family back, damn it. Not just his mother but the way things used to be, when the house was filled with laughter and music and the smell of freshly baked cookies. He wanted the sister who didn’t preach at him all the time, and the dad who looked up from his computer for more than five seconds, a dad who bothered to be a father. He knew they were suffering, but damn it, so was he, and they were too self-absorbed to notice. He wanted to live in this big house full of people and not feel so alone.
Oh, and while he was at it, Jax might as well admit that he’d really like to cry. A good son would have shed some tears for his dead mother, wouldn’t he? He would have stood at her graveside and felt something other than stone-cold fury.
But so far, not one measly fucking tear.
5
Sam Kincaid is the first officer to arrive and the last person I want to see. I spot his familiar face through the front window, his eyes steady on the driveway as he zigzags his way down the snarled strip of concrete, and a flash of heat lingers on my skin like sunburn.
He scrapes to a halt at the flat stretch of driveway, and I open the door, stepping out into the cold. I’ve changed into jeans and my warmest sweater, but I left my shoes upstairs. The wind has picked up since I raced up the hill, dipping the temperature into what must be single digits, carrying with it a heavy whiff of snow. Already my feet are like ice, the tips of my toes tingling with frostbite.
Sam unfolds himself from the car, all long limbs and the surly expression I’ve gotten used to seeing take over his face whenever his gaze lands on mine. His siren is off, but the lights swirl with urgency, painting the house and the hill in blood red and bruise blue.
“Charlie,” he says, greeting me with a formal nod.
Like everybody else I grew up with, Sam knows that calling me Charlie is the best way to piss me off. I bite down on my lips and hold my tongue. If Sam’s looking to get a rise out of me, then I refuse to give it to him.
“It had to be you, huh?” I say, folding my arms across my chest. “Of all the people Chief Hunt could have sent over, I guess he couldn’t find anybody else?”
Sam slams the door with his hip, tugging a wool cap from his pocket against the cold. The Kincaid men are all bald as eagles, and whatever hair Sam has left he keeps shaved close to his head. This way, he once told me, he won’t have to know when it happens to him.
“Come on. You’re kidding me, right?” Sam says in his solid, mountain man accent, the kind that says he hasn’t ventured far outside these hills. “Another body washed up under the Keller dock. You better believe I volunteered.”
I clamp down on my poker face because the words sting. A year ago I would have called him on it. I would have punched him on the shoulder and told him to stop being such an ass. I sift through all the things I could say instead—that this is different and he knows it, that the first woman was an accident, a crazy, tragic fluke that despite Sam’s best efforts he couldn’t prove was a crime—but we’ve had this conversation before. Sam is a cop, which means he needs someone to vilify, to lock in a cell so Lake Crosby can feel safe again. He needs someone to play the part of the monster.
And he thinks that someone is Paul.
He steps away from his car, his big boots thumping on the drive. “You didn’t touch her, did you?”
“Come on, Sam. You know I didn’t.”
“I don’t know that. I used to think I knew you, but then...”
“But then what?” I know what, but I want to hear him say it. I want him to look me in the eye and say those ugly words again. I’ve had five months to prepare for this. This time I’m ready.
He holds my gaze for a second or two, then shakes his head and looks away.
In a flash, an image of Sam leaning an elbow on my counter at the gas station, back when we were best friends. Of him chugging cup after cup of stale coffee, using it to wash down enough powdered doughnuts to win a county fair contest. Of me teasing him about his hollow leg as I rang him up, wondering with the other customers where he put it all. He joked that he burned off the calories chasing bad guys.
And just like that, I feel it, that pang of missing him. Despite all the ugly words he said. Despite all the tears I cried. I still miss the guy, damn it. I do.
I shut the door in his face.
* * *
Ten minutes later, the hill is swarming with cops. They march up and down the back steps with their bags and equipment, dumping everything onto the ground and stringing yellow tape around the edges of the water. They clomp up the dock and hang their upper bodies over the edge, shaking their heads and exchanging grim looks. They tip their faces up the hill to mine, watching from the living room window, and their expressions look much like Sam’s.
I step back from the glass, a giant solid plate overlooking the lake and trees that stretch up into smoky blue mountains. Like most people from the muddy side of the mountain, those cops down there resent my newfound life. They think I’ve abandoned my friends and my family and my morals for the comforts of a fancy house up on a hill.