Page 100 of The Souls of Lost Lake
Wren took the envelope from her father’s proffered hand and ripped it open. Skimming it, she released a breath of defeat. “What in the world?”
Neither man responded.
Wren looked up at them both. “There’s a whole form to fill out. They need more information.”
Pippin chewed his scone. “You can probably fill it out online. Did they include a web address or just a paper form?”
Her father made no comment.
“Is there something I should know?” Wren skewered them both with a look. Remembering Patty’s words, she’d wanted to avoidunnecessary hurt for her father’s sake, but now? “Did Mom have an affair?”
Tristan Blythe erupted into a fit of shocked coughs.
Pippin stared at her as their father collected himself. “I’ll leave you two alone.” With that, he retreated into the house with his glass of milk and half-eaten scone.
Wren watched him depart. It felt like a one-hundred-pound weight had settled on her chest. “I’m sorry, Dad, but what am I supposed to think when my records are so difficult to come by?”
Tristan cleared his throat. “Your mother did not have an affair, Arwen. She could barely get out of the house to socialize.”
“She was depressed,” Wren ventured. “Grandma said Mom struggled mentally. She wasn’t stable. Maybe she found comfort elsewhere.”
“Enough!” Tristan’s hand came down on the glass table.
“Dad—”
“No.” Tristan stood, scraping his chair backward on the deck’s floorboards. He bit back an oath, strode toward the door, then stopped. Looking over his shoulder, he softened his expression. “Arwen, your mother was—I know she wasn’t a Patty Markham to you, but she was agoodwoman. Agoodmother.”
Wren nodded. She didn’t know how else to respond.
Wren wasn’t sure what awakened her, and she was so accustomed to crashing at the Markhams’ that she was disoriented when she opened her eyes. The window was to the right of her. Its blinds pulled, lavender curtains appearing dark blue in the dim light. She lay in a full-size bed instead of the narrower twin type. She rolled over to face the door. A framed poster fromThe Lord of the Ringsmovie hung on one of the walls, with another poster of actress Liv Tyler as Arwen beside it.
Home. She was in the Blythe home, in her old bedroom. Wren reached for her phone. Almost two o’clock in the morning. Shechecked her text messages. Nothing from Eddie. She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t on social media, so she didn’t bother to check.
A thump on the back deck outside her window grabbed her attention. That must have been what had awakened her. Wren tossed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Wild animals were no strangers to their deck, but raccoons caused issues, as did skunks. She pushed back the curtain and stuck her fingers between the blinds to peek out.
Nothing.
Uneasiness spread within her. Immediately, the image of Ava Coons standing in the Markhams’ driveway came to mind. The creepy message. Ava Coons near the park, her face tainted with what felt like evil.
Wren stepped back, allowing the blinds to snap together and the curtains to fall into place. She had the sudden urge to jump into bed and pull the covers over her head. But if it really was a raccoon, it could get into the garbage cans and then they’d have a mess in the morning.
Mustering courage, Wren snuck into the hall. Her father’s bedroom door was shut. Pippin slept downstairs. She hopped over the one spot beneath the carpet that creaked and tiptoed into the kitchen. Peering out the window above the sink, Wren scanned the deck. The motion sensor hadn’t made the light go off. From this vantage point, the deck still looked empty. But she noticed a citronella candle had fallen from the deck’s rail. Something had definitely knocked it over.
“Fine,” Wren muttered to herself. She went to the back door and moved to unlock it, then noticed it was already unlocked. It didn’t alarm her. Many people in this area never locked their doors. But a chill still ran down her spine.
She tugged the door open, leaving the screen door as the only barrier between herself and the back deck. Crickets’ chirrups met her ears. An uninterrupted cadence that made her feel slightly morecomforted that no one or thing was lurking on the deck and waiting to spring. Expecting a raccoon felt a lot better than planning for an assault from a supposed-to-be-dead Ava Coons.
The deck was empty. Barefooted, Wren crossed it and bent to retrieve the fallen candle. Lifting it, she placed the pot back on the deck rail, staring into the deep shadows of the forest. A few coyotes yipped in the far distance. The breeze picked up and blew its breath across Wren’s face. Peaceful really. Nothing to alarm her.
Was Jasmine out there yet? Alone? Wren leaned against the deck rail, crossing her arms and resting there. For the first time, she entertained the probability that Jasmine was gone for good. Wandered too far into the woods to be found, or worse, abducted and had never been in the woods to begin with. Meghan’s theory of Ava Coons, Wayne Sanderson’s obsession with Lost Lake ... it was too much.
She needed to go back to bed. She wasn’t thinking clearly and trying to reconcile everything was only making her more awake and less likely to fall back asleep. Wren turned to go back into the house when her gaze landed on something propped by the back door.
The doll—or as Eddie had nicknamed it, Redneck Harriet—glared up at Wren from its crouched position. Its shoulder hung low on the left side, making its head tilt at an awkward angle. In the moonlight, the cracks that webbed across Harriet’s face looked like wispy spider legs all going in tangents. Uncontrolled and mad.
Wren and the doll stared at each other. The doll unblinking, and Wren holding her breath as though any second Redneck Harriet would launch herself from her spot by the door and go all horror-film on Wren’s face. The doll had been at the Markham home. Not here. Not at the Blythe house. Someone had placed it there, by the door, and it hadn’t been there earlier in the night when Wren had confronted her father.
Wren spun and cast wary glances into all the corners she could see into. Tree branches waved in the summer night breeze, theirarms stretching up and out like clawed hands wanting to grab her. The crickets had gone still. The coyotes had ceased their howls.
