Pine Lake. Amanda Stevens

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      The light was no longer moving, he noted. The beam stayed stationary for so long that he had to conclude someone had set the flashlight down on the deck or perhaps wedged it between the braces. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost conjure a form standing at the guardrail. He was tempted to start up his uncle’s boat and train the spotlight on the bridge, but even so powerful a beam would be swallowed by the misty darkness. Besides which, this was none of his business. He hadn’t come to Pine Lake to get sidetracked—

      He heard a splash as something heavy hit the water. Then the flashlight beam swept down and over the lake, glimmering sporadically through the trees. Jack was far enough away that he couldn’t be spotted, but he instinctively shrank back into the shadows.

      For the longest time, the light moved slowly over the water. Then the glow vanished, only to reappear bobbing toward the end of the bridge. A few minutes later, Jack heard the sound of a car engine on the far side of the lake. Not a frantic rev but a stealthy purr as the car slowly drove away on the old dirt road.

      He didn’t know what to make of the splash or the light. People had been known to use the lake as a dumping site. If caught, the offense carried a stiff penalty, but back in Jack’s day, the area around the bridge had rarely been patrolled. Which was undoubtedly the reason Anna’s killer had chosen to dump her body from the deck.

      That splash...

      What were the chances another body had been thrown from the bridge on the very night he’d returned to Pine Lake? Slim to none, Jack decided, but he knew the sound would niggle at him all night. Might as well take the boat out and have a look.

      * * *

      A FEW MINUTES LATER, Jack maneuvered away from the dock and headed into the channel. It was even darker on the water. He didn’t want to turn on his running lights, much less the spotlight in case someone lurked nearby. But it was dangerous to be on the lake blind. Dangerous for others, dangerous for him. If he strayed from the middle of the channel, he had to worry about cypress knees below the surface and those thick mats of aquatic vegetation that could entangle the boat’s propeller.

      He turned on the spotlight, keeping the beam concentrated on the water ahead of him. As he neared the bridge, he shifted into neutral and drifted as he trained the light along the banks where ground mist thickened. Cypress trees rose from the shallows like bearded sentinels, obscuring both ends of the bridge. Beyond the lake was the pine forest and all along the water’s edge, a creeping carpet of lily pads and lotus.

      He made a pass underneath the first span of the bridge, once again searching along the banks and in the deeper water of the channel before returning through the second span. Clouds blocked the moon so thoroughly he had to rely solely on the spotlight. Even through the mist, he could pick out turtles and frogs and the red glowing eyes of an alligator, but he saw nothing unusual in the water.

      If someone had thrown a body off the bridge, they would have more than likely weighted it. It could take days or even weeks to surface. He was wasting his time and he knew it. All he’d heard was a distant splash. All he’d seen was a bobbing flashlight. He had no reason to believe that anything untoward—

      She was there in the shallows, floating on her back among the lily pads.

      Jack used the trolling motor to navigate through the strangling vegetation and then a paddle to hold the boat steady as he observed the body. He didn’t attempt to drag her from the water. She was dead and had been the moment the bullet passed through the back of her skull and exited between her eyes. During his time as a cop, he’d seen that jagged, X-shaped wound before, usually in drug-related executions. The facial damage was extensive, but the best Jack could tell, she was young, probably no more than early twenties, with long blond hair floating all around her.

      He sat for a moment, awash in memories before he took out his phone and called Tommy Driscoll’s number.

      The phone rang five times before Tommy finally answered. He sounded annoyed and winded. “Driscoll.”

      “Tommy, it’s Jack King.”

      “Jack? It’s a little late, isn’t it, buddy?”

      “Not for this.”

      “You heard from Nathan?” he asked anxiously.

      “I’m calling about something else.”

      A long silence. “Where are you?”

      “Sitting in my uncle’s boat on Pine Lake. I’m about fifty yards south of the old bridge. You’d better get out here. There’s a body in the water.”

      He heard the sharp intake of Tommy’s breath. “Do you know who it is?”

      “Female Caucasian. Blonde, slim build from what I can tell. She’s young. Early twenties, I’m guessing. Looks like someone shot her in the back of the head and then dumped her body off the bridge.”

      “No need for an ambulance, I take it.” Tommy’s voice seemed oddly hushed.

      “No, but you’d better send for the coroner. I’ll stay with her until you get here.”

      “Jack?”

      “Yeah?”

      “What are you doing on Pine Lake?”

      “I don’t think that much matters right now, does it?”

      “It might,” Tommy said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. We’ll talk then.”

      Jack dropped the phone back in his pocket, his gaze still on the body. He cut the spotlight. The garish brilliance somehow seemed offensive. As darkness slid over him, he had the uncanny feeling that he wasn’t alone. He told himself it was just the situation. The similarities to Anna were bound to unnerve him. But he couldn’t shake the notion that someone was near. Someone watched him.

      Turning on the spotlight, he raked the powerful beam all along the banks and then into the shadowy corners of the bridge. He almost expected to see someone at the guardrail staring down at him. No one was there. He was alone on the water with the dead woman.

      He made one more sweep, this time slanting the beam up in the trees. As he shifted the light, he caught a glimpse of something white through the cypress branches. A barn owl, he thought, or a snowy egret. But as he focused the light, he realized the shimmer of white wasn’t in a tree, but at the very top of the bridge. For a moment he could have sworn someone was up in the rafters.

      He shook his head and moved the light away. Crazy notion.

      He sat in the gently rocking boat and let the night sounds settle over him. Then he angled the beam back to the truss. The white object was still up there.

      Pushing off with the paddle he let the boat float back into the center of the channel before he started the motor. The outboard hummed throatily as he navigated toward the bridge. Backing off the throttle he aimed the light up through the Spanish moss. Whatever he expected to find was not what he saw. Never in a million years could he have imagined such a sight.

      The floor of the bridge was a good fifteen feet above the water and СКАЧАТЬ