couldn’t. I was afraid of what you might do. I was afraid, Bernie.” Li-Hua’s voice broke. “Karla called me on the night it happened. None of it made sense; I was groggy and there was a lot of shouting. People sound different when they’re scared, so it was a few seconds before I recognized her voice. Karla was panicked, talking very fast. She told me they’d lost control of the car and were in the water. I think the car was actually underwater. The doors wouldn’t open. She begged me for help. The call only lasted a few seconds. All of them started screaming and it ended. I dialed 911 and told the operator where I thought they were. Then I tried the girls’ cell phones. I just got recordings.”
After they disconnected, Bernice lay staring into the glow of the dresser lamp. She slowly picked apart what Li-Hua had said, and as she did, a something shifted deep within her. She removed the cordless phone from its cradle and began to cycle back through every recording stored since the previous summer, until she heard the mechanized voice report there was an unheard message dated 2am the morning of the accident. Since the power had been down, the call went straight to voice mail.
“My God. My God.” She deleted it and dropped the phone as if were electrified.
9.
Once her ankle healed, she packed some things and made a pilgrimage to the lake. The weather was cold. Brown and black leaves clogged the ditches. She parked on the high cliff above the water, the spot called Ambulance Point, and placed a wreath on the guard rail. She drank a couple of mini bottles of Shiraz and cried until the tears dried on her cheeks and her eyes puffed. She got back into the car and drove down to the public boat launch.
The season was over, so the launch was mostly deserted except for a flat bed truck and trailer in the lot, and a medium sized motor boat moored at the dock. Bernice almost cruised by without stopping—intent upon renting a room at the Bigfish Lodge. What she intended to do at the lodge was a mystery even to herself. She noticed a diver surface near the boat. She idled in front of the empty ticket booth, and watched the diver paddle about, fiddling with settings on his or her mask, and finally clamber aboard the boat.
She sat with the windshield wipers going, a soft, sad ballad on the radio. She began to shake, stricken by something deeper than mere sorrow or regret; an ancient, more primitive emotion. Her knuckles whitened. The light drained from the sky as she climbed out and crossed the distance to where the diver had removed helmet and fins. It was a younger man with golden hair and a thick golden beard that made his face seem extraordinarily pale. He slumped on the boat’s bench seat and shrugged off his tanks. Bernice stood at the edge of the dock. They regarded each other for a while. The wind stiffened and the boat rocked between them.
He said, “You’re here for someone?”
“Yeah. Friends.”
“Those women who disappeared this summer. I’m real sorry.” The flesh around his eyes and mouth was soft. She wondered if that was from being immersed or from weeping.
“Are you the man who comes here diving for clues?”
“There’s a couple of other guys, too. And a company from Oregon. I think those dudes are treasure hunting, though.”
“The men from the company.”
He nodded.
“I hate people sometimes. What about you? Aren’t you treasure hunting? Looking for a story? I read about that.”
“I like to think of it as seeking answers. This lake’s a thief. You know, maybe if I find them, the lives that it stole, I can free them. Those souls don’t belong here.”
“I had a lot of bad dreams about this lake and my sister. I kept seeing her face. She was dead. Drowned. After the accident, I realized all along I’d been mistaken. It wasn’t my sister I saw, but her daughter. Those two didn’t have much of a resemblance, except the eyes and mouth. I got confused.”
“That’s a raw deal, miss. My brother was killed in a crash. Driving to Bellingham and a cement truck rear ended him. Worst part is, and I apologize if this sounds cruel, you’ll be stuck with this the rest of your life. It doesn’t go away, ever.”
“We’re losing the light,” she said.
Out in the reeds and the darkness, a