Beneath the Lake Page 15

  ‘It’s not money,’ Ray says. ‘That case weighs forty or fifty pounds.’

  Warren eyes him keenly. ‘That’s right, Raymond. The case itself weighs eleven pounds. Inside are twenty thousand one-hundred-dollar bills, which weigh a gram each. There are four hundred and fifty-four grams to a pound, so we have forty-four pounds of currency and eleven pounds of luggage, for a total of —’

  ‘You brought two million dollars out here?’ Ray blurts.

  Warren nods, using the binoculars again, sweeping in every direction. The others come to a halt, shaken by the news of their cargo.

  ‘I thought you were broke,’ Ray says.

  Warren winks at him. ‘The company is. But over the years, your mother remembered to bury a few coffee cans out in the backyard.’

  ‘Hey,’ Colt says, charging away from the group. ‘I think I found it!’

  The three of them catch up as Colt wrestles the object lodged in the ground, dug in below the looser top two or three inches of sand.

  ‘Of course,’ Warren says, kneeling beside his daughter. ‘I should have known.’

  The anchor’s plastic shell has faded to a sun-bleached pink except for half of the dish-shaped bottom.

  ‘It’s been exposed for a while,’ Colt says. ‘You’re lucky it’s still here.’

  ‘Or that we spotted it at all,’ Warren adds.

  Ray doesn’t offer to help. He’s too busy studying Megan, who watches the others in disbelief and mounting dread, as if expecting something more than an anchor to appear in the moist sand his father is digging out with his bare hands. Warren begins to rock the anchor back and forth, until it wrests free. He leans back, slapping the underside like the belly of a prize bass.

  ‘Still here. Thirty years and not even cracked. Pretty good anchor.’

  Ray notices the severed strand of rope knotted at the top of the stem, where a rusted steel eyelet protrudes. He imagines his father out on the boat, the rest of the family watching as he uses a pocketknife to cut the rope. Simple enough, but what were they marking with the anchor? What else did they dump overboard?

  He can’t help but study the ground, everything in a thirty-foot radius. But there is only sand. No skeletons with chains wrapped around their necks. Of course there wouldn’t be any trace left. This was all covered by water, at least thirty feet of it, and maybe as much as fifty or sixty. Warren wouldn’t have been able to bury the bodies, only sink them. What happens to bodies in water for thirty years? They turn to bloated flesh, fatty oil slicks, algae, bacteria, dust. The bones would last longer, probably decades, but if so, they would have been washed away, spread around by the currents, carried off by fish. But why mark the site of a crime at all?

  Warren stands, dusting off his knees. ‘Seems like it happened in another life, doesn’t it, Colt? And now we’re down to this one.’

  Colt’s mouth falls open in dismay, then anger. She glares at everyone, turns and stomps off toward the water.

  ‘Colt, hey, hold up —’ Ray calls after her.

  Warren puts a hand on Ray’s shoulder. ‘Give her a minute.’

  Ray slaps the hand away. ‘What did you make her do? Mom and Leonard too? What was this Warren Mercer mission that wrecked their lives?’

  Warren gazes around the beach. ‘What became of those people? The other family. Isn’t that your real question, Raymond? Did I ever tell you their names?’

  Megan has become increasingly agitated, but at this last question of Warren’s she flinches as if slapped.

  ‘Megan? What’s wrong?’ Ray asks.

  ‘Terrible tragedy,’ Warren says, talking in Megan’s direction without meeting her eyes. ‘The thing is, even if the person who witnessed the events of that night was standing very close… well, we all misinterpreted things, didn’t we?’

  Megan looks from Ray to Warren and back, tense, eyes wide and restless.

  Ray turns to his father. ‘You did it, didn’t you? You killed them and sunk the bodies.’

  Warren takes a step toward him. ‘You father and your mother and your siblings are cold-blooded killers. Do you believe that, Raymond?’

  Was that a question or a statement? Ray doesn’t know.

  ‘I… I didn’t arrange this,’ Megan says, quiet, stunned. ‘The money. Those messages. That wasn’t me.’

  ‘Dad? Answer me,’ Ray says. ‘What did you do to them?’

  Warren taps his index finger against the side of his nose, then points the same finger at Megan. ‘You’re asking the right questions,’ he says. ‘Of the wrong person.’

  Megan has begun to cry. ‘Please, Ray, I swear on my family’s lives. I don’t know anything. I didn’t send those messages!’

  Warren bends over, heaves the steel suitcase up and drops it at Megan’s feet.

  She flinches again, releasing a small cry before covering her mouth.

  ‘Who else could have been there that night?’ Warren says.

  ‘I only wanted to know what happened,’ Megan says. ‘To understand where they went. I promise, oh God, you have to believe me, Ray!’

  ‘No, Raymond, you have to trust her,’ Warren says. ‘More than you trust your family. Are you prepared to do that?’

  ‘I think I know —’

  ‘Even though you’ve been with her for only four days?’

  ‘How…’ did you know, Ray is about to ask, but he knows the answer, doesn’t he? Gaspar. The family lawyer. His father’s eyes in Boulder. Megan works for his father. They both do. Gaspar has a file on her, one that has nothing to do with her job performance.

  Ray turns on Megan, stunned. Something he thought very valuable is dissolving before his eyes. She lied. Betrayed him. ‘Why are you doing this to —’ he begins, but something rustles within his left cargo pocket. A flash of arm withdrawing.

  Ray turns to find his father holding the .45, releasing the safety, then stepping back two paces.

  Warren tips the muzzle in Megan’s direction.

  Megan backs away, hands out. ‘Stop! Please don’t. I lied about my family, the car accident, okay? I admit that. But I wasn’t lying about the rest! I lost them. They died when I was six years old. Think about what I’m saying, Ray! What we have in common. I lost my family. My father, my mother, my older brother… the tent, the truck…’

  Ray’s mind spins. This is why she started at the restaurant. To learn about his family? To blackmail them?

  She saw what happened that night, the night of the storm.

  She lost her entire family, and his family got away with it.

  She pretended to care about him, and maybe she does, in some way. But whatever she feels, whatever they had, has been built on more lies.

  ‘You’re their daughter,’ Ray says. ‘I can understand… but why didn’t you tell me? Megan? You could have told me the truth.’

  ‘I was scared! I didn’t know if you were a part of it. I didn’t send the messages – that was someone else! Think about it. If I wanted to blackmail your family, I could have done that any time in the past twenty years!’

  ‘Calm down, Megan. Don’t make it worse,’ his father says, his voice hardening.

  ‘You were never going to leave that money here,’ Ray says, turning to his father. ‘Were you? This was a bullshit errand to trap her.’

  Colt keeps her distance, off near the shore, watching them as Warren bends over the case, unlatches it, and kicks the lid open. It’s filled with sand. More sand.

  ‘I suspected before you two left Colorado. I only wanted to confirm it.’

  Liars, Ray thinks. All of them. ‘You brought us all the way out here so you could get rid of the witness? Put her with her family?’

  Warren ignores his son, steps toward Megan, the gun at his side. ‘I need to know three things.’

  ‘I’ll leave,’ Megan pleads. ‘I won’t tell anybody. I promise, okay?’

  ‘One. What did you see?’

  ‘Nothing!’ she cries. Warren raises the gun, aiming at her. ‘Just the fighting! In the wav
es, same as Ray. I was hiding. We were both scared!’

  ‘Dad, stop —’

  ‘You’re holding out,’ Warren tells her, and thumbs the hammer. ‘What else?’

  ‘You were trying to help them, I know that,’ she stammers. ‘I saw you attempting CPR, and then everybody was gone. I ran across the point. Francine was there. The storm was still out of control. She tried to help me, that’s all I know!’

  ‘TWO. Who did you tell? Who else knows about us?’

  ‘Dad, calm down. This is insane —’

  ‘Nobody!’ Megan’s entire body starts to shake. ‘I promise. Please… please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘She told you everything,’ Ray says, stepping toward his father.

  Warren shoves him back. ‘We can’t trust her. She doesn’t understand what we were up against. You don’t know, Raymond. Get out of the goddamned way.’

  ‘I heard gunshots,’ Megan says. ‘And when I got to the other side of the point, after Francine left me…’

  Warren’s eyes grow with expectation. This is it. Everything he has been hoping to confirm. ‘Say it!’ he barks, charging at her with the gun. ‘Say it!’

  ‘They were gone!’ Megan screams. ‘My family was gone! I didn’t tell anybody. I was six years old. I didn’t understand…’ but she is crying too hard to continue.

  Ray can’t stand this anymore. Whatever Megan did or did not see, whatever she lied about, he’s not about to let his father threaten her like this anymore. He has to get the gun away from his dad and get her out of here somehow.

  He steps between them, his back to his father. ‘You lied to me!’ Then, under his breath, mouthing the words, ‘Get ready to run.’

  She doesn’t understand.

  ‘Raymond —’

  Ray turns on his father, seizes the wrist below the gun and slams his shoulders into Warren’s chest. The two of them fall back, legs tangling, into the sand.

  ‘Go!’ Ray shouts.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ Warren hisses as the two of them wrestle over the weapon.

  ‘Let go!’ Ray shakes his father’s arm, slamming it to the beach. The pistol falls in the sand. Ray jumps for it, and his father blocks him hard, sending him rolling past the gun. Ray scrambles to his feet, but Warren is already swiping the pistol up, rising.

  Ray sees Colt running toward them, shouting, but Ray can’t understand her. Warren hesitates, distracted by Colt, long enough for Megan to make her break.

  She dashes off, sprinting across the beach. She glances over her shoulder every few strides. There is no cover, nothing between her and the nearest trees except for a thousand feet of barren beach.

  The old man’s aim is steady, tracking her, his left hand supporting the grip, eyes drawing a straight line over the barrel, across the sand, to Megan.

  ‘No!’ Ray shouts, leaping to his feet. ‘Don’t you fucking do it!’

  ‘Get back here!’ Warren shouts.

  Megan only runs faster. There’s only one way, then. If he tries to knock the gun away again, his father will shoot.

  Ray gives chase, running in front of the gun. His feet pound the sand and it becomes the nightmare, the one where you can never run fast enough, the air heavy as water, the sand too thick.

  Ray is watching her hair swing across her back as the shot rings out.

  Trust

  Megan cuts toward the trees as the shot echoes across the basin. Ray cuts with her, looking back as Warren lowers the pistol, shaking his head, disappointed in his marksmanship, his son, or both.

  Ray runs in parallel, keeping ten paces off her heels, giving her time to burn off the panic. She slips into a series of thickets and shrubs over a flat plane of firmer sand, then through a wider spread of deep weeds too ugly to be a meadow. He loses her, then spots her ducking and weaving along a trail. He calls to her, but she won’t stop. A short minute later the path ends, rebuking her with a long row of mature cottonwoods along a barren hillside too tall for either of them to climb.

  They are out of the basin, out of range and out of breath. The cottons cast wide patches of shade where she slows to a jog, but it is no cooler under their cover. They are winded, stomping along like the last two members of a search party.

  Megan circles, her tears giving way to fuming anger and exhaustion. He raises his hands in surrender. She buckles, sitting in the sand, her face red and pouring sweat. A long, thick strand of spider web or insect silk clings to her neck. Ray backs into a tree and slides down, legs splayed out. The ground back here is gray, as if the fields have burned and ash has sifted into the sand.

  ‘I always knew I was naive about relationships,’ Ray says, pausing to swallow dryly. ‘But I really missed the blinking red light on this one, huh?’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ She sounds more tired of apologizing than actually sorry.

  ‘My dad just took a shot at you, so I can’t blame you if you want to leave without explaining the rest. I understand why you came on this trip. The first time you saw the Bronco, you looked like you’d seen a ghost. But I don’t know how you’re going to get out of here without the Bronco. I have to go back and tell them something, or else we’re both stuck.’

  A look of weary resignation settles on her. ‘The thing that drove me crazy for the past thirty years. I guess that’s as good a place as any to start. It was always the question, who were these people, your family? Were they good or bad? Did they try to help my family, or hurt them? Because there were two very different sides to the whole episode, Ray, and another gap in the middle. That’s why I never called the police. That’s why I needed to get close to your family, to learn what I could before making any judgements or decisions.’

  ‘Why now?’ Ray says. ‘After all this time, why this year?’

  ‘It’s just the way my life went. The story Aunt Vicky told me, it was always a boating accident. My family drowned in that storm, just like the story the waitress told us yesterday. My God, was that only yesterday? The police came out and searched for them, after a group of campers found me and called the police. A week had passed. They dragged the lake. Found our boat, but not the bodies. The lake was too big. End of search. That was it. That was the story.

  ‘And I wanted to believe that, because the alternative was… overwhelming. I couldn’t talk, Ray. I was like that kid in the waitress’s story, except I was even younger. I didn’t have the ability to process it let alone speak of it, explain it. Not for years. My Aunt Vicky raised me in Colorado Springs, like I told you. Put me through college, where I met a boy. We got married young, and it wasn’t a good marriage. He was too nice, tried too hard, like he was always trying to prove it would work. I was… I made a bad spouse. He left after six years, and I started drinking, which had always been a problem but got worse. I lost my job in corporate communications. I drifted around the country, half out of my mind. Then one day I decided to look them up. The other family.

  ‘I hired a private investigator. He found records of the permits through the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. From the same year, the same month, same week. There weren’t many families that stayed here during that window, and somehow I knew the name when I read it. The Mercers. Maybe I’d heard it on the trip, but even if I hadn’t, everything else fit. The ages of the children. The camp site on Admiral’s Point. After that it was easy to piece together, track things into the present. Your dad’s businesses, all that success. Everything was online by then and I didn’t need the private investigator for the rest.’