The Lost Women of Lost Lake Read Free Page A

think I just broke something.”

3
    â€œHer ankle?” said Jane.
    â€œGravity isn’t always our friend, Janey.” Cordelia reapplied her lipstick as she gazed languidly in a compact mirror. “She fell down the deck steps last Thursday. Jill called me last night, told me it was a grade-two sprain—partial tearing of the ligaments. Thank God she didn’t break it. The doc wants her to keep it up and apply ice through the weekend. She gets an air splint and a walking boot tomorrow, although it will be a few weeks before she’s back to normal.” She smacked her lips together, looking satisfied that she’d completed the repair.
    Jane pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, stunned once again at how swiftly accidents could happen. “ Can she walk at all?”
    â€œFor now she’s using crutches. She can’t put any weight on it until she’s in the walking boot tomorrow. Makes you think twice about being out in the boonies all by yourself.”
    The comment was directed at Jane. She’d taken the last two weeks of July and the first two weeks of August off from her restaurants in Minneapolis to vacation at her family’s summer lodge on Blackberry Lake. She had good managers in place, men and women she trusted—longtime employees. Instead of sticking around to micromanage, her usual MO, she’d decided to give herself the gift of a real vacation. With everyone and his uncle dropping in to say hi, it wasn’t exactly the kind of peace she’d been hoping for. Since the lodge was only fifty miles north of the Twin Cities, it was Cordelia’s third trip out. “I better call Tessa.”
    â€œThat’s one possibility.” Cordelia stood with her back to the kitchen counter, sipping from a tall can of Izze blackberry soda, her current “go-to” beverage. “She’s in for a long haul.”
    â€œPoor kid.”
    â€œYup. That’s why I’m here. Cordelia Thorn to the rescue.”
    Jane had wondered why her friend had appeared so suddenly on a such a lovely Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t as if Cordelia was into the joys of nature. She could easily have phoned with the news. She’d arrived shortly after one in her newest car fetish, a used 2006 cherry red Mercedes CLK350, the top down, the radio blaring. Mouse, Jane’s brown lab, had begun barking even before the car purred off the gravel road and stopped in the dirt drive. Again, Cordelia had made her usual flamboyant entrance. When she got out of the car, revealing a faux leopardskin dress with a plunging neckline, shoulder pads, and a wide-brimmed raffia sun hat, Mouse simply sat on his haunches and stared.
    Cordelia was a large woman, in every sense of the word. Six feet tall—even taller in the patent leather pumps she was wearing—and well over two hundred pounds. She was a curvaceous giant. Her lipstick matched the car, a small detail that most would never have noticed but would have been central to Cordelia’s “idiom,” as she called her various fashion statements. She’d even managed to find pantyhose with seams down the back. All clothing was costume to Cordelia. And, of course, all the world a stage.
    â€œSo here’s the deal.” She crushed the empty soda can in her fist and flipped it over her shoulder into the sink, “I want you to drive up to Lost Lake with me.”
    â€œWhy are you going to Lost Lake?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIs this a philosophical debate?”
    â€œNo. Strictly practical. I promised Tessa I’d take over the last week of rehearsals for the play she’s directing.”
    â€œIs that really necessary? She’ll be in a walking boot tomorrow.”
    â€œYou know Tessa. A hangnail is cause to summon the paramedics.”
    It was true. Tessa was a world-class hypochondriac.
    â€œI see this as an opportunity to right a wrong. We haven’t been up there to see Jill and