been built there. A few warm embers remained, throwing up smoke where the rain had doused them. That was the burning smell he had noticed. He didn’t see anyone in the clearing, but then a shadow large enough to be a bear detached itself from one of the birch trees and approached the dying fire. Instinctively, Stride retreated. The man didn’t see him at first. He was a huge black man, at least six foot five, with dreadlocks down to his shoulders and an oddly colorful beret of red, green, and gold. His limbs were as thick as some of the larger tree trunks, with well-defined muscles. He wore a white T-shirt and loose-fitting black pants that had the same tricolored stripe as his hat.
Stride recognized him. They called him Dada. He was one of the vagrants who hung out near the railroad tracks during the warmer months. Dada was whistling, not like a nervous man in a cemetery, but like a cardinal at winter’s end. Free. Loud. Stride backed up silently, but Dada saw him. Their eyes met. The music from his mouth stopped. Stride saw the man’s lips curl into a smile, revealing white teeth against his coal skin. Dada didn’t look afraid or surprised. He laughed as Stride made his way back to the trail without saying a word. His laughter lingered in Stride’s ears, growing fainter as the storm drowned it out.
He continued toward the lake, making his way by feel as he slogged through the trees. Water streamed down his face. Mosquitoes harassed him, and he squashed them with his fingers. He didn’t know how many minutes passed before the path opened onto the sandy clearing and his eyes could see what was ahead of him.
He found Laura first. She had taken cover under one of the older pine trees, its outstretched branches forming a green roof over her head. Her clothes were soaked. She clutched her backpack against her chest and gazed across the dimpled water. In the inch of skin between her shirt and her jeans, he could see the colors of her butterfly tattoo. She looked bottled up and anxious. When he touched her shoulder, she screamed, then clapped her mouth shut.
“It’s just me,” he said.
“You scared me to death.”
“Where’s Cindy?” he asked.
Laura pointed. He looked out onto the beach, and there she was. She had taken off her shorts and was in her bikini, dancing in the rain. That was Cindy. A water sprite. A free spirit.
“Hey,” Stride shouted.
Cindy stopped when she saw him and bounded up the beach in her bare feet. “Hey, you.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her skin was wet and soft. Her long hair fell across his face.
“Do you want to go home?” he asked her. “We weren’t counting on a storm.”
“No, no, let’s stay,” she insisted.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Really. I want to, Jonny.”
Laura slung her backpack over her shoulder and put her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans. She gave the two of them a strange smile. “You guys be good, okay? I’m going to go.”
Cindy looked torn. She bit her lower lip. “No, you better not, Laura. Not by yourself.”
“I’m fine, little sister.”
“Stay with us. It’s okay.”
“You two don’t need a chaperone. Not tonight. I told you I’d leave when Jon got here.”
“We’ll go with you,” Stride said. “All of us.”
“Yes, we’ll all go,” Cindy said.
Laura hugged Cindy hard. “You two stay. Don’t worry about me.”
“No way. How will you get home? You can’t get a ride now. I’m sure everyone left when the storm hit.”
“I can hike up to the highway and catch a bus.”
“No, no, no, that’s crazy. Come on, we’re all going.”
Laura detached herself from her sister and put a hand on Cindy’s chest. “Look, I’m not being noble. I love you, but I have to go.”
“Not alone,” Cindy repeated. “I won’t let you go alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” Laura said.
“Not alone?” Serena asked. “She was meeting someone?”
Stride nodded in bed. “That’s what she told us.”
“Who?”
“Peter Stanhope said it was him. He told the police that he and Laura were dating.”
“Did you believe him?”
“His story fit the facts, but Laura told Cindy she had broken it off with Peter because he was pressuring her for sex. Tish told me the same thing.”
“Unless Laura didn’t want anyone to know that they were seeing each other.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“What happened next?” Serena asked.
Stride listened to the waves outside the window. The old house rattled in the wind. “I don’t know. That was the last time I saw Laura. Something happened to her in the softball field, where her shoe was found. But that’s not where she was killed. She took another trail from the field and wound up on a beach on the north side of the lake almost a mile away. That’s where Cindy found her.”
“So Peter’s bat wasn’t found in the softball field where you last saw it?” Serena asked.
“No. It was on the beach by the body. Someone took the bat, followed the trail from the softball field to the beach, and killed Laura there. There was something else, too.”
“What?”
“No one knows about this,” Stride said. “It was never released to the press. I only found out when I took over the Detective Bureau and pulled the file. The police found semen near the body.”
“Laura had sex that night?” Serena asked.
Stride shook his head. “Not in the body. Near the body. In the woods near the beach where Laura was murdered. Whatever went down that night, someone was there watching. Either he killed her, or he saw who did.”
