Activity behind him. Angry voices.

Marmaduke Swinn and Tony Amorella were squaring off with some of Bristol’s CIU team, while Vaughn, Darren, and Yorick Dane were yelling and creating . . . a distraction.

Grimshaw looked around. “Where are Reynolds and Hammorson?” They could be at the main house. The CIU team could be taking statements. Or they could be . . .

A motor turned over, a sound coming from the other side of the dock.

Crap!

Grimshaw ran for the dock. “Reynolds! You can’t put a motor in this lake!”

“The police aren’t doing anything, so we’ll handle this,” Vaughn said, stepping in front of Grimshaw, getting in the way of him stopping those fools before someone—something—noticed them. “Going to make some chum.”

Hammorson backed away from the dock, then headed for the middle of the lake, motor roaring. Reynolds stood braced against the windscreen, a shotgun aimed at the water, ready to shoot anything that surfaced in response to the sound of the motor.

The boat roared out of sight, heading toward the northern end of the lake, then came roaring back before Hammorson began driving in a big circle that could be seen from Silence Lodge as well as The Jumble’s beach.

Circling. Circling, circling, circling.

Even before Hammorson started shouting, started fighting to move the boat out of the circling water, Grimshaw knew the circles made by the boat’s motor had changed into a whirlpool. Was it his imagination, or was he seeing the shape of a steed emerging from the foaming water, racing and carrying the water with it? Carrying the boat with it?

The boat was below the lip now. How soon before it flipped? Could Reynolds and Hammorson survive long enough to reach the surface, or would they be carried down to the bottom of the lake?

She rose without warning from the heart of the whirlpool, a giant female shape made of water. Her hands closed on the bottom of the boat and lifted it as her straight arms rose toward the sky. Her head. Her shoulders. Her torso. As her hips rose above the surface, she arched and dove back into the lake.

Reynolds and Hammorson screamed as they tumbled out of the boat and hit the water moments before she slammed the boat on top of them, her dive taking everything down with her.

The water circled, circled, circled, but it was residual motion. The whirlpool, like the female, had vanished.

The boat suddenly reappeared close to the dock, a projectile thrown by a giant hand. It struck the pickup truck still attached to the boat trailer, smashing through the cab and the windshield.

While Yorick Dane and his friends stood frozen in shock, Grimshaw ran to the end of the dock and searched the choppy water for any sign of the men.

“Do you see Reynolds?” Swinn shouted, pulling up at the land end of the dock. “Do you see him?”

The bottom of the lake had been churned up, turning the usually clear water cloudy. He couldn’t see anything.

Then Grimshaw spotted something orange moving toward the dock, something under the surface, barely visible. A life vest? Reynolds had been wearing one.

The wooden ladder attached to the dock didn’t look new, but he went down anyway, testing each step until his ankles were in the water.

“Check the boathouse for a gaff or fishing net,” he called to Hargreaves and Kipp. Praying the ladder would hold his weight, he held on with one hand and squatted until his ass was almost touching the water. He stretched his other arm as far as he could, his heart pounding as his hand went under the water, as his fingers scrabbled to grab hold of what he could almost reach.

Hands with webbed fingers and needlelike nails closed over the sides of the vest and lifted it a little higher, a little closer. Close enough for his fingers to grab the strap.

“Thanks,” he breathed.

The hands disappeared. Feet pounded on the dock and Kipp flopped on his belly before reaching to help pull up whatever Grimshaw had found.

Thanks, he’d said.

Nobody felt thankful when they hauled the life vest up to the dock and found Reynolds’s severed arm and the shotgun secured to it.

Grimshaw shot up the ladder and kept going until he stood several feet from the dock and the water and whatever lived there. He bent over and braced his hands on his knees.

Hargreaves hurried to reach him. “Wayne, are you all right?”

He wasn’t a coward. He’d seen plenty of grisly things during his years on the force. But remembering the bite marks on Hershel’s body and what body parts he’d been dangling too close to the water a minute ago made him queasy. He hadn’t seen the face or the mouth, but he’d seen the curved nails at the ends of those webbed fingers.

“That vest didn’t float up by chance.” He spoke quietly enough that only Hargreaves would hear him. “They’re still out there, watching.”

“Guess we’re not putting divers in that water,” Hargreaves said.

“Not today.”

If Hargreaves was smart, today would turn into never.

Grimshaw straightened. “I have to close the public beach.”

“Gods, yes.” Hargreaves pulled his car keys out of his trousers pocket. “Take my car. I’ll be here a while.”

“I’ll call Osgood to help me clear the beach and keep it closed.”

He ran from the beach to the main house, then to the bridle path and game trail until he reached the road and the cars parked on the shoulder. A couple of the Crowgard followed him to the road. He didn’t know if they were just curious or keeping tabs on him. At least he hadn’t heard any of those unnerving whispers.

He still checked the front and back seats of the cruiser, then locked the doors as soon as he got in. He sagged in the seat for a minute. He gave himself that much time to wonder if the rest of the Finger Lakes held these kinds of secrets. Then he called Ineke Xavier and asked her to fetch his spare pair of shoes and give them to Osgood. Finally he called Osgood and gave the orders to meet him at Lake Silence’s public beach.

Starting the cruiser, he touched the medal under his shirt and offered up a brief prayer to Mikhos before he put the vehicle in gear and drove to the beach.

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.