Lake Silence

CHAPTER 67

Vicki

Firesday, Sumor 7

I didn’t hear about the beach being closed until I walked over to Come and Get It to pick up lunch. Julian had put up a CLOSED FOR INVENTORY sign on Lettuce Reed’s door, which I thought was an odd thing to do on a weekday. I worried that he was turning away potential customers, and the needed income from book sales, in order to keep me out of sight. But when I offered to pick up lunch, he gave me his order without any fuss, so I guessed that meant he wasn’t sensing any danger in the village.

The diner seemed more crowded than usual, and buzzing with people talking in low voices, as if they didn’t want to be overheard but couldn’t keep quiet.

I gave my order to Helen. I wanted to ask what was going on, but she seemed stressed and had a booth of snooty women—including the two who had tried to cause trouble for Julian—snapping their fingers in a demand for attention. As it turned out, everyone thought I was the one who had the answers.

“Miss Vicki.” A middle-aged man wearing overalls and a T-shirt approached, twisting a cap in his hands. “Don’t think we’ve met officially, but I’ve seen you around. I’m Fred, from the bait-and-tackle shop on the south end of the lake.”

“Oh. Yes. Pleased to meet you.” He was the one who approached me, but he didn’t seem all that pleased about it.

“Do you know why the chief closed the beach?” Fred asked. “Does it have anything to do with all the police being at The Jumble?”

It took a moment to realize that “chief” meant Officer Grimshaw. It took another moment to realize that the buzz of voices had fallen to a few whispers from people in the booths farthest from the counter where I stood.

“Officer Grimshaw closed the public beach?” I asked.

Fred nodded. “Wouldn’t say why, just ordered everyone out of the water and told them to go home. Then he put an officer at the entrance to the parking area to stop anyone else from going to the beach. There’s talk that something happened to one of the people staying at The Jumble.”

In school, I was not the kid who enjoyed presenting a report to the class. I wasn’t the one who wanted to stand on the auditorium stage while people in the audience coughed politely or rustled their programs. But there I was, the center of attention, with my escape looking impossibly far away, not to mention the door being blocked by Gershwin Jones, who was wearing a caftan of somber earth tones instead of his usual bright colors.

A small village. I shopped here, had a passing acquaintance with most of the people who ran or worked in the businesses. I would have been one of the people who ran a business.

“I don’t know what’s happening at The Jumble,” I said, looking at Fred. “My ex-husband repossessed the property and evicted me a few days ago. I don’t have any information about what’s going on there.”

Fred pursed his lips and finally nodded. “Didn’t know you’d been given the boot, but it makes sense that the trouble started when one of the Danes showed up.”

Really? Did the police know people in the village saw a correlation? Should I tell Grimshaw? No, it sounded like he was already up to his eyeballs in dealing with this. Besides, he knew exactly when Yorick reclaimed The Jumble.

“I’m sure Officer Grimshaw will get it sorted out very soon.” I wasn’t sure of any such thing, but Fred looked relieved to hear me say it.

Suddenly color filled his cheeks and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You got someplace to stay while you sort things out?” he asked.

I didn’t know the details of Fred’s life, just that he ran the bait-and-tackle shop with Larry. But I translated the blush as an offer of a place to stay, which was sweet—and a little confusing since this was my first conversation with the man.

“Thanks for asking. For now, I’m staying with a friend.” Not exactly the truth, but Ilya Sanguinati was insistent that I not tell anyone exactly where I was staying and definitely not say that I was alone. It seemed silly; there were a limited number of places anyone could stay in Sproing, and if I wasn’t staying at the boardinghouse, the Mill Creek Cabins would be the next logical choice.

“Staying with a friend. Is that what they call it these days?” That from one of the snooty women sitting in the booth.

Fred’s hands tightened on his cap. Gershwin Jones, who struck me as a gentle if flamboyant man, took a step closer to the booth.

Helen thumped my lunch order on the counter, startling everyone. Then she leaned toward me and whispered, “Best if you go before someone gets riled. I put the lunches on your tab.”

“Someone” meaning someone not human. Someone who might destroy the diner because a snooty customer took a verbal poke at me.

I thanked Helen, took the food, and hurried back to Lettuce Reed. When I entered the break room, Julian was on the phone.

“I’ll talk to him if you think it will help, but I didn’t see anything more than you did that day.” Julian hesitated. “Stirred up, but that’s been true for a couple of days. The current of fear is . . . more intense. Not dangerous, but you need to tell them something. Okay. Yeah.” He spotted me. “Have to go.”

I studied his pale face. “What happened at The Jumble? Why did Grimshaw close the public beach?”

“One of Dane’s idiot friends took a motorboat out on the lake, and the lake’s residents reacted as you might expect. Grimshaw closed the public beach as a precaution. Just until everyone calms down.”

I set our lunches on the counter next to the sink, no longer hungry. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t tried to turn The Jumble into a viable business.”

“By all the gods, Vicki, get over yourself,” Julian snapped.

He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d slapped my face. I thought Julian Farrow was my friend. I should have known better.

“He trained you to do that, didn’t he?” Julian said softly, staring at me. “He trained you to accept the blame whenever anything he did had consequences he didn’t like. Vicki . . . Vicki, look at yourself. You’re backed into a corner, trembling.”

Meltdown approaching. Had to stay strong long enough to get out of there.

“Vicki.” Julian held out a hand but didn’t come any closer. “Vicki, let me help you. Come over here and sit down.”

Couldn’t. Meltdown approaching. Hysteria. Weeping. Guilt for being so inadequate, followed by agreeing with everything he said because that was the only way the yelling would stop.

I was in a chair, crying, and Julian was on the phone again. “I need you here, now.”

Maybe Ineke would come. I could talk to Ineke. Maybe. Except she thought I was an interesting person capable of running a business, and I didn’t want her to find out the truth. I didn’t want her to know I’d been pretending, that I really wasn’t capable of doing anything.

It wasn’t Ineke who walked into the break room and handed me a box of tissues to clean the snot off my face. It was Ilya Sanguinati.

“Who was your physician in Hubb NE?” Ilya asked quietly.

“I don’t need medication.” I’d always been afraid when he suggested that.

“When who suggested it?” Ilya asked, making me think I’d said the words out loud. “I didn’t suggest it. Perhaps tea and whiskey? Isn’t that a drink humans find calming?”

“I don’t have the tea, but I have the whiskey,” Julian said. He leaned against the doorway. Blocked the doorway.

“Victoria? Who is this he you speak of?” Ilya asked.

He knew. We all knew. I had reacted to one man’s bit of temper as if he were someone else.

“I was interested in your X-rays.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“They document broken bones.” Ilya continued to look at me, quiet and benign.

Why did he think I would have broken bones?

Then I got it. “He never hit me. He threatened to sometimes when he was very angry, but Yorick never hit me.” Words had been his fist of choice. So not something I was going to tell my attorney, who might be sitting quietly to avoid upsetting me but was far from benign.

How did I end up surrounded by scary men? Ilya, Aiden, Conan, Cougar, even Grimshaw. Even Julian.

“Would you take credit for someone else’s achievement when you had nothing to do with that achievement?” Ilya asked.

“No.”

“Then don’t take credit for someone else’s mistakes. Yorick Dane and his friends were told they couldn’t bring heavy equipment into The Jumble. They were told motorboats were forbidden on the lake. They chose to ignore the rules. If you had been there, could you have stopped them? Would they have listened?”

“No,” I said.

“Since they wouldn’t have listened to you, I strongly suggest that you not accept guilt for actions you didn’t commit and could not have stopped.” Ilya stood up. “I still want the name of your former doctor. You can drop it off at my office on your way home.”

Ilya and Julian left the break room. Julian returned a minute later and sat down.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Julian rubbed a hand over his mouth. Then he sighed. “During the months when you were restoring The Jumble and teaching yourself how to run a business—how to run a resort—I thought you were a little nervous sometimes, especially around men. I figured you were emotionally burned by your divorce, and definitely gun-shy about dating, but you were getting on with your life. I never imagined you experienced panic attacks this severe.”

I felt sick with shame.

“It doesn’t take much, does it? Just the wrong phrase or the wrong smell or seeing the wrong person and it all comes back. The pain, the fear.” Julian tried to smile. “I can’t watch the cop and crime shows you enjoy so much. I never know when the wrong combination of things will be in the story, and then I’m back in that alley trying to get away from men who want to kill me, not sure if I can get up and find help before I bleed out. I triggered this in you today, and I’m the one who’s sorry. The last thing I want to do is sound like your ex.”

“You don’t. I’m not even sure what I heard.”

“I understand that.”

Sproing was such a marginal place there hadn’t been any police officers working out of the station here until Grimshaw showed up, temporarily reassigned. Had Sproing’s lack of crime been a relief to Julian, that the village could get along with calling the police in Bristol whenever there was trouble? What about now?

Had he closed his store today because he had needed to lock out all the trouble and turmoil?

“You’ve had some episodes recently, haven’t you? With all the police here investigating and the questions about the tie clippers . . . ?”

“I haven’t had any bad episodes since I bought the bookstore, not even when I had some unusual customers. But since I’ve been helping the police with these inquiries, I’ve had a few bad moments.”

“Does Grimshaw know?”

Julian shook his head. “And you’re not going to tell him.”

“You’re his friend. Don’t you think he should know what this is doing to you?”

“Vicki, if he knew, he wouldn’t ask for my help. And I have a feeling, a very strong feeling, that some lives will depend on my helping him.”