“Spill it. Take it from the top.”
He nodded and pulled a hand down his face, as if trying to compose himself before starting. “I was at the shop, closing things up for the storm, when I saw a car across the street that looked like this.” He grabbed his phone and opened it to show Charlotte a video featuring a partial view of a blue car and a woman, who was unidentifiable thanks to a large hat.
“That looks like Stephanie’s place,” said Charlotte.
“It is. She sent me this to prove her mother’s here.”
She pointed to the phone. “That woman’s Jamie?”
“Supposedly. Anyway, I saw this car across the street and it started to pull out as I was staring at it.”
“You could see Jamie inside?”
“No. But I recognized the car.”
Charlotte grunted and Declan raised a hand. “Hold on. It gets better.”
“No kidding. At some point you end up in a lake.”
“Right. Anyway, she pulls out, so I decide I’m going to follow the car to see if it is Jamie. She sees me and takes off—nearly kills herself pulling into traffic.”
Charlotte perked. “So now you can see her for sure?”
“No. She blows through a light and I follow and we go on this high-speed chase for a few miles, headed inland and on to country roads—”
“So you’re in a high-speed chase with someone who may or may not be Jamie?”
Declan frowned. “When you word it that way it sounds irresponsible, but yes. By then I’m sure it’s her. What are the chances of an old car identical to the one that visited Stephanie taking off like that?”
“Slim. Fair enough.”
Declan leaned in. “And don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
“True. Continue. Get to the part where you end up soaking wet.”
He snorted a laugh and took a deep breath. “Long story short, she led me to a lake, where she drove across the yard, down a pier and directly into the water.”
Charlotte gasped. “She drove the car into the lake?”
He nodded. “Looked like a rental. I can tell you she’s not getting that deposit back.”
“Wow. Then what? You drove in after her? No, I saw your car...” She motioned to the front yard.
“Right. I managed not to drive the Jeep in after her. I stopped and ran out, thinking I’d grab her when she surfaced, but she didn’t surface.”
“So you dove in.”
“Yep.”
He scratched at his neck, as if thinking about the lake made him feel dirty again.
“And?” she prompted.
“And she wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean she wasn’t there?”
“She wasn’t there. The car was empty. She must have gotten out and swum underwater. I didn’t see her surface because I was in the water at that point.”
Charlotte stared at him, mouth open, unsure of what to say.
“Are you disappointed?” he asked.
“Well, yes. I mean, I’m disappointed she’s not back in jail. But mostly I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt chasing her...”
He squinted at her. “But...”
“But...did you ever actually see her?”
Declan’s shoulders slumped. “No. But it was her. It had to be. I don’t think a random person would panic at the sight of me chasing them and drive into a lake.”
Charlotte placed her palms together as if praying and tapped them against her lips, thinking.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Nothing. Really. It’s just, that leaves me with four solid possibilities for two murders.”
“Two?”
She nodded. “The guy who supposedly fell off a ladder and another man at The Fairways who supposedly asphyxiated running a generator in his garage.”
“Supposedly.”
“Both suspicious, too.”
“Officially suspicious or Charlotte suspicious.”
She chuckled. “Right now, just Charlotte suspicious.”
“So who are your four suspects?”
“Well, both victims were hoarding supplies for the storm and the first was found shortly before Gloria arrived in town. The first thing she did when she got here was trick a bunch of vultures into defecating all over a woman’s pool patio, because her garage was full of hoarded toilet paper.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Worse, it was Darla’s idea to call in a hit woman to deal with the snowbird hoarders.”
“Not all the hoarders are snowbirds,” muttered Declan. “My neighbor was bragging yesterday he bought a whole pallet of water bottles he’s going to sell for profit.”
“Ugh. People like him make moments like this worse for all of us.” Charlotte felt her anger rising. “I might point Gloria in his direction.”
“Should we make sure she’s not killing people first?”
Charlotte smirked. “Fine.”
“Who else? I’m sure Gloria isn’t suspect number one.”
“No, I’m not doing them in order. She’s probably the least likely, unless she’s gone full-blown nuts since she moved away... which isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility.”
“Agreed. Next?”
“Well, Jamie, obviously, if she’s out and about.”
“And she is.”
“Said the Lake Monster. The problem is, besides hoarding, the thing the two victims had in common was that their deaths were staged to look like accidents caused by storm preparations.”
“How are you sure they weren’t just that?”
“There was a brick with blood on it at the first scene, and the man’s skull had more damage on it than it should after falling off a ladder onto the grass. If I hadn’t stumbled onto the brick, we wouldn’t have thought twice about the second victim, but with foul play in mind, there were signs he’d been trapped in his garage on purpose.”
Declan mused on this. “It’s always hard to believe anyone is dumb enough to run a gas engine in a garage.”
“And yet it happens every time there’s a storm.”
“Yep. Was anything taken from them?”
“Not that we saw. But Ladder-guy’s neighbor showed up in the crowd gathering outside the second scene.”
Declan scowled. “That’s weird.”
“It is. It looked like he happened
