Page 86 of The House Across the Lake

I’m feeling much better when I finally start down the basement steps. I barely hesitate at the bottom one, pausing only a second before placing both feet onto the concrete floor. But the front of the basement is the easy part. Here lie the happy memories. Playing Ping-Pong with my father. Marnie and me during a Christmas vacation, putting on hats and parkas before bounding out onto the frozen lake.

The bad memories are toward the back, in the mudroom. As I enter it, I regret not having a fourth shot of vodka.

I speed toward the door and twist the handle. It’s locked. Boone did what I’d overlooked yesterday at the Royces’. Maybe that’s the house he should have broken into instead of mine.

Knowing the blue door is also secure, I turn back to the rest of the mudroom, facing a wall paneled in flat, horizontal boards that have been painted gray. The nails keeping them in place are visible, giving off a rustic vibe that’s trendy now but was merely utilitarian when the house was built. One of the boards is missing two nails, revealing a slight gap between it and the wall. It reminds me again of how old the house is, how fragile, how easy it would be for someone to get inside even with all the doors locked.

Trying to shake away that grim but honest assessment, I push out of the mudroom, through the basement and up the stairs to the dining room, where I snatch the vodka from the liquor cabinet and have one more shot. Properly fortified, I pull my phone from my pocket, ready to call Eli and tell him everything that’s happened the past few days.

He’ll know what to do.

But when I check my phone, I see that Eli actually called me while I was still asleep. The voicemail is short and sweet and slightly unnerving.

“Just got done watching the news. This storm’s looking like it’s going to be worse than they thought. Heading out for supplies. Call me in the next half hour if you need anything.”

That was three hours ago.

I try calling Eli back anyway. When the call goes straight to voicemail, I hang up without leaving a message, grab my laptop, and carry it to the living room. There I do something I should have done days ago: a Google search of Boone Conrad.

The first thing that comes up is an article about his wife’s death, which I expected. Completely unexpected is the nature of the article, made clear in the headline.

“Cop Probed in Wife’s Death.”

I stare wide-eyed at the headline, my nerves becoming jumpy. It onlygets worse when I read the article and learn that members of Boone’s own department noticed discrepancies in his story about the day his wife died. He’d told them—as he told me—that she was still alive when he left for work that morning. What Boone neglected to mention was how the medical examiner had narrowed the time of death to a two-hour window, including a half hour in which he still could have been home.

But the suspicion didn’t stop there. It turned out Boone’s wife—Maria was her name—had gone to see a divorce attorney a week before her death. And although he swore he didn’t know Maria was considering divorce, Boone’s colleagues had no choice but to recuse themselves from the case and let the state police conduct a formal investigation.

I keep searching, finding another article dated a week later, this one announcing that Boone wouldn’t be charged in Maria Conrad’s death. The article points out that there was nothing to prove Boone hadn’t killed her. There simply wasn’t any evidence to show that he had.

Included with the article are two photos. One of Boone, the other of his wife. Boone’s picture is an official police department photo. It should come as no surprise that he looks ridiculously good in uniform. The real shock is that Maria was equally as gorgeous. With bright eyes, a big smile, and great bone structure, she looks like she could have walked the runway right alongside Katherine Royce.

Imagining the two of them on the catwalk reminds me that I’m not the only person on the lake curious about what happened to Maria Conrad. One of the Royces had also taken an interest. Boone was one of the many searches I found on Tom’s laptop.

Maybe it was Katherine.

Maybe that’s the thing that so shocked her in Tom’s office as I watched from the other side of the lake.

Maybe she confronted Boone about it the next morning.

And maybe he felt the need to silence her.

While all of this is just wild conjecture, it’s important enough to tell Wilma Anson, which is why I dig out my phone and immediately give her a call.

“Anson,” she answers before the first ring is finished.

“Hi, Wilma. It’s Casey Fletcher. From Lake—”

She cuts me off. “I know who you are, Casey. What’s going on? Did something happen with Tom Royce?”

Actually, somethingdidhappen, but the drama from last night feels distant after the events of this morning.

“I’m calling about Boone.”

“What about him?”

“How well do you know him?”

“As well as I know my own brother,” Wilma says. “Why are you asking?”

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