The Bodies Left Behind

left the prints was saying. You don’t belong here. You’ll see things that aren’t there and miss things that’re coming up right behind you.
    For the first time that night, including the gunshot at the house, Hart felt a trickle of real fear.
    “Fucking werewolf,” Lewis said, then looked back to the lakeshore. “So she’s gone. Gotta be. I’m saying, wegotta keep going, get out of here. After that”—he nodded back to the Feldmans’ house—“all bets are off. This thing is very fucked up. We’ll get a car on the county road. Take care of the driver. And we’re back in the city in a couple hours.” He snapped his fingers theatrically.
    Hart didn’t respond. He gestured down the road. “I want to see if she went for a swim or not.”
    Lewis sighed, exasperated, like a teenager. But he followed Hart. They walked stealthily toward the rocky shore in silence, pausing every so often.
    The younger man was looking over the lake. It was completely shaded by dusk shadow now, the water rippling in the breeze like black snake scales. He announced, “That lake, I don’t like it. It’s freaky.”
    Talking too loud, walking too loud, Hart thought angrily. He decided he had to get some control of the situation. It’d be a fine line but he had to. He whispered, “You know, Lewis, you shouldn’t’ve said anything back there. About the keys. I could’ve gotten up behind her.”
    “So I gave it away, huh? It’s all my fault.”
    “I’m saying we’ve gotta be more careful. And when you were in the dining room you started talking to her. You should’ve just shot.”
    Lewis’s eyes were good at being defensive and surly at the same time. “I didn’t know she was a cop. How the fuck could I know that? I stood my ground and nearly took lead there, my friend.”
    Took lead? Hart thought. Nobody ever said “took lead.”
    “I hate this fucking place,” Lewis muttered. He rubbed the bristle on his head, poked the lobe wherehis earring had been. Frowned, then remembered he’d put it away. “Got a thought, Hart. It’s what, a mile back to the county road?”
    “About that.”
    “Let’s get the spare on the Ford, the front, and drive her to the county road, drag the bad wheel behind us. You see what I’m saying? It’s front-wheel drive. Won’t be a problem. Get to the county road. Somebody’ll stop to help. I’ll flag ’em down, then they’ll open the window and, bang, that’s it. Fucker won’t know what hit ’im. Take their car. Back home in no time. We’ll go to Jake’s. You ever go there?”
    Eyes on the lake, Hart said absently, “Don’t know it.”
    Lewis scowled. “And you call yourself a Milwaukee boy. Best bar in town.” Peering along the shore, he said, “I think it was there.” He pointed at a spot about fifty yards to the south.
    “Hart, I hit her in the fucking head. And her car’s in the water. She’s dead, either way, from buckshot or drowning.”
    Maybe, Hart thought.
    But he couldn’t shake the image of her back at the Feldmans’ house, standing in the driveway. She hadn’t scurried away, she hadn’t panicked. She’d just stood tall, brownish hair pulled back off her forehead. The car keys—keys to safety, you could say—in one hand, her weapon in the other. Waiting, waiting. For him to present a target.
    None of that meant she wasn’t drowned, trapped in a two-ton automobile, of course, at the bottom of the spooky lake But it did mean she wouldn’t drown without one hell of a fight.
    Hart said, “Before we go anywhere let’s just make sure.”
    Another scowl.
    Hart was patient. “A few minutes won’t hurt. Let’s split up. You take the right side of the road, I’ll do the left. If you see anybody, it’s got to be either one of ’em so just draw a target and shoot.”
    He was going to remind Lewis not to say anything, just shoot. But the skinny man was already bunching his mouth up into a little pout.
    So Hart just said, “Okay?”
    A nod. “I’ll just draw my target and shoot. Yes, sir, captain.” And gave a snide salute.

    HER CHEEK RESTED against a rock, slimy with algae. Her body was submerged in breathtakingly cold water, up to the neck.
    Teeth clicking, breath staccato, cheek swollen. It seemed to push her eye out of the socket. Tears and sour lake water covering her face.
    Brynn McKenzie spat blood and oil and gasoline. She shook her head to get the water out of her ears. Had no effect. She felt deaf. Wondered if a piece of buckshot or