Stranger in the Lake
Kimberly Belle
On Sale Date: June 9, 2020
9780778309819, 0778309819
Trade Paperback
$17.99 USD, $22.99 CAD
Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological
352 pages
About the Book:
When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple
of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together,
despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. But
everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman’s body floating
in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned.
At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two.
As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust—her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water.
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Excerpt
The town of Lake
Crosby isn’t much, just three square blocks and some change, but it’s the only
town in the southern Appalachians perched at the edge of the water, which makes
it a popular tourist spot. Paul’s office is at the far end of the first block,
tucked between a fudge shop and Stuart’s Craft Cocktails, which, as far as I
can tell, is just another way to say “pretentious bar.” Most of the businesses
here are pretentious, farm-to-table restaurants and specialty boutiques selling
all things overpriced and unnecessary.
For people like
Paul, town is a place to socialize and make money—in his case, by selling
custom house designs for the million-dollar lots that sit high on the hills or
line the lakeshores. My old friends serve his drinks and wait his tables—but
only the lucky ones. There are ten times more locals than there are jobs.
The covered
terrace for the cocktail lounge is quiet, a result of the off-season and the
incoming weather, the sign on the door still flipped to Closed. I’m passing the
empty hostess stand when I notice movement at the very back, a tattered shadow
peeling away from the wall. Jax—the town loon, the crazy old man who lives in
the woods. Most people turn away from him, either out of pity or fear, but not
me. For some reason I can’t put into words, I’ve never been afraid to look him
straight on.
He takes a couple
of halting steps, like he doesn’t want to be seen—and he probably doesn’t. Jax
is like a deer you come up on in a meadow, one blink and he’s gone. But this
time he doesn’t run.
His gaze flicks
around, searching the street behind me. “Where’s Paul.” A statement, not a
question.
Slowly, so not to
spook him, I point to the sleek double doors on the next building, golden light
spilling out the windows of Keller Architecture. “Did you check inside?”
Jax shakes his
head. “I need to talk to him. It’s important.”
Like every time
he emerges from out of the woods, curiosity bubbles in my chest. Once upon a
time, Jax had everything going for him. High school prom king and star quarterback,
the golden boy with a golden future, and one of Paul’s two best friends. Their
picture still sits atop his desk in the study, Paul and Jax and Micah, all
tanned chests and straightened smiles, three teenage boys with the world at
their feet.
Now he’s Batty
Jax, the raggedy, bearded boogeyman parents use as a warning. Do your homework,
stay out of trouble, and don’t end up like Jax.
He clings to the
murky back of the terrace, sticking to the shaded spots where it’s too dark for
me to make out much more than a halo of matted hair, the jutting edges of an
oversized jacket, long, lean thighs. His face is dark, too, the combination of
a life outdoors and dirt.
“Do you want me
to give Paul a message? Or if you stay right there, I can send him out. I know
he’ll want to see you.”
Actually, I don’t
know; I only assume. Jax is the source of a slew of rumors and petty gossip,
but for Paul, he’s a painful subject, one he doesn’t like to talk about. As far
as I know, the two haven’t spoken since high school graduation—not an easy
thing to do in a town where everybody knows everybody.
Jax glances up
the street, in the direction of far-off voices floating on the icy wind. I
don’t follow his gaze, but I can tell from the way his body turns skittish that
someone is coming this way, moving closer.
“Do you need
anything? Some money, maybe?”
Good thing those
people aren’t within earshot, because they would laugh at the absurdity of the
trailer-park girl turned married-up wifey offering the son of an insurance
tycoon some cash. Not that Jax’s father didn’t disown him ages ago or that I
have more than a couple of bucks in my pocket, but still.
Jax shakes his
head again. “Tell Paul I need to talk to him. Tell him to hurry.”
Before I can ask
what for, he’s off, planting a palm on the railing and springing over in one
easy leap, his body light as a pole vaulter. He hits the cement and takes off
up the alley. I dash forward until I’m flush with the railing, peering down the
long passage between Paul’s building and the cocktail lounge, but it’s empty.
Jax is already gone.
I push through
the doors of Keller Architecture, an open space with cleared desks and darkened
computer screens. The whiteboard on the back wall has already been wiped clean,
too, one of the many tasks Paul requires his staff to do daily. It’s nearing
five, and other than his lead designer, Gwen, hunched over a drawing at her
drafting table, the office is empty.
She nods at my
desk. “Perfect timing. I just finished the Curtis Cottage drawings.”
Calling a
seven-thousand-square-foot house a “cottage” is ridiculous, as are whatever
reasons Tom Curtis and his wife, a couple well into their seventies, gave Paul
for wanting six bedrooms and two kitchens in what is essentially a weekend
home. But the Curtises are typical Keller Architecture clients—privileged,
demanding and more than a little entitled. They like Paul because he’s one of
them. Having a desk is probably ridiculous, too, since I only work twenty hours
a week, and for most of them I’m anywhere but here. My role is client
relations, which consists mainly of hauling my ass to wherever the clients are
so I can put out fires and talk them off the latest ledge. The job and the desk
are one of the many perks of being married to a Keller.
“Thanks.” I tuck
the Curtis designs under an arm and move toward the hallway to my left, a sleek
tunnel of wood and steel that ends in Paul’s glass-walled office. “I’m here to
pick up Paul. There’s something wrong with his car.”
When he called
earlier to tell me his car was dead in the lot, I thought he was joking. Engine
trouble is what happens to my ancient Civic, not Paul’s fancy Range Rover, a
brand-new supercharged machine with a dashboard that belongs in a cockpit. More money than sense, my mother would
say about Paul if she were here, and now, I guess, about me.
Gwen leans back
in her chair, wagging a mechanical pencil between two slim fingers. “Yeah, the
dealer is sending a tow truck and a replacement car, but they just called to
say they’re delayed. He said he had a couple of errands to run.”
I frown. “Who,
the tow truck driver?”
“No, Paul.” She
swivels in her chair, reaching across the desk behind her for a straightedge.
“He should be back any sec.”
I thank her and
head for the door.
On the sidewalk,
I fire off a quick text to Paul. I’m here, where are you?
I wait for a
reply that doesn’t come. The screen goes dark, then black. I slip the phone
into my jacket pocket and start walking.
In a town like
Lake Crosby, there are only so many places Paul could be. The market, the
pharmacy, the shop where he buys his ties and socks. I pop into all of them,
but no one’s seen him since this morning. Back on the sidewalk, I pull out my
phone and give him a call. It rings once, then shoots me to voice mail. I hit
End and look up and down the mostly deserted street.
“Hey, Charlie,”
somebody calls from across the road, two single lanes separated by a parking
strip, and I whirl around, spotting Wade’s familiar face over the cars and
SUVs. One of my brother’s former classmates, a known troublemaker who dropped
out sophomore year because he was too busy cooking meth and raising hell. He
leans against the ivory siding of the bed-and-breakfast, holding what I
sincerely hope is a hand-rolled cigarette.
“It’s Charlotte,”
I say, but I don’t know why I bother.
On my sixteenth
birthday, I plunked down more than a hundred hard-earned dollars at the
courthouse to change my name. But no matter how many times I correct the people
who knew me back when—people who populate the trailer parks and shacks along
the mountain range, people like Wade and me—no matter how many times I tell
them I’m not that person anymore, to them I’ll always be Charlie.
He flicks the
cigarette butt into the gutter and tilts his head up the street. “I just saw
your old man coming out of the coffee shop.” Emphasis on the old man. “If you hurry, you can probably
catch him.”
I mumble a
thanks, then head in that direction.
Just past the
market, I spot Paul at the far end of a side street, a paper cup clutched in
his hand. He’s wearing the clothes I watched him pull on this morning—a North
Face fleece, a navy cashmere sweater, dark jeans, leather lace-up boots, but no
coat. No hat or scarf or gloves. Paul always dresses like this, without a
second thought as to the elements. That fleece might be fine for the quick jogs
from the house to his car to the office door, but with the wind skimming up the
lake, he must be freezing.
The woman he’s
talking to is more properly dressed. Boots and a black wool coat, the big
buttons fastened all the way to a neck cloaked in a double-wrapped scarf. A
knitted hat is pulled low over her ears and hair, leaving only a slice of her
face—from this angle, her profile—exposed.
“There you are,”
I say, and they both turn.
A short but
awkward silence. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he looks surprised to see
me.
“Charlotte, hi. I
was just…” He glances at the woman, then back to me. “What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to
pick you up. Didn’t you get my text?”
With his free
hand, he wriggles his cell from his pocket and checks the screen. “Oh. Sorry, I
must have had it on Silent. I was on my way back to the office, but then I got
to talking and…well, you know how that goes.” He gives me a sheepish smile.
It’s a known fact that Paul is a talker, and like in most small towns, there’s
always someone to talk to.
But I don’t know
this woman.
I take in her
milky skin and sky blue eyes, the light smattering of freckles across her nose
and high cheekbones, and I’m positive I’ve never seen her before. She’s the
kind of pretty a person would remember, almost beautiful even, though she’s
nothing like his type. Paul likes his women curvy and exotic, with dark hair
and ambiguous coloring. This woman is bony, her skin so pale it’s almost
translucent.
I step
closer, holding up my hand in a wave. “Hi, I’m Charlotte Keller. Paul’s wife.”
The woman gives
me a polite smile, but her gaze flits to Paul. She murmurs something, and I’m
pretty sure it’s “Keller.”
The hairs soldier
on the back of my neck, even though I’ve never been the jealous type. It’s
always seemed like such a waste of energy to me, being possessive and
suspicious of a man who claims to love you. Either you believe him or you
don’t—or so I’ve always thought. Paul tells me he loves me all the time, and I
believe him.
But this woman
wouldn’t be the first around these parts to try to snag herself a Keller.
“Are you ready?”
I say, looking at Paul. “Because I came in the boat, and we need to get home
before this weather blows in.”
The talk of rain
does the trick, and Paul snaps out of whatever I walked into here. He gives me
that smile he saves only for me, and a rush of something warm hits me hard,
right behind the knees.
People who say
Paul and I are wrong together don’t get that we’ve been waiting for each other
all our lives. His first wife’s death, my convict father and meth-head mother,
they broke us for a reason, so all these years later our jagged edges would fit
together perfectly, like two pieces of the same fractured puzzle. The first
time Paul took my hand, the world just…started making sense.
And now there’s a
baby, a perfect little piece of Paul and me, an accidental miracle that somehow
busted through the birth control. Maybe it’s not a fluke but a sign, the
universe’s way of telling me something good is coming. A new life. A new chance
to get things right.
All of a
sudden and out of nowhere I feel it, this burning in my chest, an overwhelming,
desperate fire for this baby that’s taken root in my belly. I want it to grow
and kick and thrive. I want it with everything inside me.
“Let’s go
home.” Without so much as a backward glance at the woman, Paul takes my hand
and leads me to the boat.
Excerpted from Stranger
in the Lake by Kimberly Belle, Copyright © 2020 by Kimberle S. Belle Books,
LLC. Published by Park Row Books.
About the Author:
Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author
of six novels, including the forthcoming Stranger
in the Lake (June 2020). Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, was a
semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery &
Thriller, and a #1 e-book bestseller in the UK and Italy. She’s sold rights to
her books in a dozen languages as well as film and television options. A
graduate of Agnes Scott College, Belle divides her time between Atlanta and
Amsterdam.
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