Mosler’s eyes narrowed. “Somewhere — anywhere. I’d get Cherie, and we’d just take off. Get the hell out of this stupid town.”
“Yeah, right,” McIven’s replied, his voice mocking. “You and Cherie. In case you didn’t notice, she wouldn’t even hang with us after the funeral. You might as well write her off, at least for the rest of the summer.”
“No way,” Adam muttered.
Chris McIvens rolled his eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s hot for that Brewster guy.”
Adam’s fingers curled into fists as he remembered the way Cherie had been looking at Eric Brewster all through Ellis’s funeral. “What the hell were those pricks even doing at the funeral? They didn’t even know Ellis!”
“Get over it,” McIvens sighed. “They’ll be gone at the end of summer. If you ask me—”
“Which I didn’t,” Adam cut in, but he was no longer even looking at Chris McIvens. Instead he was staring out at the lake beyond the park. “What do you say we take my dad’s boat out for a spin?”
Chris looked up at the sky. The rain that had been falling all through Ellis Langstrom’s funeral had all but stopped, though the clouds still hung overhead like a shroud, which would probably be enough to keep anyone else from coming down to the village. He knew if they didn’t do
Rather, he’d been staring at the little boat that was bobbing on the water off the point that separated the town from The Pines.
ERIC PUT HIS fishing pole in a rod holder and zipped up his sweatshirt against the wind that had started blowing down from the north.
“I thought fish were supposed to bite when it rains,” Tad complained.
Eric glanced up at the dark sky. Half an hour ago, taking the boat out had seemed like a good idea. Better, anyway, then just sitting around thinking about Ellis. But now that they were actually on the lake, he wasn’t so sure how good an idea it had been.
The lake was empty except for a couple of old fishermen in their rain gear, sitting motionless at anchor in the midst of the wild rice that spread out from the far shore. Even as he watched, a brief rain squall made them vanish altogether. A moment later the squall passed, and once more Eric could see the old fishermen, as oblivious of the rain as they seemed to be of anything else. And yet Eric couldn’t stop thinking.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Ellis Langstrom, and about the funeral, and about everything else. He reeled in his lure, then cast it out again, barely watching where it landed, and as he eyed Tad Sparks and Kent Newell, he knew they were thinking about the same things. “You think maybe something could have happened when we started putting all the stuff back together?” he asked, seeing by their expressions that they knew exactly what he was talking about. But when neither of them spoke, he went on. “I don’t know, this sounds so stupid…” he began, but then let his words trail off, not sure he wanted to voice what he was thinking.
“What?” Kent asked. “Say it.”
Eric took a deep breath. “It just seems like — well, maybe we helped the personalities of the killers who owned those things come back to life.” He looked at Kent and Tad, who were staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Sort of,” he added.
“Oh, man,” Tad breathed. “That’s just too weird.” But in spite of his words, he shivered, and unconsciously pulled his jacket tighter.
The three of them sat still, staring at one another, none of them quite willing to be the next to speak. Then the far-off sound of an outboard motor droned across the water, and all three boys looked toward its source.
A boat was coming directly toward them, running at full throttle.
A boat Eric instantly recognized. He quickly reeled in his line as it approached, praying he was wrong about what was about to happen. But as the boat raced closer and he recognized Adam Mosler standing at the wheel, he knew his first instinct had been right. “It’s Mosler!” he yelled, and then Kent and Tad were scrambling to pull in their lines as Eric pulled the rope on the outboard.
The little engine didn’t catch.
“Hurry!” Tad said.
Eric checked the choke and pulled again.
Nothing.
Mosler’s boat was bearing down on them, the roaring engine echoing across the silent lake.
Eric pulled again, and this time the little motor sputtered and then came to life.
Too late.
A split second before the prow of Adam Mosler’s boat would have slammed into the side of their skiff, Adam suddenly cranked the wheel hard, his boat heeled into a tight turn, and a huge wake surged toward the little boat that was already all but overloaded by the three boys in it.
The pitch from the wake caught Tad standing up. He stumbled, tried to catch his balance, then collapsed into the boat, banging his head on the gunwale. “Sit down!” Eric yelled, and Kent instantly responded, dropping to the center bench and holding on to both sides of the rocking boat.
Eric crouched on the bottom, holding on to the tiller.
Mosler gunned the motor again, spun in a tight circle around them, and even in the gray light of the evening, Eric could see his eyes glittering with rage. Then he tore off to the north, turned, and came racing back, once again turning at the last possible moment, sending water cascading over the three boys in the rowboat and making it pitch and roll so badly it nearly capsized.
Then, on the third run, Adam cut it too close, and the stern of his speedboat caught the small outboard, wrenching it loose from the transom and sending a wash of water over Eric at the same time the boat rolled for the last time.
Eric lost his balance, his elbow smashing against the gunwale an instant before the boat capsized, dumping him — along with Tad, Kent, and all their gear — into the lake.
Adam, seemingly stunned by what had happened, throttled back his boat, and for a moment he and Chris McIvens stared at the three boys thrashing in the water. Eric thought they were going to come back and help them, but then Adam gunned the engine once more, twisted the wheel, and a moment later the runabout was up on a plane, racing back toward town.
Eric grabbed a floating cushion and swam over to Tad, who was clinging to what was left of a Styrofoam cooler. Tad had a gash on the back of his head and blood was sheeting out of it and running down his neck. He seemed too dazed even to realize what had happened, but when Eric shoved the cushion under him, he managed to cling to it.
As Kent swam over to them, Eric looked toward shore. Pinecrest was nothing more than a small smudge of green lawn in the distance. “I don’t think Tad can swim all the way back,” Eric said as they bobbed in Adams slowly calming wake.
As if to confirm Eric’s words, Tad laid his head on the cushion, and his grip on it visibly weakened. Eric grabbed onto Tad’s shirt. “We’ve got to get him back in the boat.”
“I don’t think we can even get it turned over,” Kent said. “We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t just sink. Let’s see if we can get Tad onto it, then maybe we can push the boat ahead of us.”
Together, the two boys towed Tad back to the overturned boat. Kent carefully hoisted himself on top of the hull and helped Eric muscle Tad up the keel. Though barely conscious, Tad gripped the slippery wood, then began to shiver, his lips turning blue.
Kent slid back into the water. “Push,” he told Eric, grabbing hold of the broken transom and kicking his legs as hard as he could. Eric, a flotation cushion under his chest, worked his way up next to Kent, and then both of them were kicking, trying to move the overturned boat toward shore.
But the boat didn’t move.
“The anchor,” Kent said, realizing what was happening.
Eric moved around to the bow of the boat, groping inside the overturned hull until his fingers found not only the rope, but the rusty eyebolt to which the rope was tied.
Tied so tightly that Eric knew he wouldn’t be able to work the knot loose.
Nor was there anything left with which to cut the rope.
“We’ll have to pull it up,” he called to Kent, and a moment later the other boy was beside him.
