“She’s better.” Caroline avoided his eyes.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, and glanced out at the lake before settling his gaze on the three of them.

Caroline didn’t say anything more, waiting for Adam’s mother to turn them in. But she said nothing. The sheriff tipped his hat again and headed in the direction of the docks, where Stimpy and his men were finishing setting up the large tent that would become the control center for the tournament.

Caroline and Adam exchanged awkward glances.

“Well,” his mother said, “maybe he’s forgotten all about it with everything else going on.” She motioned to the festival and then the recovery team on the lake. “I suspect it’s because they’re still searching.” She waved her finger at them. “You won’t be so lucky if there’s a next time. Do you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caroline said.

Adam’s mother grabbed his arm again. “And one more thing,” she said to Caroline. “I’d appreciate it if you two would stop all this wild talk about that horse’s bit and that stupid lake legend.”

Adam’s face was flushed. “It’s not her fault, Mom,” he said.

Caroline wondered what Adam had said to her. She didn’t understand why his mother was so worked up. Unless … “Ma’am, do you believe in the legend?”

His mother hesitated. “I suppose when I was a kid, I did. And I understand why you kids find it fascinating. Finding that metal bit is like discovering buried treasure. I understand that, too. But the whole thing is giving him nightmares.”

“Mom,” Adam protested.

His mother continued. “I think it’s best if you two just stopped talking about it altogether. In fact, maybe it’s best if you two just stayed away from each other for awhile,” she said to Caroline.

The look in Adam’s eyes said he was sorry. His mother held onto his arm and marched him into the Pavilion.

*   *   *

Caroline walked with her head down, kicking up pebbles and dust as she made her way across the lot. She didn’t know Adam was having nightmares. She was having them too, but a different kind. She was sorry she had gotten him in trouble with his mother. She didn’t know what to do to make it right.

By the time she had reached the docks, she decided to stick to her original plan to talk with Chris’s mom. She had nothing to lose. The summer had been ruined, or so it seemed, anyway. And now all she wanted was the truth.

“And the truth will set you free,” she said, wondering where she had heard the expression before. It may have come from Pop. He was always offering up quotes as little life lessons, a habit that drove her mother crazy. Caroline had never minded. Her mother saw them as judgmental, a personal attack on the decisions her mother had made, the ones that revolved around teenage pregnancy. And now Caroline was sure Johnny was at the center of whatever tortured her mother. But why?

Out of guilt, she avoided the pier where the fishermen’s boats were docked and their traps were set, trekking her way through the woods behind the lakefront cabins. She zigzagged around trees, ducked under branches, and counted, the seventh cabin being Hawkes’ cabin. Another one of Pop’s expressions crossed her mind: Be careful what you wish for. She ignored the warning and kept moving.

The shade of the trees did little to block the heat from the sun. She tried to ignore the warm flow between her legs, making her body temperature run hotter than normal. When she reached her destination, she pressed her back against one of the old oak trees. What if Chris was home? She couldn’t face him again, not twice in one day. How would she explain what she was doing here? Would he think she didn’t believe the things he had said about his mom? Would he think she was stalking him? God, he was so cute.

She hid behind the tree in the back of the cabin, when she heard the screen door open and voices coming from the front porch. Two women were talking. Their conversation was stilted at first and then turned into a hushed silence. Caroline imagined them hugging when one of them sobbed. The screen door banged shut, muffling their voices now that they were inside.

She slid down the trunk and sat at the base of the tree. She’d have to wait it out. She picked up a twig and poked some leaves on the ground. Then she made circles in the dirt. She spelled her name and then wiped it away. When she looked up from the ground, she noticed the old fire pit and the rock with the painted initials J+B.

She threw the twig at the rock. She hated Billy for reasons she didn’t fully understand and she couldn’t properly explain. It wasn’t nice hating someone who was dead, but she did hate him. She thought about the old Lake Reporter: Sixteen-year-old local boy William J. Hawke disappeared. Her father said he wasn’t friends with him, but the article in the paper said otherwise. She wondered if maybe her father didn’t like Billy either, since he was once her mother’s old boyfriend. It was possible. Maybe that was why she had such strong feelings about not liking him too.

“William J.,” she said to herself. A disturbing thought crossed her mind. Could the J stand for “John?” William John Hawke. And if it did, could Johnny be named after Billy? Was that the big secret? She did the math, figuring the date Billy died and the month Johnny was born. And then there were the similarities between Johnny and Chris, their smile, their swagger.

Her stomach took a slow roll.

The possibility that Johnny was Billy’s son and not her father’s left her breathless. She sprung to her feet, gasping for air. How could her mother lie to her and her father? Or did her father know Johnny wasn’t his? Then again, maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was working herself up for no reason. But she felt so much rage inside her.

She picked up a large branch and struck the rock with her mother’s and Billy’s initials over and over until the branch snapped. She searched the ground, grabbing rocks and throwing them at random into the woods. She picked up more stones. One of them sliced her palm with its sharp edge. The cut was small, but deep enough for blood to drip down the side of her arm.

I hate you, she said about her mother. With all her might, she lifted the rock with the stupid initials and flipped it over so she didn’t ever have to look at it again. I hate you.

She pulled the baseball cap off her head, covered her face with it, and cried.

Everything felt like a lie. Her family was a lie.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Dee Dee opened the screen door to find a strange woman on her front porch. The woman’s clothes were rumpled, her sandaled feet dirty. The wide-rimmed sun hat cast shadows across her face, and yet there was something familiar about her.

“Can I help you?” She leaned against the doorjamb, holding the door open with her bare foot. She crossed her arms. She had been home for a total of ten minutes, her body exhausted after pulling a double shift. And after sitting in the sheriff’s office the last hour, her emotions were just as worn, cast, and dragged like grappling hooks, sharp with anger but also filled with hope now that the bones were in fact Billy’s and the case was officially reopened. She didn’t have the energy to humor this woman who was holding a small stuffed doll in one hand and extending the other for her to shake. She looked at the woman’s hand, the nails bitten down to the cuticles. She kept her arms folded.

“It’s me.” The woman clearly was on edge, and her voice had a desperate pleading quality.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” The second the question came out, she recognized her as the woman whose little girl had drowned.

“Yes, you do,” the woman said, and launched herself at Dee Dee, wrapping her thin arms around Dee Dee’s neck. She laid her head on Dee Dee’s shoulder, letting the sun hat fall to the porch floor, and sobbed. Her breath smelled like coffee. Her hair was greasy. She was filthy, and she was on the verge of coming undone.