A Cold Dark Place (42 page)

"You need a makeover, Mom!" Stacy said. Although mostly
teasing, she wouldn't have minded if her mom did change
her hair from her decidedly un-chic '80s hairdo.

"Oh, I don't know, I think I look hot"

The response brought an exaggerated gasp.

"No one's mom is hot," Stacy said, with a smile more
mean than sweet.

Patrice made her way across the almost deserted field that
bordered the parking lot. No more than a half dozen cars
huddled by the main pathway down to the lake. Her silver
Prius gleamed in the sun, screaming out loud to the world
that she loved the earth.

She pressed the trunk key into the lock, and it popped
open. She stared into the blackness below and her heart
sank.

"What the--? "

The chips were gone. She had left them at home on the
kitchen counter.

"This is the kind of day I'm having," she said, closing the
lid. "Stacy's going to blame me for this."

As she slammed down the trunk, she heard a scream.

"Mom!"

It was Stacy's voice. She turned around and looked for
her daughter.

"Mom! Come here quick!"

Patrice squinted into the late afternoon sun, the light blinding her with the shimmer of gold off the lightly rippled surface of Brier Lake.

Something was wrong.

"Stacy! Kevin! Brandon!" Patrice called out. She started
running to the spot where she had left her children, but they
weren't there. Instead, about fifty yards away, she saw them
huddled at the water's edge. The low sun had wrapped them
in a halo of light. Were all three there? She ran as fast as she
could, losing a flip-flop in the process.

"What is it? Brandon? Kevin?"

"We're fine, Mom," Stacy called out, her voice breaking,
as she turned around to face her mother. "Oh, Mom!" She
lunged for Patrice, who gladly held her daughter. At that instant Stacy was no longer a flippant teenager. In the space of
the time it took for Patrice to go to the car, Stacy was once
more a little girl-a scared little girl. She started to cry and
pointed to a lily-pad-tangled spot about ten yards from shore.

Floating among the degraded greenery of a fall patch of
aquatic plants was the swollen figure of a child, a teenager.
She was facedown, her blonde hair swirling around her in
the water. Her skin looked waxy and white. Patrice craned
her neck to get a closer view.

No, it wasn't a child, but a woman. She could see a wristwatch and wedding band.

The boys just stood there, their eyes fastened on the floating corpse.

"Want me to poke her with a stick?" It was Kevin, her
8-year-old, who she once caught eating canned dog food off
the broken end of a hula hoop-with his older brother Brandon urging him on.

"I'll get a stick for you," Brandon said.

Patrice's heart was racing just then. She shook her head
and gently pulled her brood away from the frothy edge of the
lake.

"Let's go back to the car," she said. "I need to call the
sheriff."

Emily's cell phone vibrated on her desk and she looked
down at the small LCD screen. An electronic envelope rotated across the screen. She had a new text message. She
snapped open the phone. It was from Jenna. She knew so
even before she opened it. No one else sent text messages to
her. Certainly no one over 25 could even work the tiny keys
and create a message.

One of our BZs drowned last night. At the Kappa Chi house.

Call u tonight. Strange.