AllFreeNovel
Share Us
From: AmbroseI’m guessing you were distracted. But also it’s that thing where we stop paying attention to items in our surroundings until they’re out of place or missing.
Ambrose was likely dead-on about that. But it nagged at him, that feeling he was missing something and couldn’t pin it down.
From: BarrettI’m going to keep looking, got Dandi with me. If I’m not home when you get back, text me? I might be lakeside, a ways up, checking with the neighbors.
From: AmbroseAye, aye captain. Be safe. I look forward to you when I get back.
Ambrose’s endearments were, like him, breathtakingly unique and honest at the same time. Each one wrapped around Barrett’s heart like protective vines. Like the vines tattooed on Ambrose’s neck.
Dandi had wandered about thirty feet away, nose stuck firmly to the ground, so he whistled and she trotted back, tongue lolling. She stayed with him as he followed the muddy line of the bank, occasionally perking up when some woodland critter scampered by. They were working on more training but Barrett had quickly discovered that the dog school Val had enrolled her in early on paid dividends in shockingly good behavior, especially from such a massive animal.
They continued to walk east but the further he got from home, the more his confusion bled into worry. Something tingled in the back of his mind. An awareness. The kind of sixth sense he knew meant trouble; even danger. The same strange feeling he’d had before rescuing Ambrose from the bridge. The same unease that wormed through him when he found an abandoned backpack near a trail. Most of the time the unease turned into relief. Barrett hoped that would be the case now. He paused to make notes in his phone - when he saw the boat was missing, screenshots of Ambrose’s texts, his journey around the lake. Just in case. He blamed his ranger training.
He rounded behind the back of Gemma’s property, gaze cast about in hopes of spotting the kindly old woman. She might be elderly, but Gemma was from the Canadian backwoods and built like an aged bodybuilder. She was as much a staple of Lake Honor as any of them, as if one day the land had spat her out and she decided to stay.
“Barrett!”
Gemma came around the corner, arms full of cut logs, and Barrett rushed to help her. She batted him away but he insisted; because as soon as she saw Dandi, Gemma didn’t care if Barrett helped her. “What a beauty,” she said, setting aside the wood and crouching to offer her hand. “I’ve seen y’all out hiking but didn’t want to interrupt. Gods, what a good girl.”
And Dandi, ever the attention-seeker, boofed softly and licked Gemma’s hand. The old lady laughed, swinging her long gray braid over one shoulder. Barrett noticed a bandage on her right hand. “You can interrupt whenever you want, Gem,” he replied, amused by how taken the woman and the dog seemed to be with each other. Dandi was bouncing, Gemma was laughing, and the whole scene made Barrett feel a little bit better.
“So what brings you by, Barrett?” Gemma stood and brushed dirt off her thick coveralls. “I know we’re all a bit solitary out here, so don’t think I’m criticizing.”
Barrett explained his search for the boat and watched Gemma’s frown grow, the lines on her face settling more into her windburned skin. “So if you see it, give me a call?”
“That’s the thing, hon. I think I saw it, but it was foggy the other morning and the sun was right in my eyes. And every other person has a little motorboat like yours, but all I could think was how odd someone being out on the lake in that fog was. No one around here would do that.” Gemma shook her head. “You want some tea?”
Something was bothering the woman. He’d seen that look on the faces of witnesses. “All right.”
“Good, good.”
As Gemma bustled around her homey kitchen, Barrett settled on the sofa with Dandi at his feet. If he tried to help, she’d smack his hand like an exasperated matriarch wanting the kids out of her kitchen. Gemma didn’t speak while she made the tea, so Barrett looked around. Gemma’s place was clean and tidy, but had a hill witch vibe to it; the bundles of herbs drying by the fire, the handmade pottery and candles, the fraying but warm blankets thrown over every chair.
She’d barely passed him a chipped cup of black tea that smelled of chai spices before she said, “I’m not sure what’s going on, but something’s got my hackles up.” Gemma looked down at her cup, then back up at him. He’d always liked her directness and he braced himself for whatever was coming. “The other day I came out to find the roof on my chicken coop damaged.”
Barrett sat forward, steaming cup cradled in his hands. “Damaged how?”
“Fucked up the shingles, tried to pry the whole roof off.” She held up her bandaged hand. “And then I sliced my hand on one of the nails, trying to unbend it.”
His ranger instincts kicked in and Barrett was asking what else she remembered, when this happened, the time, if she noticed anything else.
“The boat was odd enough,” Gemma said, draining her cup. “But I noticed the damage to the coop the same morning. But coincidence is a tricky dick.” She shrugged, the movement stiff and Barrett remembered she was in her seventies and healthier than most people half her age. But that stiffness made him worry anyways. “But what am I supposed to do? Call the police? Pffttt, what have they ever done for any of us? They’d take one look at me and saynow old lady, you sure you didn’t imagine it?Fuck that. And you know, it’s funny cause I haven’t thought about Marvin inages.”
“Shit, I forgot about that.” At the time it hadn’t been funny, but one of the original cabin owners, Marvin Gilbert, had complained long and loud about Gemma’s roosters waking him up at the crack of dawn and making quite a bit of noise through the day. It had been one of those neighbor tiffs that Marvin really wanted to turn into a Hatfield/McCoy situation. Gemma hadn’t stood for any of it, and since she had every legal right to her chickens, had ignored Marvin’s increasingly angry phone calls and persistent doorbell ringing. It hadn’t lasted more than a summer, and by fall, Marvin was gone and, according to rumor, angry at the town for forcing him to stop building cabins and making a fuckton of money.
He didn’t bother to hide his laughter. “Fucking Marvin. Jesus, haven’t thought about him in a long time. But your birds are okay?”
“Completely fine. I’m more shook up than them.” Gemma looked down into her empty cup. “Fuck it. You want some bourbon?”
Barrett definitely wanted some bourbon. When Gemma brought the bottle back, he said, “You remember anything else? I know it’s cliche, but even a little detail could help.”
“Even if I don’t think it’s important?”
He laughed. Her tone was so dry but it wasn’t aimed at him. “Even that.”
Gemma stared at a spot on the wall above his head, eyes narrowed. After a few sips of bourbon, she said, “Now, this ain’t anything. But I remember seeing they had on one of those stupid puffy vests. The ones the townies wear cause they think that’s what real outdoorsmen run around in.” She shot him a look that dripped with disdain. “Now, it was in the fog, from a distance, but those vests have a certain profile. So yeah, pretty sure it was one of those vests. And it was either a tall woman, or a man.”
That was better than nothing. No one around the lake wore those vests, they did shit all to actually warm your core. So chances were good it wasn’t a local. Which meant he had even more questions than answers, but it was a starting point.
