The closer she got to his place, the stronger the feeling in her gut told her to turn around. She shouldn’t be seen near his home. It was a stupid risk. But she was always drawn to do the very thing she shouldn’t, powerless to stop herself. Besides, the cabin was dark, and it appeared as though no one were home. Otherwise, she would’ve kept moving. But she allowed herself to linger and gaze at the place she had once known so well. It had been years since she had seen it. Even in the shadows, it looked taken care of, recently sided, a sign the Hawkes lived here year-round.

She took a small step forward.

There were countless times when she had scrambled up these same steps, banged on the screen door, called for Billy. He was always there waiting, grinning in that crazy silly way he had. A part of her wanted to believe if she bounded up the steps right now and knocked on the door he would be there, and she could fall into his arms as though nothing bad had come between them. She liked to think it could happen, but of course she knew it could not.

The porch swing creaked, pulling her from her thoughts. Its chains rattled. She jumped at the sight of Billy’s older sister.

“Jo? Is that you?” Dee Dee walked toward her. There was something off about the way she moved, a kind of clumsiness in her stride.

Jo instinctively backed up. “I—I didn’t know anyone was home.” She diverted her eyes from Dee Dee’s face. It hurt too much to look at her straight on. The resemblance to Billy, what he might’ve looked like had he aged, was too much to bear. She stuffed the phone into the back pocket of her jeans, looking for a way out. She never should’ve stopped here. Why didn’t she turn around? Why was Dee Dee sitting on the porch in the dark anyway?

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you around here.” Dee Dee was wearing cut-off jean shorts, a black T-shirt with a JACK DANIELS decal stamped across the front.

“I’m helping.” Jo’s words got mixed up. “For a few days. Cleaning out closets.” Although Gram hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “I should get back,” she said, taking another step away.

“What’s your hurry? You don’t have a few minutes to talk to an old friend?”

Jo almost laughed at the idea that they were ever friends. For as long as she had known Dee Dee, they never had been. When she was young and had first started dating Billy, she hadn’t understood why his sister hadn’t liked her. But she knew the reason now, knew why Dee Dee had treated her with so much disdain.

“I really should get back,” Jo said, taking another couple steps backward before turning away.

“Chris said he tried to find that little girl.” Chris’s father had taken off before Chris had been born, leaving Dee Dee to raise him on her own. The fact that Kevin had stayed when Jo was pregnant around the same time had always left Dee Dee a little bitter. “And Johnny tried to find her too,” Dee Dee added.

Jo stopped at the mention of Johnny’s name. Leave Johnny out of this, she heard herself say in a whispering voice. By the time she turned around, Dee Dee had caught up to her.

“What did you say?” Dee Dee asked.

“Nothing,” she said, trying to sound calm. The last thing she wanted was to provoke her. “I didn’t say anything.”

Dee Dee grabbed Jo’s bicep with her large hand and squeezed. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?” She tried pulling her arm free, but Dee Dee held on tightly.

“Shhh,” Dee Dee said.

There was no telling what Dee Dee heard, but Jo listened anyway, believing it had to be something because Dee Dee always had these crazy animallike senses. She’d turn up wherever Jo and Billy were, appearing suddenly whenever they were fooling around no matter how quiet they whispered into each other’s ears, tugged at each other’s clothes, moaned into each other’s shoulders. It was as though she could not only hear their bodies coming together, but also smell their pheromones.

And one time when they were lying on the dock, Billy’s face buried in her chest, she spied Dee Dee watching them from the doorway of Hawkes’ cabin, the little girl she babysat every summer clinging to Dee Dee’s leg. She had glared at Dee Dee over the top of Billy’s head. In a way she had been challenging her, daring her to try and come between them.

But all Jo heard tonight was the buzz of crickets, the water lapping against the bank near their feet.

“The water. The lake. It flows through our veins, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Dee Dee said. “We can’t stop it. It’s like venom.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Jo tried again to pull her arm free, but there was no way she could out-muscle her. Dee Dee was tall and strong and angry.

Dee Dee moved in close. Her breath reeked of beer. “It runs through our veins. Our family. Our kids. It gets inside you, and it’s so goddamn beautiful, you can’t help but drink it up.”

“Yes,” Jo said, wanting to sound agreeable if only Dee Dee would let her go. “It can be irresistible.”

“It was for my brother. I wish he would’ve stayed the hell away from you.”

Dee Dee was no longer talking about the lake; rather, she was referring to Jo, blaming her for what had happened to him.

“Did you hear they found his bones?” Dee Dee continued, squeezing Jo’s bicep.

“So it’s true? They’re Billy’s?”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course, they are. And I should have a report soon to prove it.”

“Right,” Jo said, thinking out loud. “The sheriff would’ve had to send them to a lab or something.”

“That’s right.” Dee Dee moved in closer, her sour breath warm on Jo’s face. “Do you want to tell me what they’ll find now? Or later?”

“Nothing. How should I know? It was ruled an accident.” Her upper arm was stinging, her lower arm nearly numb.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Dee Dee said. “And you know it.” She shoved Jo and stumbled. Jo caught her. Somehow their arms and legs entwined. They took an awkward step backward and sideways as though they were stepping to some kind of strange dance. It took all Jo’s strength to keep from falling, or maybe it was Dee Dee’s sturdy body that kept them off the ground. It happened so quickly, Jo couldn’t be sure. But once they found their footing, they couldn’t get away from each other fast enough. They broke apart and stared at each other. A moment of silence stretched between them.

Finally Dee Dee said, “You were his girlfriend. He trusted you.”

I know he did! Jo wanted to scream.

CHAPTER TEN

Caroline woke with her sheets damp and sticky. Already the day felt warm and muggy, but it was the dreams of Sara that had kept her tossing and turning through the night, making her break out in a cold sweat. Her mouth was dry, her throat sore. She remembered yelling in the last dream, screaming really, for Sara to swim faster lest the snappers in the water drag her down. In the real world, snappers didn’t behave as predators, but rather more like scavengers, eating what was dead at the bottom of the lake. In dreamland, of course, rules of nature were broken and all bets were off.

She threw back the covers and shuffled into the kitchen in her pajamas in search of a cool drink. Her mother was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. Her eyes were cast down, but she looked up when Caroline opened the refrigerator door and removed the jug of water that had been pumped from the well. Lake water.

“Don’t drink that,” her mother said, and grabbed the jug from Caroline’s hands.

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“Just drink something else for once, will you?” Her mother stood and poured the lake water down the drain in the kitchen sink.

“Why?” Her mother was acting as though Caroline wanted to drink poison.

“Have some milk or orange juice,” her mother said.

She yanked open the refrigerator door for the second time and pulled out the pitcher of juice. Sometimes it felt as though everything she did annoyed her mother, including her choice of beverage.