chapter SIXTY-SIX
• COLE •
Two thirty-four A.M.
I was alone.
The lake stretched out beside the parking area, the still water reflecting a mirror-perfect image of the imperfect moon. Somewhere on the other side of the water was the Culpeper property.
I wasn’t going to think about that.
Two thirty-five A.M.
I was alone.
It was possible that Sam wasn’t coming.
• ISABEL •
It was three twenty-one A.M. and there was no one at Beck’s house. I found a pile of clothing and an abandoned syringe by the back door, and inside, Sam’s cell phone sitting on the kitchen island — no wonder my call hadn’t been picked up. They were gone. They’d done just what I said to do — gone through with Cole’s plan without any of my help. I walked through the rooms downstairs, my boots clicking on the hardwood floor, though if there was anyone there, I was sure they would’ve answered me.
At the end of the hall was the room Jack had died in. I reached in and turned on the bedroom light. Instantly the room turned the same abusive shade of yellow I remembered from before. It was clear that this was Cole’s room now. A pair of sweatpants walked across the floor unattended. Glasses and bowls and pens and papers covered every available horizontal surface. The bed was unmade, and riding on the crest of rumpled bedspread was a bound leather book, like a journal or diary.
I climbed into the bed — it smelled like Cole that day he’d come over and had been trying to smell nice — and lay on my back, thinking of Jack dying right here. It was a hard memory to conjure, and it wasn’t strong enough to bring emotion with it. That made me feel simultaneously relieved and sad; I was losing him.
After a few moments, I reached over and picked up the journal. A pen was put in it to hold the page. The idea that Cole might have his private thoughts written down was strange to me; I didn’t think he could really be honest, even on paper.
I opened it up and scanned the pages. It was at the same time nothing that I expected and everything. Honesty, but no emotions. A bland chronology of Cole’s life for the past month. Words jumped out at me.
Seizure. Chills. Moderate success. Uncontrollable shaking of hands, approx. two hours. Shifted for twenty-seven minutes. Vomiting extensive; suggest fasting?
It was what was unwritten that I wanted from this journal. Not what I needed, but what I wanted. I paged through, looking to see if his entries became wordier, but they didn’t. I did find what I needed, however, on the last page: Meet at Two Island parking area, then up 169 then north on Knife Lake.
It would take me awhile to find where they meant on Two Island Lake; it was massive. But now I knew where to start.