Sitting at the kitchen table in front of a steaming pulled pork sandwich and homemade potato salad made his stomach rumble. “This looks amazing.”

Gram beamed. “Then eat,” she said.

During lunch Caroline remained unusually quiet, but every now and again she stole quick glances back and forth with Gram. Kevin attacked his sandwich, waiting for one of them to bring up the news from the lake. Jo had told him again about the bones and the drowning before he had both feet out of the pickup truck and on the ground. They had been discussing it right before Caroline had turned the corner and thrown herself into his arms. At the time all he could think about was that at least one of his girls was happy to see him.

When he finished eating, he wiped his fingers on his napkin. “Well, I already heard about what happened,” he said, figuring he’d make it easier on them. “I’ll head down to the lake and see what I can find out.”

“Can I come with you?” Caroline asked.

“Why don’t you stay here and help Gram clean up?” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll let you know if there’s any news.”

Caroline looked disappointed, but she nodded and reluctantly said, “Okay.” Gram kept her thoughts on the matter to herself. He wondered what she might’ve said to him about the bones if they had been alone.

*   *   *

Kevin followed the dirt road down the hill. He crossed onto Lake Road and continued downward toward the Pavilion. The doors were closed and the place looked deserted. The sight gave him pause. There was only one time in sixteen years that he remembered the Pavilion closing its doors to the public. He hadn’t expected all the memories the scene would conjure. All the emotions he had kept in check for so long stacked up inside him. His chest tightened, and he was having a hard time breathing. He wiped the back of his neck where moisture had gathered. The sun was hotter than usual, maybe because cooling off in the lake was no longer an option. The thought made him shiver despite the heat.

Pull yourself together, he told himself. But now he understood the look in Jo’s eyes when he had first stepped out of the truck. She looked haunted, much more than usual. He stared at the CLOSED sign on the door. He suspected Heil planned on opening tomorrow no matter the outcome of the search. He couldn’t believe he had kept the Pavilion closed for three days as it was, and he couldn’t fathom the amount of money he had to be losing. Heil loved his money.

Kevin gathered himself and willed his legs to keep moving. Each step he took around the building felt as though he were stepping back in time and what awaited on the other side would seize his heart all over again. When he turned the corner, he half expected to see Billy’s parents and sister, Dee Dee, crying, cursing, and a sixteen-year-old Jo, face drained of color, paralyzed by the scene unfolding in front her. But instead he saw the underwater recovery team standing around the watercraft. He recognized one of the men and slowly walked toward him.

His tongue felt thick and clumsy, but he managed to say “Jim” in his normal voice, and he extended his hand. He had known Jim through Eddie; he was one of the regulars who frequented Eddie’s bar whenever he wasn’t volunteering for the local fire department.

“What’s the situation?” Kevin asked.

“We think she went down near the diving boards. It’s a fifty-foot drop. There’s so much muck at the bottom, it makes searching difficult even for the best divers. You can’t see shit.” He glanced at Kevin. “But you know that. Damn near impossible.”

And yet, Kevin wanted to add, they were able to find bones in all that muck, but Jo had warned that Heil meant to keep that quiet, not wanting to remind people of past drownings. For once, Kevin agreed with Heil. “What’s the next step?” he asked instead.

“They’re going to widen the search area.” He lifted his baseball cap and scratched his head. “Some of the fishing guys caught some snappers. They think they have a better chance of finding her with the turtles. You ever hear of such a thing?”

Kevin shrugged. It was how they had found Billy. And in fact, he had heard of other instances where unusual methods had been used. An airplane had gone down in the Atlantic several years back, and divers reported that crabs had unintentionally led them to the carnage. He supposed snappers weren’t any different from crabs, feeding on what was provided. People. Humans. We were part of the food chain whether we liked it or not.

Jim situated the cap back onto his head and pulled the bill down low, hiding his eyes. “It might not be a bad idea to try it,” he said. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I hope it doesn’t become a circus out there.” Kevin thought of Stimpy and his men on boats, following the lines tied to snappers and what that would look like to the little girl’s parents. For a second the image of Billy’s body flashed in his mind’s eye, how the men pulled Billy into the boat and then dumped him onto the beach. His flesh had been shredded to the bone on one of his thighs, his forearm clawed off. The skin on his chin had been torn, and the flap lay on his neck.

“You okay?” Jim asked.

“Yeah,” Kevin said. “Sure.” He allowed himself a glance at the girl’s parents. “Did anybody tell them what to expect?”

Jim looked at the couple and then turned back to Kevin. “Nope. I imagine right now, they just want her found.”

“Right,” Kevin said, wondering how in the world anyone could prepare them for what horrors finding their daughter would bring. It had been three days. There was no telling what she was going to look like when they managed to pull her out.

He turned to the sound of a car. The sheriff’s vehicle pulled into the lot and parked near the girl’s parents. Sheriff Borg got out and talked to the couple. He glanced in the direction of the underwater recovery team where Jim and Kevin were standing.

Kevin looked at the ground and turned away from the sheriff. “I’ll catch you later,” he said to Jim, slinking away, not wanting to attract any attention to himself.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The sun was making its slow descent behind the mountains when Jo climbed the stairs to the second-floor bar. She found Kevin sitting at the far end of the room away from the crowd that had gathered at the tables. Eddie leaned on the bar in front of him. The two had their heads together, and she immediately walked over to them, wanting to know what was going on. She had spent most of the day wandering the colony, avoiding the cabin and cleaning closets.

“Hey,” she said, and sat on the stool next to Kevin.

Kevin looked up and caught her eye. He still looked at her sometimes the way he did when they were teenagers, as though he was seeing her for the first time, and his eyes filled with the same deep desire. And like when they were teenagers, her body reacted, her yearning just as strong. But she wished he wouldn’t look at her that way now. Ever. It made her feel so damn guilty.

Eddie put a cold beer in front of her. “The vultures are at it again,” he said, nodding in the direction of Heil and his crew.

“I heard.” She turned in her seat to look at the mob when one of the men with Heil yelled, “It’s been three damn days! It’s time to take this matter into our own hands.”

“I have a family to feed,” Nate said. He owned the bait and tackle shop located at the opposite end of the lake. “I empathize with the parents, but a man’s got to provide, and I can’t do that if no one can fish on that lake.”

She turned back around, having heard it all before. It wasn’t until Stimpy bounded up the steps and dropped a snapper the size of a truck tire onto the bar, that the crowd hushed.

“This is the biggest one I caught, but I’ve trapped a half dozen more, and they’ll work just as good.” Stimpy looked at Heil who nodded his approval.