Chapter 16 - THE MAN BESIDE THE RIVERNo one moved.
Rain struck the ambulance roof in hard, uneven bursts.
Harper held the cartridge against her chest.
The man standing beside the river looked exactly like Bennett Hale.
Same height.
Same silver beginning at the temples.
Same small scar beneath his lower lip.
But the message on the live recording had been clear.
The man standing beside Harper is not Bennett.
Nolan drew his weapon.
“Step away from the girl.”
Bennett looked at him in disbelief.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Hands where I can see them.”
Margaret moved in front of Harper.
Samuel Reed stared at Bennett as though trying to recognize something beneath his face.
Adrian approached slowly.
“Ask him about the summer house.”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed.
“What summer house?”
Adrian stopped.
Harper felt Margaret grip her shoulder.
Bennett had once told Harper that Laura proposed to him at a summer house near Lake Warren.
It was one of his favorite stories.
Adrian raised his voice.
“What color was the front door?”
Bennett looked toward Harper.
“This is absurd.”
“What color?”
“Blue.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
Harper remembered the framed photograph in her father’s study.
The door had been yellow.
Nolan moved closer.
Bennett suddenly grabbed the emergency medic standing beside him and pulled a scalpel from the man’s belt.
“Do not come any closer.”
His voice remained Bennett’s.
But the expression was not.
Harper stepped backward.
“Who are you?”
The man looked at her.
For a moment, genuine sadness crossed his face.
“I am the person who stayed.”
Adrian moved toward him.
The man slashed at Nolan, then ran toward the tree line.
Two officers pursued.
A black vehicle emerged from the rain before they could reach him.
The rear door opened.
He jumped inside.
The vehicle disappeared along the service road.
Nolan shouted into his radio.
Margaret turned toward Adrian.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“For how long?”
“Since Bennett returned from Geneva.”
Harper stared at him.
Her father had traveled to Geneva eighteen months earlier for a company merger.
He returned quieter.
More distant.
That was when Evelyn began controlling the house.
“Where is my dad?” Harper asked.
Adrian looked toward the river.
“In the chamber, if Victor did not move him first.”
Harper’s phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from Bennett’s number.
It contained a photograph.
A man lay bound inside a medical room.
His face was swollen, but Harper recognized him.
Her father.
Beneath the photograph were six words.
PLAY THE CARTRIDGE AND HE DIES.
Then another message appeared.
DESTROY IT, AND HE COMES HOME.
Harper looked at the cartridge in her hand.
May you like
From inside it came a faint mechanical click.
The recording had begun playing by itself.
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