Chapter 6 - The Night at the Lake
Detective Ruiz refused to let Claire go to the boathouse alone.
They left Vera with Rachel and traveled to the lake in an unmarked police car. Two additional officers followed at a distance.
The Vale estate had owned the northern shore for generations. Claire had not returned since Mara’s memorial service.
The boathouse stood beyond a line of pine trees, its dark roof reflected in the still water. The main estate was several miles away on the opposite shore.
Lucas Grant waited inside.
He was thinner than the photograph Ruiz had located from his investigator’s license. Gray touched his beard, and a scar crossed one side of his forehead.
He raised both hands when the officers entered.
“I’m unarmed.”
Ruiz searched him before allowing Claire closer.
“Why did you disappear?” Claire asked.
Lucas looked toward the lake.
“Because Adam’s crash wasn’t an accident.”
Claire’s body went numb.
Lucas had met Adam three months before the crash. Adam had been reviewing old legal documents after finding a discrepancy in Vera’s education trust.
The trust listed assets that should not have belonged to Thomas.
Adam followed the records to Mara’s missing inheritance.
“He believed Mara survived,” Lucas said. “He hired me to find proof.”
“Did you?”
“I found the original lake report.”
Mara’s supposed boating accident had been investigated by a county officer named Henry Cobb. The official report claimed Mara’s empty boat was discovered drifting near the rocks. Her jacket and blood were found inside.
The body recovered two days later was identified by Thomas.
However, Lucas located the original medical examiner’s notes.
The recovered woman was estimated to be in her late thirties.
Mara had been nineteen.
“What happened to the medical examiner?” Ruiz asked.
“He resigned after Thomas threatened to destroy his career. The report was amended. The body was cremated before anyone outside the family could challenge the identification.”
Claire pressed a hand against her mouth.
“Then who was buried as Mara?”
“An unidentified woman who had disappeared from a nearby town.”
The cruelty of it was difficult to understand.
A stranger had been given Mara’s name.
Mara had been erased.
Lucas continued.
“Adam found the hidden room and recorded everything he knew. He believed the room was the only place Thomas would never search because it reminded him of his failure.”
“What failure?”
“Mara escaped.”
Claire looked toward the water.
“Where did she go?”
“I never found out.”
“Then how do you know she survived?”
“Because she withdrew money in Canada two weeks after the funeral.”
Lucas had traced several small withdrawals, but the trail ended after three months. Someone with legal knowledge helped Mara disappear completely.
Adam believed Adrian Bell had arranged it.
That meant Adrian might have protected Mara before spending the next twenty-three years protecting Thomas.
“Why would Adrian help both of them?” Claire asked.
“Because Adrian protects himself.”
Lucas reached beneath an old workbench and removed a waterproof metal container.
Inside was Adam’s phone.
The screen was cracked, but the device appeared intact.
“I kept it powered off,” Lucas said. “Thomas was searching for it.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I tried.”
Lucas explained that he had gone to Claire’s house three days after the funeral. Thomas’s car was outside. Two men followed Lucas when he left.
The next morning, his apartment had been searched.
He fled.
“I told myself staying alive protected the evidence,” he said. “But the truth is that I was afraid.”
Ruiz sealed the phone in an evidence bag.
“Why contact Claire now?”
“Because Vera opened the room.”
“You knew?”
“Someone inside the estate contacted me.”
“Who?”
Lucas did not answer.
Ruiz stepped closer.
“Who helped you?”
Before Lucas could respond, headlights appeared through the broken windows.
A vehicle stopped outside.
One of the officers moved toward the door.
A woman stepped into the boathouse.
Eleanor Vale.
Her navy coat was soaked by the rain that had begun falling. Her face looked older without careful lighting and controlled expressions.
“I helped him,” she said.
Claire stared at her mother.
“You knew Mara escaped?”
Eleanor closed the door behind her.
“I gave her the key to the boathouse.”
“Then why did you let me believe she died?”
“Your father said he would kill her if she returned.”
“You chose him.”
“I chose to keep both my daughters alive.”
“You let him terrorize Vera.”
Eleanor’s face twisted.
“I didn’t know how far he would go.”
“You watched him cover her plate.”
“I thought she would give us the key.”
“You thought that made it acceptable?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked at the evidence bag containing Adam’s phone.
“I came because Thomas knows Lucas is here.”
Ruiz immediately contacted the officers outside.
The response came through her radio.
The road had been blocked by a fallen tree.
Claire looked toward the dark windows.
“Did my father do that?”
Eleanor nodded.
“He is coming for the phone.”
A sound came from the roof.
Then the lights went out.
Vera was miles away with Rachel, but Claire suddenly remembered her daughter flinching at the sound of a teacup.
Fear had begun in this family long before Vera was born.
Claire refused to let it decide what happened next.
Ruiz switched on her flashlight.
“Everyone stay away from the windows.”
An engine approached across the gravel.
Eleanor caught Claire’s arm.
“There is something you need to know before Thomas arrives.”
Claire pulled free.
“What?”
“Adam’s recording was not the only thing Vera heard.”
“What else was on the tape?”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with a fear that looked real.
“A message made last month.”
“From whom?”
The vehicle stopped outside.
May you like
Eleanor whispered one name.
“Mara.”
