Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(6)

She hadn’t known it at the time, but Matt had watched her daydream in class. It had been the first thing he’d noticed about her, the first thing that had attracted him to her. She’d wanted to disappear almost as much as he had. She’d known who he was, of course. But she’d never dreamed she would ever catch his attention. She’d grown up watching those commercials. She, like everyone else in the greater Atlanta area, had wanted this sweet, beautiful kid to find where he belonged.

Kate and Matt had been only nineteen when Kate had gotten pregnant, and Cricket had been so upset with her son for dropping out of college and marrying Kate, whom she believed came from a family of notorious gold diggers, that she’d refused to speak to him and withdrew all of her financial support. Cricket had had big plans for Matt. If she always backed a winner, imagine what she could have done if her own son had gotten into politics. That face. He had that perfect face.

But Matt had had no interest in running for public office. He’d been shy and uncomfortable around people. After they married, Kate and Matt had moved in with Kate’s mother, into this house, because Kate’s mother had been convinced that Cricket would forgive Matt in time, and then all that money would be Matt and Kate’s to share with her. Cricket had been wrong about a lot of things, but Kate’s mother’s obsession with money had not been one of them.

Kate’s mother had died of a sudden stroke two years later, never having seen her dreams of wealth for her daughter realized. That was when Cricket started making halfhearted attempts at reconciliation, but it was too late. Matt had cut ties with her and didn’t want them mended.

Kate and Matt had spent seven years here together in this small house, raising Devin, starting a bicycle shop called Pheris Wheels with the small trust from his father. This was the life Matt had chosen, the one that had brought him as close to content as he’d ever been, doing what he’d wanted in an anonymous existence that he considered bohemian. Plain old middle class to the rest of the world. But as Kate looked around at their belongings, there was nothing of Matt’s here. The furniture had all been her mother’s. He’d moved into her world, part and parcel, but added nothing of himself.

Kate sat on the trunk, and Devin pulled herself up and sat close to her.

“It’s going to be all right,” Kate said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Devin nodded as she took off her black glasses, the ones Cricket liked, and cleaned them on the J.Crew T-shirt Cricket had picked out for her to wear.

“I’ll talk to Cricket about your clothes. Your dad and I always said you could wear what you wanted on summer vacation. Cricket is just going to have to deal with it.”

“What about school?” Devin asked. This was a familiar argument. Devin hated her school uniform. The idea of being in uniform at all offended her. But in the year she’d been asleep, Kate had agreed to let Cricket enroll Devin in the same private school Matt had attended.

“The school requires a uniform, you know that.”

“Can’t I go back to my old school?”

Kate hesitated. “I’ll talk to Cricket. But it’s a good school. And your dad went there.” Kate put her arm around Devin, and the movement drew her attention to the postcard in her chest pocket.

Kate took out the postcard, and she and Devin both stared at it as if new words might form on it, telling their fortune. Kate’s mother had kept this from her for reasons Kate might never know. When she looked at the card, she experienced that same small sensation of rebellion she’d felt when she’d put aside Cricket’s coffee earlier. Her mother hadn’t wanted her to be in touch with Eby. Her mother hadn’t wanted her to go back to Lost Lake.

That in itself was reason enough to go.

Escape.

The word came to her mind before she could stop it.

“You know,” Kate said, “Lost Lake is only three or four hours away. At least, it was.”

Devin looked up at her slowly, suspiciously, like there was trickery afoot. It almost made Kate laugh.

“It might be shut down. Eby might not be there. But we could go see. Just you and me.” Kate nudged her. “What do you say? We don’t have to be here when all this stuff is moved.”

“Like a vacation?”

“I don’t know what it will be,” Kate said honestly. “If there’s nothing there, well, we’ll just turn around and come back to our new place. But if it’s still there, maybe we can stay for the night. Maybe two. We won’t know until we get there.”

“Do we have to ask Grandma Cricket?”

“No. This is between you and me. Go change out of those clothes and into what you want to wear. We’ll throw some things into the car and head out.”

Devin tore off down the hall, but then stopped and ran back and hugged Kate.

“I’ve missed you,” she said, then ran away again, leaving Kate standing there, shocked.

Kate didn’t think anyone knew.

But Devin did.

She knew Kate had been asleep all this time.





2


Lost Lake

Suley, Georgia

One day earlier

Every year since her husband George died, the fat man with tight skin and fake hair showed up on the first day of summer and offered to buy Lost Lake from Eby. He would hoist himself from behind the wheel of his Mercedes, something that seemed to take more and more effort with the passage of time, then he would stare at the lake, his greedy thoughts mentally cutting down trees and building luxurious lakefront houses. Eby would watch as his fingers twitched and his knees shook, and there were times when she could actually feel the earth start to tremble, as if the sheer power of his will was going to develop the property right in front of her eyes.