Chapter Sixteen
Lynette kicked off her sandals and walked out to the end of the dock. The weathered wood on the platform felt slightly grooved underfoot. She imagined the indentations were the result of each tiny impression left behind by countless previous visitors to Whispering Pines. When she closed her eyes, her mind could hear snippets of laughter and conversations between friends and lovers, swept away on the wind and circling back, across space and time, for her ears only. It made sense that they could have left physical impressions, too.
Thankful for the Adirondack chair at the end of the dock, she sank into it, unconcerned about the puddle of water that still clung to the seat. The scorching heat of the previous day had made it difficult for her to enjoy any beach time, so today’s rain shower provided welcome relief.
She yawned. Nightmares had again interfered with her sleep the night before.
How could it already be Saturday? The first half of their vacation at Renee’s resort had passed too quickly.
A car pulled into the lodge’s parking lot, drawing her attention away from the water. She watched from her vantage point, far out on the dock, as two adults and three small children climbed out. They were too far away for her to make out any details, but this had to be the family Renee was worried might not show up.
While her friend hadn’t come right out and talked specifically about any concerns she might have over the resort’s long-term viability, Lynette sensed an unease in her. She should make a point to speak to Renee alone on the topic. If there was a problem, maybe she could help. She knew Renee was currently spending a couple hours after lunch in her resort office, doing bookwork. Kit and Annie had given Renee a hard time about working on vacation, but Lynette understood the demands of owning one’s own business. Jackie seemed to, as well.
Lynette’s eyes turned to the gravel road the car had just traveled, and she wondered whether Jackie was on her way back from her run yet. She’d eaten little at lunch because she wanted to get in some exercise and enjoy the cooler weather. Jackie claimed to have little time to run or go to the gym, given her own small business she continued to work to grow.
She wasn’t sure where Kit and Annie had disappeared to. Wherever they were, if they were together, they were probably discussing kids again.
The rhythmic sound of waves lapping against the dock pulled Lynette’s attention back to the lake at her feet. A boat cut toward a far-off shoreline, to the northeast of Whispering Pines, and she wondered if Robbie was captaining it. Renee shared stories the night before last about some of her son’s experiences acting as a fishing guide for interested resort guests.
Lynette loved to hear about entrepreneurial endeavors that her friends’ children were pursuing. She’d had many conversations with Annie’s daughter, Ava, about the online children’s clothing business the young mother was still interested in pursuing.
Waves continued to lap against the dock’s supports, even though the fishing boat was far away. If the dock and shoreline hadn’t blocked the ripples, how far could they have traveled?
She used to think her own business was like the flowing water. Her efforts grew a business that employed many and helped countless women feel pretty when they donned their clothes or accessories.
She never had the chance to be a mother like her four best friends, but she could at least act as a mentor to their kids if they had an interest in business.
What kind of mother might she have made?
Everyone, even her own mom, thought Lynette had consciously chosen to never have children. Maybe they assumed it never happened because she remained single. She doubted anyone other than herself ever wondered if that long-ago night when she’d crashed Storm’s truck was the real reason she was never able to conceive.
She relaxed and allowed her eyes to drift shut, half expecting to catch the whispers of laughter on the wind again. Instead, what floated to her were scenes from her reoccurring bad dream. Maybe if she allowed herself to remember those darkest of days, she could release the pain they still caused her, once and for all.
The nightmare, fueled by her memories, always kicked off with the same scene in her mind. She supposed she should be thankful that they didn’t pick up inside the truck, or as she swung her makeshift weapon and cracked it against that evil man’s skull.
No. It was after, when the glow of the moon above chased back the shadows just enough to allow her to run away from the truck, through the dark night, and reach Storm’s lake house. The dreaded sound of footsteps behind her never materialized. There was no sound at all. It was as if a vacuum had sucked away all the sound on Earth, other than her own labored breathing. Even her pounding on Storm’s backdoor, the door that she knew led into the house’s kitchen, was soundless. Her lungs ached, her legs trembled, and her fists throbbed, but no one came to the door. She thought a light may have flipped off inside, but she couldn’t be sure.
Headlights swept across the lake house’s exterior, throwing light across two large garage doors. She dove behind a bush that flanked the kitchen door, panic sluicing through her. But the headlights continued on. It wasn’t her attacker. She tried banging again, then jiggled the locked doorknob.
As she’d feared, Storm wasn’t home, and his mother and baby brother must be gone, too.
The hoot of an owl shattered the silence as the wind picked up around her. She thought she could hear waves crashing down on the other side of the house, but maybe it was just her own blood pounding in her ears.
Maybe she could get into the house—and to a phone—through the garage. The house was large, at least two or three times bigger than the tiny house she lived in with her mom, and it blocked the moon. But she tried to picture what the headlights had briefly revealed. Keeping one hand against the house, she hurried toward the garage doors. Around the corner was another door. Was that the one Storm had meant when he said they never locked it?
She had to force herself to move carefully, and even now, all these years later, her fingers tingled with the feel of rough stucco, a wooden doorframe, and the cold metal of the first garage door. She nearly fell when her right foot caught on something in the darkness. The owl hooted again, and the hum of insects seemed to magnify.
I’m coming for you . . .
She shook her head to dispel his evil hiss. “It’s just your mind playing tricks on you,” she whispered into the dark.
Finally, her fingers felt the corner of the garage, and when she turned, light from the moon revealed the door she hoped would give her access to the house. The doorknob didn’t turn smoothly, but with some force it ground around and she opened the door. The lock probably didn’t even work. With a sigh of relief, she slipped inside, pulling the door shut quietly behind her. A tiny nightlight, plugged into an outlet near the floor to the right of the door, provided enough light so she could see Storm’s truck right in front of her.
Someone must have picked him up.
Was there any way he’d left his keys inside?
The only time she’d ever noticed him store his keys in the visor was the last time he’d brought her here. It was the same visit where his mother had so obviously snubbed her. She crawled up onto the driver’s seat, cringing as the creak of metal echoed all around her. She flipped the visor down, and she heard the clank of something fall, but the nightlight did nothing to cut the darkness inside the truck’s cab.
A wave of panic, much like the lake waves she thought she’d heard moments earlier, washed over her. She froze. The shadows she’d fought so hard to ignore, to squelch in any manner she could, closed in, and suddenly she knew. This was her punishment for being so stupid. For ignoring her mother’s constant warnings since before she’d even gotten her first period.
In the inky black of the pickup truck—the comforting scent of pine emanating from the thick collection of air fresheners she knew hung below the buttons of the truck’s old radio that would forevermore remind her of Storm—her mother’s words echoed.
Lynette, never, ever have unprotected sex with a boy. The last thing you want is to end up pregnant.
And there it was. The monster she’d known was lurking just on the very edge of her conscious mind. She was probably pregnant. Her period was almost a month late and her boobs hurt. Her mother was going to kill her.
Unless her attacker found her first.
This realization jolted her back, and she knew she had to find Storm. He’d know what to do. He had protected her before, and he’d do it again. But, in the meantime, she needed to protect herself.
She groped around on the floor below the steering wheel and found the keys, remembering that Storm kept a garage door opener in his glove compartment. She fished it out. The truck started after a second turn of the key. Holding her breath as the heavy door behind her rumbled open, her overloaded mind convinced her that the other truck was going to pull into Storm’s driveway at any moment, blocking her in. The second she had enough clearance, she threw the truck into reverse and shot out of the garage, tires spinning.
It wasn’t until she’d reached the end of the short road that ran from Storm’s house to the main road that she remembered she hadn’t thought to shut the garage door. What would Storm think when he got home and realized his truck was gone?
But then something else registered in her rattled brain. Storm’s mother’s car was parked in the stall next to his. She hadn’t been able to see it in the dark garage, hadn’t even thought to check for it, but the truck’s headlights had swept over the vehicle when she’d raced out of the garage.
As she punched the gas and took the corner too fast, two different questions slammed into her brain. If Storm’s mother was at home, why had she ignored Lynette’s cry for help? And was the woman, even now, calling the police to report the theft of her son’s truck?
The shadows closed in again from all sides, and she had to shake her head to clear her vision and keep Storm’s truck on the road. She’d almost made it, but unless she kept her wits about her, danger still lurked. If she could just find Storm, he’d know what to do.
Where had he said he was going tonight?
Her mind was acting like a toddler in a bouncy house, catapulting from one thing to another: terror that her attacker would find her, Storm’s reaction if she told him she thought she was pregnant, whether the police were on their way to arrest her for stealing the pickup.
How had things gotten so messed up? How could she fix things?
What if she’d killed the man who was attacking her?
She needed to get a grip on her runaway thoughts if she was going to see this evening through in a way that wouldn’t blow up the life she and her mom had carved out for themselves.
Out on the open road, there were no obstructions to the moonlight. It illuminated her path forward, and the shadows retreated. The rest of the world slept, and she slowed the truck to a more manageable speed. It was unlikely she’d be able to find Storm until tomorrow.
The needle on the truck’s fuel gauge was deep into the red zone, so she wouldn’t get far before she ran out of gas. Could she find Jackie and the others? Maybe they’d be at Annie’s by now. But if the party was over, Annie’s mother had probably realized one of her daughter’s friends had slipped out.
She wouldn’t put her friends at even more risk of getting into trouble because of her selfishness.
Was there enough gas for her to get home? Her mother never got home until the sun was peeking over the horizon when she worked a night shift. If Lynette headed there now, she could pretend she’d gone straight home from the party. She could even claim a migraine forced her to leave the party early. No one ever had to know that she’d jumped into the vehicle of a near-stranger. That he’d had horrible plans for her, and she’d been stupid enough to trust him.
Another glance at the dash made her realize the gas was even lower than she’d initially thought. Tomorrow was payday, and Storm probably had to wait for his next paycheck to fill up. Was that emergency twenty-dollar bill still tucked away in the zippered pocket of her purse?
After a moment of panic, she realized she still had her purse looped across her body, but she’d caught the strap in the seatbelt. If the cash was there, she’d pull into that old truck stop on the outskirts of town and pray it was still open.
She released her seatbelt and snapped open her purse, fumbling for the pocket zipper with one hand while keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel with the other and both eyes on the road. Her slowly developing plan would fall apart if she hit a deer or ran off the winding road.
Her fingers found a folded piece of paper that felt like cash. She pulled it out and held it high so the moonlight could allow her to see if it truly was her emergency stash. But a light flashed in the truck’s rearview mirror. To her horror, she saw a set of headlights closing in on the road behind her. All thoughts of twenty-dollar bills, gas, and even home fled her overtaxed mind.
She couldn’t see what type of vehicle it was, but she knew. She knew in her gut she hadn’t killed him, and now he was coming for her again. This time he wouldn’t be stupid enough to let her escape.
She punched the gas on Storm’s old truck. The motor was powerful, and she tried to convince herself that she was pulling away from the headlights.
“Keep your eyes on the road, keep your eyes on the road,” she chanted, her words echoing around the empty interior.
But her traitorous gaze refused to focus on the road. She kept checking the mirror, afraid the headlights would overtake her.
Are they getting closer?
Then the truck’s engine faltered. The motor belched and sputtered. Lynette’s right foot pushed harder on the accelerator, her attention further splintered. The road curved to the left, but the truck stayed on its forward trajectory.
She’d missed the curve.
For a split second, she had the sensation of flying. Silence replaced the hum of the tires across blacktop. Later, she wouldn’t be able to say how long she hung there, suspended in the air.
But what goes up must come down, and the truck landed with a bone-crushing thud.
Then she was spinning. Around and around she went, and her final thought before the shadows closed in for good was a realization that this must be how it would feel to be stuck inside a spinning kaleidoscope.
“Lynette! You fool! You’re going to get struck by lightning, sitting out on the end of the dock like that!”
Her eyes flew open at the panic in Renee’s shouted warning. Waves crashed in front of her, and it took an extra heartbeat for Lynette to realize where she was. Just then, the sky above opened up and a deluge of rain crashed down on her, bringing her back to full consciousness.
She must have fallen asleep. A storm had rolled in while she’d been tossed around in the same old nightmare that she never managed to escape.
“I’m serious, Lynette!” Renee yelled from shore. “Matt just called and said we’re under a severe thunderstorm warning! We need to get inside. That white patch out over the water means hail is moving this way!”
Between the rain and the increasing howl of the wind, Lynette struggled to get out of the deep-seated chair. Once on her feet, she teetered for a second as the elements buffeted her, and she envisioned plunging into the angry water below the dock.
She managed to stay upright and stumbled back around the chair, and she was halfway to the beach when she skidded to a halt in horror.
“Renee!” she screamed at her retreating friend.
Renee threw her hands up and stopped, turning back to face her. “What?!”
Lynette waved her right arm toward the lake. “I saw a boat out there! Is Robbie out there with guests?”
“No! Unlike you, he pays attention to the weather. They beat the storm back and they’re all safely inside. Now, let’s go, before it gets any worse!”
Lynette ran the final length of the dock and sprinted across the sand. Just as she reached the point where the beach met the grass, a bolt of lightning and nearly instantaneous thunder cracked overhead. The blinding light bounced off the twisted wooden smile on the frozen face carved into Renee’s Hawaiian totem pole.
Lynette yelped, stumbled ahead, and just caught herself before falling face-first into the wet grass.