Deep Betrayal

my memory, and I already had plenty of nightmares to deal with.
    “He’s a good listener. Maris wasn’t what you’d call the nurturing type. Do you understand what I’m telling you now? Up until I met your dad, Joe was who I turned to. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father.”
    Compassion tugged at my heart. How selfish I’d been. “I’m sorry. I take back everything I said before. Have as much time as you want with my dad.”
    “No. I get it, Lily. I need to find some balance. You are the most important thing to me. Don’t ever doubt that. You saved me from hell. I don’t ever want you to feel left behind.”
    “Does that mean you’re not taking my dad out again tomorrow?”
    His ears flushed, and he looked away. “I’m afraid I have to. Now that Maris knows Tallulah is dead and you’re, well— not —we’ll need to be extra vigilant.”
    “Do you think she’ll buy your argument, that the debt has been paid?”
    “I hadn’t considered it before, but judging by what I saw of Pavati today, she’s had a taste of life without Maris’s Hancock obsession. She doesn’t want to go back to living with that. I’m hoping she’ll convince Maris that it’s time to move on. Right now, I’m more afraid of Maris’s grief than retribution.”
    “I don’t get that.”
    “If Maris’s grief becomes too unbearable, if she loses control of her emotions, it’s not just you who should stay off the water. Despair will take over her mind, and she’ll go on a binge.The lake will turn into an all-night buffet. That’s what I mean about vigilance. We’ll need to keep tabs on her. Pavati, too. She’s no less dangerous. We don’t need any more surprises.”
    There was something I’d been thinking about since getting Jack’s card, something that would have been impossible before. But if Calder was switching gears from avoiding Maris to actively looking for her … “Calder, I think you should warn Maris and Pavati about Jack.”
    “Warn them?”
    “He’s trying to expose them. If they go on a killing spree”—I shuddered at the thought of all those helpless, unsuspecting people—“they’ll be playing right into his hands.”
    “You might be right about that.”
    “If you can find Maris, do you think warning her will even make a difference in their attack rate? They’ll still be mourning.”
    “Maybe. If they’ve retained any concern for self-preservation.”
    I bit my lip. There was one more thing I wanted to tell him, or not tell him, I wasn’t sure which. The former won out, and I spoke quickly before I changed my mind. “If you need help finding Maris … um … When I was lying in the water … For a second, I thought I could—”
    “Don’t,” he said.
    “But—”
    “Be careful what you wish for, Lily.”
    “I just—”
    “Listen, I’ve been thinking, I should take you on a date.”
    The non sequitur caught me off guard. “A date? I thought we were talking about—”
    “A date. Like a real couple. We can’t sneak around forever.”
    That made me laugh, and it felt good. “I didn’t think we were sneaking.”
    With his index finger, he tucked my hair behind my ears. “Your bedroom isn’t exactly the social epicenter of Bayfield, Wisconsin.”
    “I didn’t realize Bayfield had a social epicenter.”
    “Absolutely. Every summer the town does ‘Summer Tuesdays.’ They show movies on the side of Oleson’s barn. The whole town goes.”
    “O-kay-ee.” I dragged the word out into three syllables, wondering what Jules would have to say about this.
    “So, movie on Tuesday?” he asked.
    “I guess I could stand a little normalcy.”
    “Exactly my thought. Only one problem. They’ve got a theme going. Each Tuesday is a movie from a different decade. They’ve already done Rebel Without a Cause and Beach Blanket Bingo .”
    “So it’s the seventies?” I ran through a list of possibilities in my head. “ Saturday Night Fever ?”
    “As if we had that kind of luck. They’re showing Jaws .”
    I squirmed as the iconic cello and bass played the E-F notes in my head: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum .
    Calder read my apprehension easily. “Maybe we should postpone the date. Next week it’s Ghostbusters .”
    I laced my fingers through his. “Nope. This will be perfect. Deadly sea creatures are my favorites.”
    “Oh, right. I knew that,” he said, and he pulled me under the waves again.

12
DATE NIGHT
    T wo days later, just after dinner, I stood in the