Chapter 9
She didn’t mean to slam the front door, what she wanted to do was slam Santiago Stillwater’s head against the asphalt.
Lina, Audrey, Roan, Saige, and an Asian woman and a Black woman she’d never met came running out of the formal sitting room and Lauren groaned.
Closing her eyes, she let her head and shoulders drop.
With all the things she’d accomplished today, she’d forgotten about the women’s group, and she was tired.
“Is everything okay?” Audrey asked, the first to reach her.
“Are you hurt, injured?” Lina said, gripping Lauren’s hand. “You were gone so long I thought something happened to you.”
“Sorry I scared you. I’m fine. I just let the sheriff provoke me again.”
Lauren hadn’t confronted Derrick or her father about how they treated her, but Santiago Stillwater would find out what a woman who was tired of being treated like shit was willing to do.
“You two seem to do that a lot,” Audrey said. “Provoke each other.”
“Back in our unit, there was only one time I saw Stillwater lose his shit the way he does around you. He was called League because his emotions always seemed to reside twenty thousand leagues under the sea,” Roan said.
She must have come here directly after work because she was still in her deputy uniform.
Were Roan and the sheriff lovers?
“My brother, Santi’s grandfather, often said beware of still waters, for beneath their surface many bodies have been laid to rest.”
“I can definitely see the sheriff killing people and sinking their bodies to the bottom of Shrouded Lake,” Lauren muttered.
“My Santiago is no television serial killer, you,” Lina defended, pulling Lauren toward the sitting room.
“Like I’m going to take your word for it!
You’re probably his accomplice, knocking his enemies out with your witch’s brew while he takes them up the mountain and drowns them.
Then you fabricate this story about the lake being haunted so no one will go in and discover the evidence.
I think I’m lucky to be alive after your special tea. ”
Lina swatted at Lauren’s words as if they were irritating flies, as the women returned to their seating.
“It was simply tea. You wanted to sleep, I helped you sleep, and that night your dreams did not come on the trail of your tears. You should be grateful.”
“Ms. Lina, I made that tea for you. Only to be used when your hip ached so bad you couldn’t sleep,” Saige said.
“She deserved at least one night of peace in my home. She was in pain. She is in pain.”
Lauren’s heartbeat accelerated. She suddenly felt like she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs thinking about Derrick and Lahn, about her parent’s duplicitousness.
She didn’t want these women to see her as weak, but mostly she didn’t want to put her business out on display.
She straightened her spine and looked at Lina.
“I am not ungrateful. The tea worked miracles, Saige. I’m teasing Lina.”
Lina shrugged, unrepentant. “I did tell you to slow down. You don’t listen…”
“Witch,” Lauren hissed as she sat in an empty spot and reached for a cookie.
The other women eyed their cups.
“I would never waste my special brew on you. She at least brings excitement. I haven’t had so many visits in months. Fifteen people came by to meet the newcomer who electrocuted the mayor.”
“I hope you charged them for your time,” Lauren said, happy she missed the crowd.
“I charged for my time and for lunch.”
“I love a woman who will quickly incorporate sage advice.” She smiled.
“Which leads back to the reason we’re here?” Draya said. “We’d all like to learn from you Ms. Lauren; even if we have to pay a bit.”
“I’m just here for food and gossip,” Roan said over a mouthful of Lina’s shortbread cookies.
“The sheriff’s given me a deadline. I’ll be here until Monday then I have to move on. Apparently, I’m not safe to be around Lina due to my unpredictable temper and all that,” she said, shaking her head.
“He hasn’t been himself since you got to town, that’s for sure,” Roan said, the only one to empathize with Santiago when the others were objecting to his ultimatum.
“With the death of his neighbor, two violent encounters, and the whole thing with the Archers… He’s a good man, just overstressed right now. ”
Oh, she is definitely fucking him, Lauren thought. Roan’s defense was too impassioned for the relationship to be purely professional. She’d served under him in the military and here. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine her serving under him sexually.
Poor woman.
The sheriff was physically impressive, magnetic…commanding attention even though he didn’t seem to need a lot of words to do it. Except with her.
“Maybe now they’ll decide to burn down that house,” Audrey said.
“Mrs. Willoby wasn’t the most loveable person, but she was close to the mayor’s mother at one point.
Maybe Veronica will advocate for the mayor to find it unsuitable for sale, or maybe the Willobys won’t put it up for sale, shutter it up, and let the ghosts have it. ”
“Not likely,” Miya said, and all eyes turned toward her. She shrugged, shaking her head. “I just know that other people have their eyes on the land. I can’t say who or my boss would probably fire me or give me an ultimatum detailing what actions I can take to keep my job.”
Miya wanted to get her real estate license, wanted to eventually start her own business here in Shrouded Lake to rival Flemming Real Estate, where she currently worked with Dave Flemming, the boss who was low-key pressuring her to be more than her boss.
“I need this job,” Miya said. “I don’t have the money to not work, and I won’t return to Miami just to have my family tell me what a failure I am. ”
Lauren understood the disappointments of family.
“Okay, since we don’t have much time, let’s start building a strategy for your businesses,” she said, reaching inside her bag for her laptop. “I’ll get your contact info, phone numbers, and emails, and check back with you individually once I get settled wherever I end up.”
Two and a half hours later, everyone but Roan had a plan.
As people were packing up to leave, Lauren turned to Miya.
“Continue with the plan we’ve outlined, learn all you can, get the accreditations, and if Shrouded Lake’s economy gets back on track, you become that bastard’s competition.
I just wish I had a detailed copy of this revitalization plan.
Maybe I’ll go visit your city controller before I leave town. ”
Santiago was bone tired when he shut off the cruiser’s engine.
Over a twelve-hour shift today and the most enjoyment he’d had was when she was around.
Which was pathetic. He needed to get off the mountain, get a life that didn’t revolve around this job, but they were too low staffed and most of his deputies worked double shifts multiple times a week.
And it wasn’t just about Anderson Archer refusing to increase the budget, it was about no one of quality rushing to join the department.
He let out a harsh sigh, rested his head on the headrest, and closed his eyes despite being surrounded by near pitch-black darkness up here. He welcomed the sensory deprivation, felt his body relax in it, his thoughts quiet.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he took off his shoes and socks, leaving them in the car, and walked along the side of the house to where the lake lay waiting, lapping at the shore.
Insects and night birds called out to the moon hidden by the mist that ghosted over the land.
He could hear animals roam within the foliage, surrounding him as he stripped off the material skin of civility and padded through dying autumn leaves until they transitioned to rock and sandy shore.
Santiago breathed in the moist air.
This was what it meant to come home.
The convergence of all that had been, intertwined with all that was now, creating the mysteries of life yet to come. This was timeless.
If he walked the quarter mile arc of beach to St. James’s house where an upstairs amber light burned, the energy was different. Quarter mile to his left, Mrs. Willoby’s house had a dim energy despite the glow from the porchlight. That area of land always felt like it was waiting.
Stepping into the cold water, Santiago walked through the shallows where the spirits were most active, most intense, most vengeful, and treaded forward until the bottom dropped from beneath his feet.
Closing his eyes, Santiago submerged himself and remained still, allowing the tide to carry him in whatever direction it chose.
For a time longer than most could survive before drowning, he floated in the icy waters with no concern for breath or time.
When the water was done with him, had cleansed him, his soul and mind were calm again.
He swam to the closest shore and exited the lake close to St. James’s home.
“I’m always amazed when you don’t drown,” Julian called from the darkness. Santiago approached his friend and smiled, brushing his fingers over the gills tattooed on the sides of his torso.
“Nah, it’s only eye-to-eye until you’re no longer exposing yourself,” St. James stated, breathing out a stream of smoke.
Santiago caught the large towel St. James tossed him, his deep laughter rumbling through the dark like thunder.
“You would’ve been scandalized every day in my unit,” Santiago said, wrapped the towel around his hips, and joined Julian on his porch. As was their ritual, Julian handed him a beer as Santiago sat on the other side of the black wrought iron table Julian used for writing and contemplating life.
“Good writing day?”
“You know I’m nosy by habit, trade, and birth. When the vultures started circling over there,” he pointed at the house directly across the lake from them. “I had to...observe. So no, not the best writing day.”
“They didn’t waste time cleaning out the house,” Santiago said.