You know them because you’re one of them, she thought but didn’t say.

He continued without pause. “They will try to drag this out and squeeze all the money they can out of us. They’ll bleed us dry, I tell you.”

“Of course.” He didn’t care she left him. No, this phone call was about making sure one of his colleagues didn’t get a dime of his money. If it wasn’t so pitiful, she might’ve laughed.

“Okay, then we’re in agreement? No lawyers?” He was in a rush. He must’ve had another call coming in or a meeting or a rendezvous.

“I guess.” She didn’t care one way or the other. For her it was never about the money. “Would you like to talk with your daughter?” Please say yes, please show her you care even if you no longer care for me. It was the only reason she had left him the phone number in the first place.

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m in a hurry.”

“It will only take a second. She misses you.”

“I have to go. No lawyers, Patricia. Do you hear me? I mean it.” He hung up.

Sara trotted into the kitchen. “Was that Daddy?”

“Yes,” she said, and kissed the top of Sara’s head. “He wanted me to tell you how much he misses you and how sorry he is he couldn’t talk to you. And”—she touched the tip of Sara’s nose with her finger—“he wants you to have a whole lot of fun while you’re here. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes,” Sara said. “Did you tell him I miss him, too?”

Patricia nodded and watched her daughter skip back into the family room. She could’ve forgiven Kyle for the affair. Maybe. Eventually. But she could never forgive him for being a lousy father.

It was hard to believe that had been five days ago, five days that her daughter was missing. She had thought by returning to the lake, the one place from her childhood she had loved, she could escape her troubles back home—six hours west across the state of Pennsylvania in a small rural town where the gossip about her marriage, her once private life, was sure to have spread. She had thought by returning to the lake, she could finally be happy.

*   *   *

Patricia was sitting on the hood of a car with her feet propped on the front bumper in the parking lot outside of the Pavilion. She couldn’t say whose car it was or what the make or model could be, but whoever owned it had parked it lakefront, close to the water’s edge. It was where she had to be. And what difference did it make whose car it was anyway? What could they do to her that hadn’t already been done?

Stars filled the night sky, the threat of another storm having evaporated hours ago. Music poured from the Pavilion’s jukebox, glasses clinked, people talked and laughed. The lake spread out before her like an endless, bottomless, black pit.

She pulled Sara’s cloth doll from the pocket of her jeans and hugged it close to her chest. Sara had slept with the doll, Dolly, since she was born. It was old and torn, and some of the stuffing had fallen out, but it was well loved. She could smell her daughter on the cotton fabric, the way she smelled from sleep, a mixture of sweetness and innocence.

Men’s voices echoed across the lake and drew her attention. She gazed at the lone watercraft and what she believed was a fisherman. She dried her wet eyes with the doll the way Sara used to when she cried.

Dolly had dried a lot of Sara’s tears that came with scraped knees and bumped elbows. She was always getting hurt. She was a fearless child. She had demanded riding her bike without training wheels at five years old. And just three weeks ago, in what felt like another lifetime, she had become fascinated with the neighbor’s skateboard. “Look at me, Mommy,” she had called, racing down the hill before Patricia could stop her. She had been going much too fast, barreling toward the neighbor’s garbage cans.

“Watch out!” Patricia had shouted, and ran down the hill after her. Sara had crashed into the cans before she could reach her. She had scooped her up, inspecting her birdlike arms and skinny legs.

“I’m okay, Mommy,” Sara had said, and swiped away her tears. “I want to try again.”

The memory brought a smile to Patricia’s lips. She imagined it was that same sense of adventure that had led Sara into the water. Maybe it was all the talk about the horse and the lake legend that had sparked Sara’s curiosity. Sara loved horses, especially ponies. But Patricia would never know what led her daughter into the lake alone, and she blamed herself.

*   *   *

A light was turned on in one of the lakefront cabins across the way. She hadn’t realized she had been staring, and started counting the cabins closest to the docks. Sure enough, the seventh cabin was Hawkes’, the one with the lighted rooms.

On their first day here, she had every intention of knocking on the Hawkes’ door, the peach pie she never got around to baking in hand, and introducing Sara to a real family, a loving family. She had never forgotten Billy, of course, but she also had never forgotten his older sister, Dee Dee, who had babysat Patricia every summer when she had been a child. Patricia’s parents had spent most of their nights at the Pavilion bar or the Lake House, dining, drinking, dancing. But to the Hawke family, the lake was home, not some place to whoop it up every night. And Patricia loved this about them. She had felt safest in their care.

She wished she had stayed in touch with them through the years. She was only ten years old when she last saw them. Her parents had come home fighting after a late night of drinking. Dee Dee had been babysitting. Her father had stormed into the Hawkes’ cabin just before dawn.

“We’re leaving,” he had said, and grabbed Patricia’s small overnight bag. Her mother had scooped her into her arms. She had stared over her mother’s shoulder at Dee Dee standing in the middle of the family room, the money Patricia’s father had tossed fluttering to the floor at Dee Dee’s feet.

They had driven home that morning never to return. Patricia had never gotten to say good-bye.

Things with her parents had gone from bad to worse when her father had lost his job. It had been the last family vacation for the Dugans.

*   *   *

Tonight, sitting on the hood of some stranger’s car staring at Hawkes’ cabin, her daughter still out there somewhere, she wondered how her plans could’ve gone so terribly wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jo pulled the old Chevy into one of the two spots in the far corner of the yard reserved for parking. She cut the engine. They had been at the hospital for the better part of the day. The sun had set hours earlier. The rush of adrenalin she had felt speeding behind the ambulance, the fear for Gram’s health, had all but faded. She was tired, but more than that, she was relieved.

Gram remained quiet the entire ride home. Caroline was silent in the backseat.

Kevin was sitting on the steps under the porch light waiting for their return. Jo had called from the hospital to tell him where they were, what had happened. He held a guitar in his lap, but he wasn’t playing. The sight of him sitting there with a guitar aggravated her. A part of her blamed that damned guitar for all her troubles no matter how crazy it sounded.

He rushed to the passenger side door to help Gram out of the car. He wrapped his arm around Gram’s waist. “You gave me quite a scare,” he said.

“I’m fine, really,” Gram assured him, and yet she let him help her. She was practically swooning with the attention.

He had always known how to suck up to her parents. Even Pop had thought Kevin was Jo’s savior, swooping in, marrying her when she had gotten pregnant, protecting her reputation, or rather, wasn’t it the family’s reputation Pop had been concerned about? She didn’t know nor did she care. Kevin had the same effect on Gram, making a huge deal about Gram’s cooking, jumping in to help with chores whenever he was around. He played the part of son-in-law so well, even Jo bought into it.