Secrets, murder and revenge converge when a young Jess Lambert investigates a small town murder after finding a woman wearing nothing but a pair of blood-soaked shoes wandering along the lake, in this gripping prequel novella to the bestselling female detective series.
Jess Lambert and her husband, Mac, have just moved to Black Lake, looking for a quieter, more peaceful life. Until one morning Jess befriends a stranger—beautiful and glamorous Annie Parker—who’s also just moved to town.
Only a few hours later, Jess finds Annie wandering in shock along the lake wearing nothing but a pair of blood-soaked shoes. And at Annie’s house she encounters a gruesome scene that shows a violent attack. But then Annie disappears.
As Jess is pulled deeper into the mystery of what happened to Annie, she learns about the house’s chilling past. And she begins to wonder: who was Annie really? Is she a witness, murderer, victim?
But it’s dangerous hunting down old ghosts. And Jess becomes increasingly unsure if she’s the hunter, or the prey. Who is the stranger at Black Lake
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Chapter 1
Jess
The text comes through early, as the birds are beginning to chirp and the lemony springtime sunshine is edging through the new blinds Mac just hung in our bedroom. There’s only so long you can live in a new house without blinds.
He’s out.
I know who “he” is, and my heart thumps, a squirt of fear.
I’m sorry, I was only just told. I’ll find out more. Call me later.
“Who is it?” Mac murmurs.
“Just Leah wishing us good luck with the move,” I lie.
I slip out of bed and push past half-empty moving boxes into the bathroom. I splash water on my face, brush my teeth, get changed for my morning run. When I finish, Mac is already dressed, tying a double Windsor in his tie.
I slide my arms around him and his lips drop to mine.
“Mmm, minty fresh,” he says.
“Mmm, dog vomit breath.” We’ve reached the stage in our marriage where we can joke about it rather than hiding it.
“Well, someone was hogging the bathroom.”
“We have two now!” I swat his butt playfully. “I’m going for a run. Don’t be late, you might get fired.”
He laughs. He won’t get fired. His dad owns the law firm.
I slip my running jacket on, zip my phone into the pocket, and turn to leave.
“Hey.” Mac stops me. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Mac’s hands are still working the tie, but I can see his fair brows are crumpled, his shoulders set in that way I know. I cross to him, take over tying the Windsor. The indigo brings out the warmth in his blue eyes.
My husband is a handsome man. I’m biased, obviously, but objectively, he is. He’s classically good looking with high cheekbones and a straight nose, slim and tall with well-developed shoulders from years of rowing and swimming.
“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “Black Lake is a fresh start, and that’s exactly what I need.” I loop the wide end of the tie under and pull it tight. “I’m happy to be here.”
I come from a military family. I’m used to moving. By the time we settled in New York after my dad switched from the Marines to the police, making and shedding friends was as easy for me as changing clothes. I can start over here. I’ve done it before.
I kiss Mac goodbye and slip out the door. Outside, spring has arrived in a hurry. The streets are bursting with cherry blossoms, bustling with people walking their dogs; parents walking their kids to school; couples saying goodbye, getting in their cars, heading to work.
I jog toward the lake, but after I turn the first corner, I drop into a walk and head to Black Lake’s little market.
I’m not sure why I haven’t told Mac I don’t actually go for a run anymore. I did run when we first arrived a few weeks ago. But I quickly got bored of it. And then one day I stopped for a coffee. Then the next day, and the next.
I guess I just don’t want to admit the truth to Mac: that I feel lonely, lost. I can’t tell him I miss my job as a paramedic, the busy-ness of it, the fullness of each day. I miss our cramped apartment in Brooklyn. I miss the friends we left. I can’t tell him I don’t know who I am or where I belong.
What makes it even worse is that I’m not even sure I want to go back to being a paramedic. Maybe I should just find a new career. But what?
I glance at the faded scar on my forearm, a parting gift from a man who’d attacked me with a knife. I lost my confidence after that call.
But that’s not all I lost.
Mac doesn’t need to be distracted by my issues, and he definitely doesn’t need to worry about the man who’s been released from prison, who swore he’d find me when he got out.
I wind through the cobbled lanes to Black Lake’s market, debating whether I’ll call Leah back. I decide to wait until later, after my coffee.
The vendors are setting up, the air fresh with the scent of flowers being unloaded, freshly baked pastries being set out, coffee being brewed. I stop at the last stall and order a cappuccino and a croissant. The guy behind the counter is tall and beanpole thin, with gelled black hair and metal in his nose and ears. His name is Carl.
“Morning, Jess,” Carl says. He makes the best cappuccino I’ve ever tasted. Or maybe I’m just more in tune to it these days, like my sense of taste has sharpened since I’m not constantly in fight or flight mode. “That’ll be $4.25, please.”
A chuckle comes from behind me. A woman with long, chestnut hair is grinning at me, seafoam green eyes sparkling. She is beautiful, with one of those exquisite faces you see in old movies, radiant creamy skin and full lips, a delicate, elfin chin. Her makeup is heavy, but artfully done. To look older or young, I’m not quite sure. She’s wearing a white linen wrap dress with gold jewelry at her wrists and ears, a wide-brimmed straw hat perched on her head.
“That’s my lucky number.”
She has a slight accent, something I can’t quite place.
“Sorry?”
“The total for your order: $4.25. It’s my birthday and I’m twenty-five. Twenty-five on the twenty-fifth.”
“Today’s your birthday?”
She smiles. “Yes. 4/25.”
Her smile is so warm, I can’t help but return it. “Well, happy birthday. Here, your order’s on me.”
“No, I couldn’t…”
“I insist.”
“Okay, well, thanks.” She orders the same thing as me, then turns and sticks out a hand. “I’m Annie. Annie Jones.”
“I’m Jess. My husband and I just moved to Black Lake.”
Her eyes widen. “Me too! From Paraguay!”
“New York. God, it’s hard, right? Trying to buy a new house, find out where the grocery store is, find a new job. I’ve never been without a job in my life.”
“Ha! Same! I feel a little lost, to be honest.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” I smile. It’s nice to feel understood.
We grab our lattes and walk along the lakefront trail, sitting on a bench that overlooks a wooden dock stretching into the lake. The surface of the water is black, glistening like oil in the morning sun. It is pretty here. Strips of golden sand fringe the lake as far as the eye can see, wooded islands dotting the surface. But there’s something about the lake—those dark, bottomless waters; a nameless, inexplicable dread; a strange smell coming off it, like splintered branches and torn leaves and raw grief.
“We bought that house back there.” Annie brings my attention back, waving over her shoulder at a ramshackle Victorian with leaded windows and small pink roses set back from the road and up the hill a little way. It’s lovely, but unloved, unkempt. Dark shadows lurk in thick bramble and overgrown bushes.
“You live there?” I ask, surprised.
She gives a small laugh. “You’ve heard the rumors then?”
“I mean…yeah, I guess so. People say it’s haunted. Mac, my husband, he grew up here. They called it the gingerbread house when he was a kid, and boy, he’s told me some tales.”
She leans closer, eyes glowing. “I heard the woman who lived there drowned herself in the lake. Just filled her pockets with rocks and walked right into the water to escape an unhappy marriage. After, she haunted her husband, a vengeful ghost who slowly drove him insane, until he finally killed himself. Now people say they see the ghost of a dripping wet woman walking between the house and the lake across the street.”
“That’s a terrible story!” I say, but Annie’s laughing, and so am I, and I’m glad that at least she knows the stories about that house, otherwise finding out now would really actually suck. “I’m sure it’s an old wives’ tale.”
“Yes. That’s why we were willing to buy it. So, what brings you to Black Lake?” Annie asks.
I hesitate, then tell her a sanitized version of the truth. “Mac’s dad finally convinced him to take up a position at his law firm. And the timing seemed right. I was a paramedic in New York, and the job was getting a little…intense… so I decided to take some time off.”
“A paramedic! Gosh, you’re like a real-life superhero.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say with a laugh. “What about you? What brought you here?”
“Same. My husband.” She settles her coffee on the bench and takes the lid off, tears open a packet of sugar, and dumps it into the cup. But her hands are shaking just slightly. Nervous? Or maybe detoxing. I’ve seen it before with my dad.
“Olly’s a doctor at the hospital. I’m a teacher. I’ll be starting at the elementary school in September.”
A gentle breeze ruffles the brim of her straw hat. She reaches up, tucks her hair behind her ears. Her sleeves pull up and I think I see a ropy white scar on the underside of her wrists.
She drops her arms and steers the conversation back to me, what it was like being a paramedic, what it was like living in New York. We talk for nearly an hour, barely noticing the time passing.
Finally, Annie stands and says she needs to go. “I hope you won’t think I’m too forward, but would you like to grab a drink sometime? My treat. It’ll be my turn, you know, after the coffee.”
“I would love that.”
We exchange phone numbers and I wish her a happy birthday.
Before she leaves, she turns to me one last time. “Thank you, Jess. I don’t believe in fate, but I think I’m lucky I met you today.”
I smile. I hope she’s right. “Thanks, Annie. I feel the same.”
***
I go for a run after all. The thought of going back to our silent house, with nothing to do, makes my stomach clench.
I jog back through town, down a quaint, cobbled street, passing a cathedral, a library, an ice cream shop. Like most market towns, Black Lake is charming, if a little old fashioned. There’s a cute gazebo in the park and lots of pretty riverside walks and forest hikes. It’s everything Mac and I had been talking about: a quieter, more peaceful life. The type of small town that’s good for raising a family.
I jog longer than I thought I would and when I next check my watch, over an hour has passed. I’ve looped around, taking the long way home through the forest and ending up back where I started at the lakefront.
I’m jogging along the sandy shore, just approaching the gingerbread house, when I see something. It’s white and formless, twisting in the trees along the lake in front of me. It floats, light and flowing in the morning heat. I stop short, remembering Annie’s story.
People say they see the wife wandering the lake, that both she and the husband haunt the house, warring ghosts competing for space.
I blink and the white thing disappears, replaced by something real, a woman with long, dark hair, stumbling across the road toward the water. I recognize her instantly.
Annie.
I start to call her name, then stop short.
Because besides a pair of red canvas shoes, she is completely and totally bare-ass naked.
My mind jumps to the scar on the inside of her wrist, the shaking hands. A psychotic break, perhaps? I got into paramedic mode, even as I acknowledge that I should call 911. I’m not mentally or physically equipped to deal with this anymore.
But Annie doesn’t seem like she’s hallucinating or having delusions. If anything, she seems completely, chillingly still. She looks like she needs help.
So I go to her.
“Annie!” She doesn’t appear to hear me.
I pick up my pace and call out again. “Annie, wait!”
She turns, her hair swinging over one shoulder, exposing a tattoo inked across the top half of her back. It’s a snake eating its own tail, and inside the circle of the snake’s body are words I don’t recognize: Memento Mori.
“I…do you know you’re naked?” I ask stupidly.
Annie’s green eyes are glazed. Shock? I run my eyes over her, making a quick assessment, as I’m trained to do. She doesn’t appear to be on drugs; there’s no smell of alcohol on her.
“Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Here.” I shed my thin running jacket and offer it to her.
Her hands, small and fine, are slack against her pale, naked thighs. Finally, she lifts them, raising both arms like a child waiting to be dressed. I wrap the coat under her arms like a towel, so it covers her boobs and half her butt.
“Shall I take you to your house?” I ask gently.
She turns and crosses the road, heading back up the slight embankment to the gingerbread house. I follow her bright red shoes like a beacon. But there’s something about them, those shoes…
She’s already opening a rusted little metal gate with tiny pink roses twisted and twined around an arched trellis. The hinges groan, setting my teeth on edge as I catch up to her.
“Did you leave the front door open?” I ask.
Annie doesn’t answer. She just stands there, her hands loose at her sides, her red shoes bright against her pale, slender legs. She’s shivering, I realize.
I glance again at the door. It’s intact. No sign of forced entry here. But still, a bad feeling shivers somewhere deep inside my spine, like a sound too low to hear, a warning, a threat, a premonition.
I hesitate, but when I look at Annie, I see she’s shaking, fear and shock frozen on her face.
“Let’s get you inside,” I say gently.
I push the door open wider and step into the house.
Red.
There’s so much red. Everywhere. Smeared across the hardwood floors in the living room and over the beige couches. Trailing up the banister and the wooden stairs, streaked across the walls. Glistening, fresh, metallic. The rich, ripe scent of flayed meat is overwhelming.
I slowly turn to face Annie. That’s when I realize.
Annie’s shoes aren’t red. They’re soaked in blood.
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