The House on Black Lake by Anastasia Blackwell, Maggie Deslaurier, Adam Marsh, David Wilson Page A

talking about.” Her tone is vicious and interspersed with gasping sobs.
    “Try me. What is so difficult to understand?”
    “I have never seen you cry as long as I’ve known you. Never. Matt left you and you didn’t shed a tear,” she seethes.
    “Matt didn’t leave me.”
    “He moved into a hotel, didn’t he? He never came back. And now he’s married to another woman.”
    “You weren’t there... so how do you know that?”
    “Someone informed me who was there when it happened.”
    “I haven’t spoken to Chantal in years.”
    “It wasn’t her.”
    I turn away from her and gaze into the split bark. “They all talk, you know.”
    “Gossip is not truth. No one knows what lies inside the heart of another human being.” The end of my sentence is drowned out by the sound of a large branch falling off the tree onto the hood of the car and the ping of apples dropping and rolling to the ground.
    Through my open window, I hear the rustle of footsteps on dry grass.
    “Ruth, darling, it’s not like you to make company with cow pies.” A man with a broad tanned face, spiky bleached hair, and sparkling green eyes peering out from skinny black frames, approaches from behind the car and looks in my window. “Everyone okay?” he asks in a voice coated in a creamy dark vibration.
    Ruth’s head pops up from the steering wheel. “Georgie, what are you doing here?” she asks with a wide smile that reveals the bright pink gums above her front teeth.
    “I’m on my way back from the meeting at Roger’s house. I’ve got my concert tonight on Mont Tremblant.”
    He opens my door and lends an arm to help me out, and I see he wears neon green pants and his white cotton shirt smells like it has been dried on the line. Once he has helped me from the car, he walks around the tree and assists Ruth onto the grass.
    “How did you end up out in this cow pasture, for God’s sake?”
    “It’s fuzzy. I’m not sure what happened. I was daydreaming and found myself going off the road.” She reaches out a hand to stabilize herself with his thick forearm, then introduces us and tells me he is Ramey’s cousin.
    “Georgie is a famous singer. He changed his name from George Sandeley to Georgie La Pointe because he sings with a French group,” she says and wipes mascara from under her eyes.
    “You’ve got Ramey’s smile,” I say, looking up into his ruggedly handsome face.
    “Should I say thanks?” he replies with a note of sarcasm. “He told me you were visiting. You’re more beautiful than he described, typical of the asshole. He tries to keep me out of his territory.”
    He wraps one arm around Ruth’s waist and the other around my shoulder. “Let’s walk up the hill a bit. I want to make sure you gals are okay before you get the car back on the road.”
    “We’re already late for the dinner at Roger’s.”
    “How are you, honey, any aches or pains?”
    He leans down, and the frames of his glasses touch my eyelashes as he looks deep inside my eyes. “It doesn’t look like your pupils are dilated.”
    The difference in our height puts my eye level at the hollow of his neck, where many necklaces are intertwined and hang down onto his hairless chest. A large medallion swings from a piece of leather that is inscribed with the same triple circle with an arrow as the latch on the door to Ramey’s room.
    “Walk back up the hill and I’ll get the car up to you,” he says. We follow behind, kicking aside rotting fruit, moving through the heavy sweet smell, batting away the wasps feeding on bruised apple skin, while trying to stay clear of the dirt and rocks the tires spit out as the vehicle climbs up to the roadside.
    “I’ll call Ruth about setting up a night for you to come to my show,” he says as he steps out of the vehicle.
    “We’ll talk soon,” Ruth says.
    He shines us a charming grin, then strides down the road toward a cherry-red sports car.
    “George is a raving narcissist. I don’t think I have