On Mystic Lake

It made her feel safe.

She closed her eyes, listening to the soothing sound of the broom. It made her think of her mommy, and all the times she’d sat by herself, looking at a book while her mommy cleaned the house.

Before she knew it, a sound had slipped from her mouth. It was a faint schk-schk noise, the same sound that the broom was making on the floor.

Her eyes popped open. It shocked her to hear her own voice after all this time. Even if it wasn’t words, it was Izzy. She thought that part of her—the talking part—had dried up and disappeared, just like her hand and arm. She hadn’t meant to stop talking, but one day after her doctor’s appointment, she had opened her mouth to speak and nothing had come out. Nothing.

It had terrified her, especially when she realized that she couldn’t change it. After that, everyone treated her like a baby and pretended she couldn’t hear, either. It had made her cry, the way they all looked at her, but even her crying had been silent.

Annie was different. Annie didn’t look at Izzy like she was a broken doll that belonged in the trash.

Annie looked at her the way her mommy and daddy used to.

Izzy smiled, and the sound kept coming, softly, barely louder than the sound of her own breathing. Schk-schk-schk.

Chapter 10

The county courthouse had been built a hundred years ago, when Mystic had been a booming log town, when the inlets were swollen with miles of trees waiting to be piled onto locomotives and employment was always high. It was an imposing building of hand-cut gray stone, fronted by dozens of double-hung windows and placed squarely in the middle of a flat green lawn. Precisely trimmed rhododendrons and azaleas outlined the brick walkways. A Washington state flag fluttered in the spring breeze.

Nick stood on the courthouse steps, leaning back against one of the stone pillars that flanked the huge oak doors. He flipped through a slim notebook, reminding himself of the facts of an arrest that had taken place more than a month ago. Testifying was part of his job, but it wasn’t something he liked to do—especially not in family court, where everything usually came down to broken families and lost souls.

Today it was Gina Piccolo. He’d known Gina since she was a little girl. He remembered her only a few years back, when she’d had the lead in the junior high production of Oklahoma! She was a bright, sunny girl with jet-black hair and shining eyes. But in the past year, she’d gone more than a little wild. At fourteen, she’d fallen in with the wrong crowd, and she wasn’t a bright-eyed girl anymore. She was a sullen, nasty, baggy-clothed young woman with a logger’s mouth and a penchant for trouble. Her parents were out of their minds with worry—and it didn’t help that she’d recently started dating a seventeen-year-old boy. Nothing her parents said seemed to make a difference.

And so Nick was here, preparing to make a statement t

o the judge about Gina. He checked his watch. Court reconvened in ten minutes. He flipped through his notes again, but he found it difficult to concentrate.

It was a problem that had plagued him for the past four days—really ever since Annie Bourne had shown up in his life again.

Already Izzy was improving. She wasn’t talking, of course, and she still believed she was disappearing, but Nick could see the changes. She was interacting, listening, smiling . . . and the reasons were obvious.

Annie was just so damned easy to be around. That was the problem—for Nick, anyway. Memories of their lovemaking were everywhere, and Annie fascinated him—the way she squinted when she smiled, the way she kept tucking nonexistent hair behind her ear, the way she shrugged helplessly when she screwed something up.

Most of the time, he couldn’t look at her; he was afraid that the wanting would show in his eyes.

With a sigh, he flipped his notebook closed and headed inside the courthouse toward courtroom six.

Gina was waiting by the door, wearing baggy black jeans and an oversized black sweatshirt that hung almost to her knees. Her once-black hair was streaked with pink and purple highlights, and a silver ring pierced her nose.

She saw him, and her eyes narrowed. “Fuck you, Delacroix,” she said. “You’re here to tell them to put me away. ”

Where did they get all that anger? He sighed. “I’m here to tell Judge McKinley what happened on February twenty-sixth. ”

“Like you would know anything about that—or me. I was framed. That wasn’t my coke. ”

“Someone put it in your pocket?”

“That’s right. ”

“If that’s the way you want to play it, Gina, fine. But honesty would be a smarter course. ”

She tapped her thigh nervously. “Yeah, like you would know about honesty. You cops make me sick. ”

“You’re young, Gina—”

“Screw you. ”

“And like all young people, you think you’re a pioneer, the first person ever to find the great undiscovered country. But I know you. I’ve been where you’re going, and believe me, it isn’t pretty. ”