Keegan brushed his hand over his face as the early afternoon sun peeked around his curtain. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, dropping his head into his hands. The weight of what he was trying to do sat like a boulder between his shoulder blades. The late nights of listening to Harry, a moron by all standards, of trying to do some research and just general frustration of not having a clue what he was doing, were eating at him. He had no idea how to find out what he needed to. He was flying in the dark and it didn’t seem to be working.
I should have gone to the police.
He knew that would have been a waste of time. If they’d suspected something when his grandfather had died they would have investigated. Instead, they took it at face value that a healthy sixty-eight-year-old man had died of a heart attack.
Pushing to his feet, he grabbed his jeans and t-shirt and pulled them on. Starting up the generator, he made a pot of coffee and then started up his laptop. Using his index finger he rubbed it back and forth over the touchpad. It took a minute or so to wake up so he grabbed a cup of coffee and stood at the kitchen window looking out over the lake. His view was automatically drawn to the north end. He thought back to the lights he’d seen at around 1:00 a.m. After his late night visitor had left and he’d gotten tired of listening to the poorly recorded conversations, he’d looked out the window and had seen some very low flying lights. It had to have been a plane but the illumination had been there and then had not. They’d just vanished, like someone had just shut them off. Why would someone shut off lights on a plane? Things like that always made him think of aliens. Maybe they really were visiting.
The gentle whir of his computer pulled him back to the present and over to it. He clicked through a few programs and checked to see if there had been any more recordings of conversations. There wasn’t. He carefully listened to the one that had been happening when Sam was there. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain that to her. Seeing her again seemed to be a given, what he would say to her, he had no clue.
“...Sam Overton. Take her out.”
Keegan shuddered. That couldn’t mean what he thought it meant, could it? It didn’t sound like the guy wanted to take her on a date. She might be in trouble. But why?
He thought back to the night before when Sam was there. She was a pain but a cute one. He’d surprised himself with wanting to reach out and pull the grass from her hair and brush the dirt from her face that he’d been responsible for putting there. The moment had come and gone and he was glad he’d kept his hands to himself. He wasn’t so sure how she played into all of this but something was off. Where’d she come from all of a sudden? She was definitely smart. Maybe too smart and awfully snoopy. She’d figured out the faux pas on his name, awfully fast.
Filling his cup with more coffee, he took a sip as he made his way outside to the deck. The sun hit him, the day full of heat already. Small beads of sweat popped out on his body. A gentle breeze disturbed the otherwise serene lake, stirring up gentle ripples as it went but wasn’t touching him yet.
His mind wandered. Keegan. Tim. A chuckle caught him off guard as he thought about his names. He really hadn’t given it much time or attention. It was another thing that reminded him he’d been in seclusion just a little too long. His brain hadn’t kicked into gear fully. The hours of writing had kept him in another world, another space. He hadn’t needed to think quickly or to have everything plotted out at once. It came to him as he went. Unfortunately, he’d made a few blunders. He hadn’t even meant to use his pen name. He usually didn’t discuss his other life as a writer. He liked his peace and quiet. But he’d just felt he couldn’t use his real name. No one would be able to trace it to his grandfather. Or shouldn’t be able to. But he wasn’t going to take a chance. If anyone was checking on him, he was just an apartment renter in Bentley. They’d find all the paperwork. He wondered what Sam was going to do when she discovered he was her neighbor in town as well.
The good news was that there was nothing to tie him to this cabin. His writing had been an excellent cover. He really had needed the space and quiet to finish his latest book, which he’d finally done three months before. Well then, there’d been the editing. The rewrites. He’d really only been finished for a few weeks.
If anyone had found him at the cabin, he’d made up a good cover, he’d just needed quiet and he had the lawyer’s permission. Thankfully no one had caught him yet. He’d been really careful though - hiding his car, lights on only when necessary, locking his belongings in the bedroom. Obviously he’d have to be a little more careful. He’d been a little careless the night before and he’d got a visitor. Not something he wanted to repeat. He was just a writer with no connection to this place. Only that wasn’t true and now that he’d switched his attention to finding his grandfather’s killer, he’d need to be extra careful. Not something he’d planned out too well, he realized.
Now he had to figure out what ghosts he was chasing. He thought back to the letter that had been sent to him a little over nine years before. It had come from his grandfather’s lawyer. A dummy company had been set up, which was Keegan’s but one would have to do a lot of digging to figure that out. This lake lot, several boxes and enough shares in Tennison Post to garnish him control, were his. He’d been young, too upset at his grandfather for leaving him, too upset at his parents for never allowing the wonderful old man into his life, and too stupid to know what to do with it. So he’d told the lawyer to look after it. To do what needed to be done. He hadn’t been stupid enough to throw it back in his face. He’d wanted it but just hadn’t been in a place to handle it. Besides, his first book had come out and he was full of himself, of the notoriety that came with that. So he’d turned his back on all that had been his grandfather.
Keegan had been angry with him. He had been the only man to care about him and he’d died, leaving him alone. It hadn’t been easy to forgive him, nor the lies and the secrets his family had kept from him.
But no more. I’ll figure out who killed you.
The boxes that he’d finally gone through two years before immediately came to mind. They had been left to him by his grandfather but he hadn’t wanted to see what was in them. In fact, he’d been about to throw them away. Five file boxes had been delivered to Keegan, six months after his grandfather had died. He’d stuffed them in a back room, in a dark corner and had forgotten about them. If he hadn’t been looking to move, he wasn’t sure when or if he’d have ever opened them.
The first box had been old pictures. Pictures of him and a beautiful young woman. They’d been laughing. Many were taken at the lake. There were aerial pictures of the lake, they’d been black and white but someone had painted them, filling in the color. There had been four cabins - one on each side of the egg-shaped body of water. There had also been a letter from his grandfather to Betty Ann, the girl in the pictures. He’d poured out his heart, he’d told her how her father had made him promise to stay away from her or he’d charge him with statutory rape, how he ached to see her. How he was going to marry another woman. Of course the letter had never been sent. Then there had been another one, written twenty years later, asking her why she hadn’t told him she had been pregnant. He would never have left her, no matter what her father had said. He’d tried to talk to their daughter – April – he’d told her she was named after his mother. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. Thought he’d been lying. Then there was another note, where he talked about how angry April was with her mom and with him for not telling her the truth. Betty Ann’s grandfather, April’s great grandfather, had told her that she’d been the result of rape.
Keegan’s hands clenched as he thought again about how miserable his great-grandfather must have been. He knew almost nothing about him. His mom never talked about him and he never asked. The man had destroyed so many lives.
Then there had been the note that had told her how he’d met Keegan, his grandson. He’d been overjoyed. The boy liked him. He loved the child instantly. He had her eyes – Betty Ann’s. He told how they’d hung out together but had to keep it a secret. He hadn’t been sure that April, Keegan’s mom, wouldn’t put a stop to it. The boy was the light of his life. He’d never had kids during his marriage. He talked about how his marriage had only lasted a short time but long enough for it to have been ten years of hell, which was what he figured he had deserved for leaving her.
Then there was the letter that poured out all his grief, when he’d found out she was dead. Gone forever. Mr. Tennison had found out about April in a curt note from Mr. Ozyer, informing him that Betty Ann was dead, thanks to him. Oh, and that he had a daughter.
Keegan felt choked up as old repressed feelings came to the surface. Anger at his mother, for not including her father in her life, anger at his great grandfather, for what he had done and anger at his grandmother, for dying too young to stop all of this from happening. He knew he was being irrational but he was sure that if his grandmother, Betty Ann, had lived, her life, April’s life, his grandfather’s, and of course his, would have been different. And then he felt guilt for feeling and thinking all those things. His grandmother had died too young. April had been eighteen and alone. Her step father had split years before. Betty Ann’s Will had been changed. None of the information that was to have gone to her about her real father and what really had happened had been given to her. A bitter old man had seen to that.
So much pain and hurt, for what?
The other boxes that he’d been given from his grandfather’s estate, were full of papers, articles, nothing really of any interest, well at least not until Keegan had found the one article that had him wondering if his grandfather hadn’t been killed.
He looked out across the lake, loving the serenity of the place. He was so glad that his grandfather hadn’t used his wealth to build a big fancy house. It would have changed the place. Something he never wanted to see happen.
The tiny cabin, almost half way around the lake, was just barely visible. There didn’t seem to be any life there, though. Thinking back to the night before, he wasn’t sure if Sam had been heading there or was leaving from it. Turning, he let his gaze sweep the forest-covered banks until he came to the opening, where a lot of the brush had been cleared away as had been done at all of the four cabins at the lake. He looked towards Mrs. MacNeil’s place. The trees obscured his view.
An overwhelming sadness came over him that he wouldn’t see her again. She’d been a bright light in his day. Especially when he’d been writing, she’d always given him something new to think about. Some funny tidbit that would get him out of his writer’s block and send him off writing another thirty pages. Every time he’d gone to see her, she’d piled his arms full of fresh produce, canned stuff, baked goods, whatever she could fit into bags, so he could carry it. The thought of all the hard work she’d put in her garden made him wonder if the family was going to be out soon and do something with it. It was small compared to the one she had in town or so she’d told him. He’d hate to see it all go to waste.
Setting down his cup, he pulled on his sneakers and decided he’d go over and see if anything had been done with it. He walked across his lawn, parting the prickly caraganas that blocked the entrance to the path. Once he got through them, the path was relatively clear and fairly easy going. Especially since he’d been hiking there for almost six months.
He had just come up over a little knoll, which let him know he was getting close, when he heard what he thought was footsteps. Not wanting to intrude on the family’s time, he stepped to the side and thought he’d just watch for a few minutes before heading back. He crouched down, so his view wasn’t obscured by the tall poplars that bracketed the path. The cabin was set back a hundred feet or so from the lake but situated perfectly in the opening, finally giving him a clear view of it. A person climbed the stairs to the deck. All he could see was a bit of the person’s shoulder and as the person flipped their head, auburn hair. He scooted out of his hiding place and raced across the grass, keeping low. She was just closing the door behind her. Debating about where he’d get the best view, he decided to take the long way around the house and see if he could peak from there into the cabin.
What the hell was she up to?