Shadow Lake. B.J. Daniels
It wasn’t like her not to take the time to put her credit card back into her wallet in her purse. Or maybe she’d lost her purse even before she’d crashed into the lake.
That thought made fear quake through her. What in God’s name could have happened that she would have lost her purse?
Her body suddenly felt too heavy for her leg muscles to hold her any longer. Dragging the IV cart, she stumbled back to the bed, taking the items she’d found in her coat pocket with her. She dropped everything into the nightstand drawer. Her legs felt like water. It was all she could do to climb onto the bed and draw the covers over her.
Sleep dragged her down like the lake had taken her car to the bottom. On the edge of sleep, she saw herself going into the lake again, the car sinking, panic taking hold of her as she saw herself upside down under the water, trapped in the car.
As exhaustion finally pulled her under, she had one fleeting terrifying thought: There’s something out there in the murky water. Someone.
CHAPTER FIVE
WITH MORE THAN A little relief, Dr. Brubaker checked his only patient and found her sound asleep. Telling the nurse to beep him when Anna woke again, he left the hospital to go home, shower, shave and change clothes.
As was his routine, he turned in the gate to the cemetery on his walk home and headed for his wife’s grave.
Gladys had picked out the two plots, saying she wanted to be able to catch the morning sun. She’d always loved that about her kitchen window. He’d so often see her standing in front of the sink, her face tilted up to catch the morning sun, that sometimes even now when he came into the kitchen he caught glimpses of her for just an instant.
Better to see her there, in the sunlight, rather than the hospital bed where she’d spent the last months of her life. Gladys had wanted to die in their home so he’d moved one of the hospital beds into the living room.
She’d been so small lying there. He’d watched her grow thinner and thinner, disappearing from his life with each passing day. At the end, he’d feared that he would wake from the bed he’d made next to hers and find that she had wasted away to nothing as if she’d never existed.
As it was, she’d been nearly child-size by the time she’d died, way too small for the casket he’d picked out for her.
He recognized the names on the gravestones as he walked through the rain-soaked cemetery. A light drizzle fell, the clouds gray and dark over the lake. He’d known a lot of the people buried here.
Some of them he’d brought into the world, a lot of them he’d kept alive as long as he could before they’d passed on. The thought gave him little comfort.
Through a weathered iron fence and veil of pine boughs, he caught a glimpse of freshly turned earth. The wind must have blown off the green tarp the funeral home used until it quit raining long enough to lay the sod. Or had the tarp come off when Big Jim Fairbanks started rolling in his grave, Brubaker wondered.
Unlike Gladys, Big Jim had fought until the very end. He’d wanted to live and had said he was too damned young to die even though he was older than most, Doc included. Big Jim hadn’t gone peacefully. Nor did Doc suspect Big Jim Fairbanks rested easy, either.
Brubaker realized as he stared at Big Jim’s grave that he believed in retribution, if nothing else. There was a price to be paid for what was done on this earth. A man had to pay for his sins. And a man like Big Jim Fairbanks would be paying dearly about now.
And soon so would Gene Brubaker, he reminded himself.
Turning, Doc went to spend time with his wife as he had done every day since her death.
“OH DEAR, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Anna woke with a start as an older gray-haired nurse rushed to her bedside. “Pulled out your IV, have you?” Her name tag read Connie. “Must have really tossed and turned in your sleep to do that.”
Anna said nothing as the nurse reattached the IV. She’d lost the scrap of memory she’d had just before she’d been awakened. In frustration, she looked toward the window, saw the lake and closed her eyes to keep from shuddering.
“There, that should hold this time,” the nurse said. “How are you feeling?”
Anna could only nod.
The nurse studied her. “You want me to call the doctor?”
“No. I just want to sleep.” She really just wanted to be alone, not sure she wanted to call back the memory. She could feel an uneasiness and knew that if she tried to force the memory it would turn to anxiety, then panic.
“I’m fine,” she told the nurse and closed her eyes, waiting for her to leave.
The moment the nurse closed the door behind her, Anna sat up, feeling desperate and scared.
Calm down. Calm down. She heard her husband Marc’s voice. Calm down. Only he was no longer her husband. The divorce was to be final yesterday. Was that true? Only yesterday?
Her hand was shaking as she picked up the phone and dialed. Gillian Sanders had been her friend since college and was now a successful lawyer. Anna knew she wouldn’t have made it through the past two months without Gillian.
Gillian’s cell phone rang four times and voice mail picked up. “It’s me, Anna.” Her voice sounded panicky even to her. She considered leaving the hospital number but knew that would scare Gillian. “I’ll try back later.”
She hung up, disappointed she hadn’t reached her. Right now she needed Gillian’s logical calming influence. Gillian had a way of seeing to the heart of things. Like when Anna had come to her for advice about Marc.
“Don’t fight the divorce, honey,” Gillian had advised. “He’s a bastard. Have you ever really been happy with him?”
“Yes, when Tyler was born…”
“Come on. You were happy because of Tyler—not Marc. Admit it.”
Anna had started to cry. Admitting that her marriage had been anything but happy from the beginning was devastating.
Gillian had pressed a business card into her hand.
“What is this?” Anna had asked through her tears.
“A damned good divorce attorney. But you didn’t get it from me.”
“I want you as my lawyer.”
“Anna, I’m not a divorce lawyer and I know both you and Marc. You want someone who is impartial and tough as nails. Believe me, Marc will get the toughest lawyer money can buy.”
“But I want someone who will protect my interests.”
“I am, sweetie,” Gillian had said, taking her hand. “Divorce the asshole before he can file first. You can do better.”
But Anna had waited and let Marc serve the papers on her. The divorce lawyer Gillian had recommended had taken care of everything. All Anna had to do was sign the papers and wait for the dissolution of her marriage to be final. She’d only managed to get through it by pretending it wasn’t happening. She’d lost her son. Now her husband.
Coward that she was, she’d also pretended that she didn’t know why Marc had wanted the divorce.
As of yesterday, she was no longer Mrs. Marc Collins.
She realized she was still gripping the phone. She needed to talk to someone. If not Gillian, then Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen was a mutual friend of Anna and Gillian’s, a college sorority sister. Blond, buxom, a bit scatterbrained, but a talented interior designer, Mary Ellen had gotten through life on “cute” and good taste.
Anna dialed Mary Ellen’s number trying to get into the mood to talk to her always bubbly friend. She was tired of calling her friends crying and desperate. She was tired of being depressed and morbid and scared. And she knew