LAKESIDE

Chapter 1

Fall can come quickly, leaving you pulling up your coat collar when yesterday the seatbelt was buring your side.  In the midwest its a great transition from the busy optimism of summer to the cold defeat of winter. You wonder how the world was so bright and full of opportunity. The outside was open and inviting, go to a baseball game, hit the lake, just lay out in the sun. The outside was a place to be. An option. Forty-eight hours later you're wiping condensation from your windshield while shivering and wondering why you didn't wear long sleeves. The days are a rollercoaster between sweating and bonechilling. Outside turns from freedom calling to something to seek refuge from. It comes out of nowhere.

James Stowe, Jim, even Jimmy if you grew up with him, regretted not anticipating the evenings plummeting temperature. He had only worn a t-shirt and carpenters shorts today. It had been such a warm morning he forgot all about it. The day was spent tearing out old cabinets and flooring, the kind of work that keeps you warm. Now he rubbed his hands together and cranked the trucks' heat, but it was not much warmer than the air outside.

A heavy mist hung in the air, a rain shower that just didn't much care for gravity's beckoning. He turned the old trucks wipers up a notch. The sun was retiring past the hills and sinking far out in the horizon. It gave up its last few rays to scatter through the suspended droplets, creating a dense, murky haze. Table Rock Lake fed the cold mist that kept James on edge. The low sun was lighting it up, making the road disappear just a few feet in front of him, his headlights just made it worse.

The truck cruised down the road, he kept it under fifty even though he had driven it since before he had a license. Home was close, less than a mile. To his right he could make out the waters edge, some twenty yards away. Funny how that works, where you need to see, you can't, but where you don't, you can. He smiled, it's the way campfire smoke will chase you around everywhere you sit. The water looked black, the last rain rose the level to the highest of the year. That was the last thought James had before something in the mist in front of him caught his eye. Something dark. Something big.

Allison lay in bed watching her husband sleeping, an open window let in a breeze that drifted through the room carrying the fresh grass and dew-scent of the morning. Three weeks ago they said their vows and jetted away to a Carnival cruise for a week. It wasn't the all-inclusive resort that her friends had all stayed in for their honeymoons, but they enjoyed it all the same.

Once they were back life quickly returned to normal. James had to finish a remodel by the end of the month, the next house was already two weeks behind. Allison had a house under contact and was set to close the day after they returned. Not to mention the ever needy buyers that she had to drive all over both sides of the lake to see houses they already had toured, but just didn't know.

This, however, was a Saturday morning. And even if James had to work, Saturday mornings had a ritual, they always slept in and made a real breakfast. Crepes, bacon, eggs, hash browns, the works. They had their own jobs, each preparing their own specialty for the other.

Slowly she crept out of bed, still nude from the night before, and swiped his big t-shirt from the floor and slipped it on. Him at six feet four and her at five two, the shirt served as a dress. She quickly started the coffee maker and warmed up the shower.

James woke to the torrent of the shower running and the smell of coffee brewing. He thought about last night, being a newlywed isn't so bad.  He heard Allison's voice, singing? No, just talking. Maybe?  He pulled himself from the bed and poked his head in the bathroom door.

      "Hun, you ok?" Steam swirled around him, filling his throat.
"I'm fine babe." She pulled the dark blue curtain back revealing her dripping face. "Are you ok?" She squinted her eyes and shot him a devilish grin.
"I'll just show you," he lunged for her, jerking the curtain back and scooping up her wet body in a bear hug.
      "Stop, you're letting all my heat out!" She squealed and laughed. He pulled the curtain closed and held her against the wall, kissing her neck and shoulder. The steam engulfed them as they disappeared into a hot wet cloud of moans and gasps.

Out of the gray James watched the side of a dump truck appear. His mind registered the image but before it could relay his reflex to slam on the brakes, his truck struck it. It played out in slow motion, just like they always say it does.
     Time labored to pass. It took five minutes as he watched the hood crumple, he felt the rear end of the pickup lift off the ground, groaning its disapproval. Fissures in the windshield cracked and ran across each other, finally shattering as the truck collapsed around him, folding over on itself. James felt pressure on his back, the force took his breath away and continued to press down on him. He heard popping and snapping then realized it was his ribs, but there was no pain. Then a sharp stab above his right ear, only for a second before everything went black. Black and warm. James felt all the crushing pressure dissolve as he drifted off into the warm black.

Allison stared through the disposable paper cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She sat in a brightly lit interview room at the Taney County Police Department. The fluorescent lights buzzed as she drifted through her thoughts. Her dirty fingernails were broken and bloody. Her hair, matted down, still dripping. She pulled the wool blanket tighter around her as she shivered.

The door opened and a tired looking man with a furrowed brow entered followed by a shorter woman. He dropped a folder on the table.

"Mrs. Stowe, I'm Detective Robert Janney and this is my partner, Detective Lisa Curtis." Curtis gave a pursed smile and a slight nod. "We need to go over your statement you gave Officer Kellen earlier."