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and pulled a single brown hair from her bangs, now damp with sweat and smelling like the dust she’d been stirring up all morning cleaning cabins. With demented Mommie Dearest laughter, she carried the strand to the larger of the two bedrooms, lifted a pillow, and tucked the hair between the blanket and the top sheet.
    “A special gift, just for you, Mrs. MacDonohoe.” She pursed her lips in a satisfied sneer. “Enjoy your stay at Pearls Along the Lake.”
     

C HAPTER 4
    Present Day
    “Yes, ma’am, the story on page one yesterday, about the drowning.” Back at the Swap & Shop last evening, I’d slipped downstairs and dug out the copy of the Recorder Grandpa seemed determined not to let me read. The article was little more than a two-paragraph blurb recapping only the sketchiest details, so this morning I’d parked my VW under an elm tree at the end of Clifton’s street to call the newspaper office and see what more I could learn about Pearls Along the Lake.
    “Yes, yes, here we go, sugar.” The receptionist hemmed and hawed a few times until I thought she was having an asthma attack. “Yes indeedy. That’s Abe Friedman’s story.”
    Honest Abe Friedman. Guaranteed to print what he knew and make up the rest. I pushed my hair up so the breeze could cool my neck. “I’m curious about that family, the Pearls. Do you know their story?”
    “Sorry, honey, I didn’t live around these parts back then. See, I moved over this way from Turrell . . . oh, long about 1998, I think it was. My Bennie, he got a job over at the Weyerhaeuser plant and—”
    “Then maybe I could talk to Abe?”
    “You could, exceptin’ he don’t usually show his face around here till noonish. I could have him give you a buzz.”
    “No, that’s okay. Thanks for your help.” Knowing how well Abe researched his stories, I doubted he could tell me much more than what he’d written in the article. Maybe later I could swing by the Garland County Library and pop on their Internet to do some research on my own. With the A/C vent aimed right at my face, I chugged up the street to pick up Clifton.
    After over an hour of searching the winding back roads along Lake Hamilton, we finally deciphered Sandy’s directions and found our way to the abandoned resort. I found a bit of shade for the car beneath a straggly oak along the roadside. If we ventured up the circle drive, I was afraid I’d blow a tire. All kinds of junk cluttered the way—broken tree limbs, rotting boards, crushed aluminum cans, shattered beer bottles, debris from just about every fast-food joint in a five-mile radius.
    My stomach did a swirly thing, like brackish water circling the drain. I gnawed on my lower lip. “Wow, it looks even worse than Sandy described it.”
    Clifton stared through the open passenger window. “Sure don’t look like it’ll be open for business anytime this century.”
    We got out and picked our way up the cracked driveway toward the gabled two-story frame house at the top of the circle. Peeling white paint exposed bare wood weathered to a soft gray. Prickly weeds poked through the splintered boards of the broad porch steps. The smells of age and decay blended with a fishy odor carried on the morning breeze.
    Clifton kicked at a broken limb. “Must have been quite a showplace in its time. Ideal location—off the beaten path, great view of the lake.” He pointed beyond the big white house toward the chain of lakefront cabins laid out under sprawling pines and oaks.
    “Makes you wonder how anyone in their right mind could have let it go like this.” An eerie sensation raised goose bumps on my arms. I couldn’t seem to stop dwelling on that child who drowned. If there was a connection between the child and the family who’d owned this resort, maybe it was why they up and walked away.
    Clifton braved the porch steps, each one creaking under his weight. I held my breath, expecting him to crash through at any second. “Clifton, be careful.”
    He