In the Dark of the Night

One of them sat with his arms around his knees; the other one stood with his legs apart and his arms crossed over his chest.

And both of them were staring directly at the boat.

At him.

But that was stupid — they were too far away for him even to tell exactly in what direction they were looking — they could have been looking at anything. Another boat, or a bird, or—

But there weren’t any other boats on the lake, and when he scanned the sky, there were no birds, either.

And he still had that crawly feeling.

He turned his attention back to his rod and reel, slowly drawing his lure closer to the boat, but the strange sensation on the back of his neck didn’t ease up.

He turned again, and this time he recognized the one who was standing.

Adam. Adam Mosler.

He recalled the scene from his first night at Pinecrest, when Adam Mosler and Cherie Stevens had turned up at the dock. Adam had been pissed off, and now, as Adam kept staring at him, Eric knew that he hadn’t gotten over it.

And suddenly he had a bad feeling about Mosler — a really bad feeling. He began winding the reel faster, and a few seconds later the lure broke through the surface of the water and glittered in the afternoon sunlight. Just as Eric raised the rod higher to swing the lure over the boat, a trout leaped, snapped at one of the lure’s bare hooks, missed, and dropped back into the water.

“Fly fishing with a spoon,” his father said. “Don’t think I’ve seen that one before. Then, as Eric laid his rod on the floorboards of the boat, he began reeling in his own line. “Ready to go back?”

Eric nodded, took the handle of the outboard, and made a sweeping turn toward home.

He’d talk to Kent and Tad about this Adam guy — maybe they knew the story on him.

He gunned the engine, and as the bow lifted and the skiff struggled to reach the plane, he glanced once again at the lawn where the two boys had been.

It was empty.

But the hatred Eric had felt emanating from Adam Mosler still remained.

Chapter 8

ASHLEY SPARKS GAZED dolefully at the enormous pile of cooked, peeled, and cubed potatoes that threatened to overflow onto the floor at any moment. “Merrill, do you have a bowl for the potato salad? Or can I just chuck it all in the trash and take everyone out for dinner?”

“In the lower cabinet to your left.” Merrill pointed with the knife she was using to chop celery. “And no, you can’t throw it out. The worst is over — all you have to do now is add the good stuff.”

“Oh, come on, Merrill,” Ellen Newell put in as she unwrapped the butcher paper from a dozen thick steaks and arranged them on a platter. “Ashley doesn’t cook — she shops.” Then, as Ashley tried to muster up a dirty look — and failed — Ellen gazed enviously around Pinecrest’s huge kitchen. “Too bad we aren’t all living in this place,” she said. “I can’t believe how huge it is.”

Merrill glanced out to the terrace, where her friends’ husbands were drinking beer while her own poked at smoldering coals in the barbecue. “Marci, would you take the meat out to your father?”

Marci finished drinking her lemonade, set the empty glass in the sink, then took the platter from Ellen.

As soon as she was out of the room, Merrill turned to Ellen. “So I hear this Dr. Darby used to do experiments on the criminally insane,” she said, her voice as accusing as her expression.

Ellen and Ashley exchanged a quick look, then faced Merrill, expressions of mock guilt on their faces, and promptly dissolved into laughter. “That’s the rumor, all right,” Ellen said. “Hand me the mayo. Is it fat-free?”

Merrill pushed the jar of mayonnaise across the kitchen island. “Don’t you think you could have told me?” Then, as both her friends looked as if they were about to start laughing again, she glowered at them. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“Oh, honey, we can’t help but laugh,” Ashley said, sliding chopped pickles and onions from the cutting board into the bowl with the potatoes. “Look at this fabulous house — there’s no way on earth you would have rented it if you’d known about all those silly rumors.”

“And that’s all they are,” Ellen said. “Rumors. Who did you hear that one from?”

“Carol something-or-other. In the antiques store.”

“Carol Langstrom,” Ashley said, testing the water for the corn on the cob, then setting the lid back on the steaming pot before turning to face Merrill. “Here’s the story on Carol, and a lot of other people in Phantom Lake. Imagine being up here all winter long with ten feet of snow at forty below zero and really short days with nothing to do except gossip, spread rumors, and turn molehills into mountains. It’s not just Carol Langstrom, but much as I love her, she is the biggest gossip in town.”

“So, I have a plan,” Ellen said, as she began mixing the salad with a big wooden spoon. “To keep all of us from the evil of dwelling on rumors, we shall keep ourselves active. Minds and bodies. There’s a lovely little par- three golf course on the north shore of the lake, and there are public tennis courts over by the pavilion in town, and Jeff has the ski boat all tuned up. If we keep you busy enough, you won’t have time to think about everything you’re going to hear about this house. In fact, if I keep you really, really busy, you won’t even have time to hear the stories, let alone worry about them.”

“Not all of us are Barbie dolls, Ellen,” Ashley Sparks observed dryly, patting her own ample rump. “Nor do all of us look good enough in swimsuits to actually put one on. So for me there will be nothing involving public displays of flesh, okay? I’ll golf with you, but that’s as far as it goes. And you’ll go antiquing with me. Deal?” She lifted the lid on the pot again, where the water was now boiling. “I’m going to start the corn.”

“Deal,” Ellen said. “But from what I’ve seen so far, you could do a year’s worth of antiquing right in this house.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ashley replied, turning back to Merrill. “And I need a full tour right after we eat. I’ve wanted to get inside this house for years!”

“Maybe we should trade houses, and you can ignore all the stories about this one,” Merrill suggested, then wished she could retract her words as she saw both her friends roll their eyes.

“For God’s sake, Merrill,” Ellen said. “Don’t you think it’s about time to give up the Queen Nervosa title? You’re already over forty, and someday you’re going to look back on your life and see how much you’ve missed just by being afraid that something might happen.”

Merrill sighed and nodded, and as her two friends began planning tomorrow, she looked out through the window at their three sons, who were throwing a football around on the big lawn while Moxie chased after them. Dan and the other two men were laughing around the smoking barbecue, and Marci had sprawled in the hammock with her cat.

All of it going on against the beautiful backdrop of the sparkling lake at the foot of the lawn.

Ellen and Ashley were right; it was, indeed, time to give up her title and stop worrying.

If every day turned out like this one, there would be nothing to worry about.

ERIC PASSED THE bag of marshmallows to Kent Newell, who expertly skewered three of them onto a single stick and held them just far enough over the glowing barbecue coals so they’d brown without bursting into flames the way his own marshmallows always did. The low murmur of their parents’ voices floated out from the house, and the soft background chorus of chirping crickets was the only other sound that broke the silence of the calm evening, except for the occasional croaking of a frog or the lonely call of a loon searching for its mate somewhere across the lake. As the daylight began to fade, he leaned back in one of the worn canvas camp chairs they’d found in the basement and decided that things couldn’t get much better. Kent and Tad were both here, and the summer stretched before them, an unexplored territory with a new adventure waiting every day.

“I’m going to look up Kayla Banks tomorrow,” Kent said, slowly rotating his marshmallows. He grinned at