Spirit Lake (2 page)

After settling Rusty back in his cage, she went back to the cabin to trade her bulky sweater for a more serviceable sweatshirt that wouldn't snag—no telling what she'd find out there tonight—and lined windbreaker. She'd need the windbreaker to ward off the chill of the fog they invariably got each night and morning, a fog seeping in already, filling in the edges of the shadows.

She headed down the incline to the dock. Nighthawks crisscrossed overhead as always, their quiet screeching calls singing in a rhythm like a mother's lullaby.

Laurel climbed in the boat, her boots clunking against the aluminum, its sound echoing back across the bay. She lived on the densely-wooded north finger of Spirit Lake, the area's longest and deepest lake. Her cabin sat five miles up from the summer tourist haven of Dresden. The lake spread seven miles farther south of Dresden and abutted the national forestland along most of its southern shoreline.

Laurel untied the second rope, tossed it in the small craft, then settled next to the small trolling motor, her eyes scanning the open lake.

She eagerly awaited springtime with its wakeup call to life. Everyone she loved had died during snowcover. She tolerated the long winter, which lasted here through April, but she was always eager for Mother Nature to flick her apron at the last gasp of cold air. Like an obedient child, winter stepped aside overnight to let the verdant flush of summer dance into the room with fern fronds unfurling and unruly bear cubs tumbling out behind new fawns. She got almost giddy with nature's transformation. Close to happy. Certainly contented.

She was about to crank the motor when she paused to smile at a train whistle echoing through the woodland. The Wisconsin Central skirted about a mile south of here and always signaled its approach to the trestle spanning the Deer Creek gorge. The whistle blasted again, long and mournful, yet soothing. Trains flowed on, as did the current in the lake, as had Laurel in the past fifteen years. Nothing could shake her peaceful existence anymore.

She yanked the motor's rope. After a cough and a sputter, the engine slow-danced Laurel across the moonlit bay, its waters glassy quiet. Even the fish slept. She kept watch over this environment for Jim Swenson, the local agent of the Department of Natural Resources. Jim often brought her the animals that needed tending, but she and Jim also worked together on a variety of projects. She was proud of spearheading the construction of the new drainage ponds next to the farmland upstream in order to improve the quality of the lakewater. As a thank you, the state had recently honored her with a plaque from the governor and a grant of money to re-establish native aspen and birch groves along Spirit Lake by fall, a project Jim would oversee. One of those groves would replace the hateful old mansion, the only scar remaining from what happened fifteen years ago.

She eased the boat into the shoreline just below the mansion. A few old posts from a dock still swayed in the water, defying rot and nature. She planned to remove them after the fire department burned down the clapboard mess.

Climbing out, she grabbed the boat's rope, then struggled up the steep, grassy embankment to loop the rope on a scraggly sumac bush.

As Laurel reached the top of the embankment, two orphan raccoons she'd raised last summer tumbled through the tall, weedy grass of what was once a finely-groomed yard to greet her.

“Roxy. Roger. You heard my old motor, didn't you? It's good to see you."

She didn't touch them, knowing they were mostly wild creatures now and could nip at her. If they were completely wild, she would harbor fear of them coming at her, not only because of rabies. Raccoons were actually fierce animals. They'd been known to turn on even the biggest dog attempting to tree them and kill the dog. Now though, the half-tame, half-wild Roxy and Roger stood on their hind legs, stretching their front paws up expectantly.

“No more treats from me. You have to work for a meal now. Scoot. Go find some yummy snails or minnows to dine on."

Seeing she meant to disappoint them, they plunked themselves on all fours and tumbled off through a deer trail in the waist-high scrub and grass. Since the path led toward the mansion, Laurel followed.

Finally standing at the bottom of the front steps, she crossed her arms, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, shuddering at the round window three stories above. From this angle, it was but a slice, dark and bleak. Abandoned. She understood such a thing. Another chill riddled her, but intent on seeking out the reported injured animal, she stepped up to the front door under the verandah.

The floorboards swayed and squeaked, but she heard no other noises from within. She found the carved wood door still solid, and the sheriff's condemnation sign hung on it from a small nail.

Just as she was about to shoulder open the door, Roxy and Roger scurried back around her feet, fussing in agitation.

“What's the matter—"

A man's faint cursing drew her gaze to the overgrown gravel lane. She ducked down, her nerves prickling, on alert. She then peeked over the tops of the dried grass and brush pressing against the verandah's railing.

In the meager light, the man limped along, a tall silhouette above the brush, with broad shoulders outlined in the moonlight. The breeze caught shaggy shoulder-length hair. He continued cursing at the brush slowing his progress, flailing at it with a knife that glinted haphazardly with his movements.

Laurel crouched lower. She had to get out of here and call the sheriff.

The man moaned, his guttural curses scratching the quiet before he disappeared from Laurel's view.

She slipped inside the front door, figuring she'd go through the house, skirt around back and escape in her boat. Finding a deadbolt handle, she turned it to lock the door behind her, but its loud screech terrified her. Had he heard her?

Kneeling, she peered through the slit between the windowsill and the plywood boarding up the window.

Still yards away, the man limped into shorter grass and proceeded to pull up a pant's leg and poke with the knife at rags wound around shin and calf. He cursed again.

When he stood straight again, moonlight etched deep lines on his face. He inspected the knife, a dagger really, probably with a college degree in sharpness.

Stumbling backward, Laurel stepped on a loose floorboard, flailed out to grab anything, but felt the next board give way and send her lickety-split downward through the floor.

* * * *

COLE HALTED. Pain raged in his leg, but he swore he'd heard something odd beyond the blood pounding in his head. The damn nighthawks seemed to always cry out just as his head pain crescendoed.

The flesh of his calf wanted to explode. Hopping on and off trains for a week had aggravated the wound miserably. To top it off, getting off the Central a few minutes ago had proven almost fatal. He'd leaped too soon past the trestle over the gorge and rolled all the way down to the creek. The icy water soaked through the rags wrapped around his bad leg, chilling him to the bone and adding more pounds of weight for him to drag. He'd struggled for what seemed hours to get back up that bank. Now his shoulder, which had been healing nicely, also burned with the sensation of hot needles shooting back and forth.
Yeah, Mike, I admit it, buddy, hopping trains is dangerous. No wonder it's not covered by HMOs
.

Tired, he could barely focus his eyes. Was it the right place? He hadn't expected something quite this rundown. In the dark it appeared gray, devoid of life and personality, as Cole felt right now. Didn't it used to be yellow with white trim and green shutters? A couple of shutters clung to some second-story windows, waiting to fall like leaves in the next big wind. And where was that corner post on the verandah? The one ... he and a red-haired soulmate would run at, catch and twirl around before flinging themselves out into the lawn?

His heart pounded a ragged beat.

This was the place.
Why Mike? Why make me come back here?

He looked up, raking a hand through his long hair, detecting a burr or two he'd have to contend with later. But they didn't cause the flinch at the corner of his mouth, or the tug in his chest.

The third-story window was intact. He smiled.

When they were tikes, he and Mike called that room their pirate ship. A flash of blue light hit the window, then thunder rolled from off in the distance, and for an instant, he remembered a pair of fiery emerald eyes and a sea of red hair. They hadn't meant to roll her daddy's new Olds in the ditch, but she'd been laughing at the breeze coming in through the windows. Like him, she loved to go fast. With everything.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

Then an icy raindrop knifed the back of his neck, resurrecting the ache in his leg that proceeded to ripple across his weary hide. He groaned. Just what he needed—the dampness from cold rain and wind to keep him miserable down to his bone marrow. At least he'd have a roof over his head tonight. He'd suffered with less amenities in the past week, starting with perching his butt on the hip of a dancing bull and balancing there for a night that stretched forever.

Retrieving his backpack from the grass, he tossed it at the front door, then tried to step up the front steps. To his frustration, the pain in his leg buggered him so much the right leg went limp, giving way under his weight. Without a railing he was reduced to crawling and dragging himself up the steps and across the splintery boards on his knees.

Once at the door, he grabbed the doorknob and used it to help himself stand again. His throbbing leg wobbled, threatening to topple him. He had to do something about the leg, and soon, but he couldn't afford the time until he retrieved whatever was inside this house.

He leaned his face close to the sign. Then scoffed. So the place was condemned. Surprising, and perfect.

Cole had assumed the family sold the property long ago. Hadn't his great-aunt Flora Tilden gone to the quiet retirement home shortly after the trouble involving Cole? Out of embarrassment?

The surprise of it aside, the condemnation was also perfect because nobody would be bothering him while he searched for Mike's evidence that would confirm his killer. Cole'd be in and out of here within hours, undetected and alive. He wanted the betrayer and murderer to become fishbait for what he'd done, for ripping out the hearts of Mike's lovely wife and kid left in the wake. And he'd gotten away with it. Cole Wescott intended to change that.

The breeze switched, colder, gustier. His leg's calf muscle seized up, and to touch it felt like he was hammering spikes into the bone. He slammed a fist against the door, leaning his weary body into it, stretching the leg. Finally, the pain subsided enough to turn the front door's knob.

But the wood wouldn't budge. His shoulders sagged. Not a single thing about this trip had gone right. Why start now, he groaned inwardly. Then he noticed the plywood on the nearby window looked loose. With his good arm, he ripped it off its rusted nails, but the effort of crawling over the sill just about made him want to cut his right leg off.

A rolling thunderclap hurried the moonlight behind a curtain. With it pitch black, he edged toward the front door to get his bearings, but a board creaked underfoot.

And a voice cracked, “Watch out—"

He spun around.

“—for the hole!"

Too late. His trip across country just got worse.

Chapter 2

LAUREL WATCHED in horror when the body fell through the half-light of the hole in the floor above her. The man bounced on the same stack of boxes she'd hit, but he tumbled off cockeyed and his head hit the floor with a crack.

She inched toward him, then thought better of getting too close. She remembered the knife. In the dark, the man lay like an inky, twisted pile of laundry. He smelled of oil and creek clay, and danger.

Backing up, she pulled at the boards on the cellar steps until she found a loose one. Yanking it up, she held the two-by-four in front of her like a baseball bat before shuffling toward him.

An occasional flicker of lightning made him look ... dead.

Kneeling, she still held the board in one hand but laid a finger on his neck to check him. He moaned and she shrunk back, her heartbeat kicking in faster. She gripped the two-by-four with both hands, wiggling it in front of her.

His eyelids flickered open. “What,” he said in a scratchy whisper, “the hell happened?"

Laurel didn't like the way he squinted out from under hair and mud with one eye, its white orb almost disembodied in the darkness of the basement. The other eye remained closed.

“What're you doing here? Who are you?"

He growled, “I could ask the same of you."

He attempted to roll away from her. Was he getting up? Panicking, she snapped, “Don't move."

“A friendly B & B you run here."

“Don't mess with me. Now where's that knife?"

He coughed, but she stood her ground, brandishing the two-by-four. Nerves jangled her stomach. Her eyes roved over his inky visage, searching for the knife. He'd landed with the bad leg askew and the good leg twisted back from the knee. He didn't seem inclined to answer her, if his low moan meant anything.

Her doctoring instincts getting the better of her, she offered, “Throw away your knife and I'll help you with that leg."

“Throw away my only weapon?” he muttered. “I sure as hell wouldn't do that with you standing over me with a piece of lumber. You going to stand all night like that?"

Something about his wryness stirred her insides to attention. There was a familiarity. Had she encountered him before? Was he that wretched railroad hobo from last year with the bad teeth come back to beg again? She shivered. All the more reason to hang tight to her weapon. “What if I do?"

He lay back, a hulking shadow, crooking an arm across his eyes before groaning again. She didn't know what to make of him, other than he was hurting and needed help. She stepped toward him.

“Get away!” he barked.

She snapped her weapon into place, but then a groan oozed out of him with more anguish attached to it than Laurel could take.