Chapter 11 - The Cabin at Lake Avery
Nicole was not helping Victor.
She was following him.
Margaret learned that twenty-three minutes later when Nicole called.
“Don’t say my name.”
Margaret stood in the bank conference room with Mendes and Agent Bell.
“Where are you?”
“I said don’t say anything.”
Engine noise filled the background.
Nicole whispered.
“He came to the house.”
“We know.”
“He took Dad’s toolbox.”
“Why did you go with him?”
“I hid my phone inside his trunk.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Of course.
“You’re not in the car?”
“No.”
“Then where are you?”
“Nathan’s old SUV.”
Nicole’s breathing was fast.
“I’m following him.”
Agent Bell held out his hand.
Margaret ignored him.
“Stop.”
“No.”
“Nicole.”
“I need to fix this.”
“You fix it by staying alive and telling police where he is.”
Nicole laughed bitterly.
“You still think police can fix everything?”
“No. But I’m learning that daughters in black hoodies chasing murder suspects are worse.”
Mendes almost smiled despite herself.
Nicole gave the highway marker.
Officers moved.
Then Nicole said, “He’s going north.”
Margaret knew before anyone spoke.
“Lake Avery.”
Silence.
“How did you know?”
“Harold.”
Nicole’s breath caught.
“He left you something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
Nicole went quiet.
Victor reached Lake Avery forty minutes later.
By then state police were positioning units along the road.
But Victor turned onto a logging trail before the lake.
Nicole followed.
Her signal weakened.
Margaret listened to static.
“Nicole?”
“I’m here.”
“Turn around.”
“No.”
“Turn around.”
“I can see him.”
“Nicole.”
“He stopped.”
Mendes mouthed, location.
Nicole whispered coordinates from her dashboard.
Then the line went silent.
Margaret waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
“Nicole?”
Nothing.
Then a man’s voice.
“Hello, Margaret.”
Victor.
Margaret’s body went cold.
Mendes motioned for silence.
Victor chuckled.
“Your daughter is persistent.”
“What did you do?”
“She’s fine.”
In the background Nicole shouted.
“Mom, don’t tell him anything!”
A slap.
Margaret gripped the table.
Victor said, “Tell me where Harold hid the original ledger.”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It is the truth.”
“Harold always left you more than he admitted.”
“He left clues.”
Everyone looked at Margaret.
Victor fell silent.
“What clue?”
Margaret thought quickly.
She could lie.
But Victor had Nicole.
“What do I get?”
Victor laughed.
“Now you sound like Harold.”
“I spent forty-eight years with him.”
“Tell me.”
“Lake Avery.”
Victor’s breathing changed.
He was already there.
“He said it’s where Nicole learned to swim.”
“Where exactly?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor cursed.
Margaret continued.
“But I remember something you don’t.”
“What?”
“The cabin had two docks.”
Silence.
Harold had rebuilt the second dock after a storm.
Nicole learned to swim from the older one.
The one no longer visible.
Margaret suddenly understood.
“He hid it beneath the original dock.”
Victor whispered, “Where?”
Margaret closed her eyes and pictured the shoreline.
The cabin.
The stone fireplace.
June’s garden.
“The east side.”
Victor ended the call.
Agent Bell said, “We move now.”
Margaret grabbed her coat.
“You’re staying.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Hayes.”
“My daughter is there.”
“Exactly.”
“You do not get to use that word to stop me after every person around me used it to control me.”
Bell stared.
Mendes intervened.
“She rides with me.”
Lake Avery was forty-eight minutes away.
Police found Nicole’s SUV first.
Empty.
Victor’s sedan stood beside the abandoned cabin.
The property had not been sold.
Harold had transferred it twenty years earlier into a holding company Margaret had never known existed.
The deed was still active.
Margaret stepped from the police vehicle.
Rain had begun again.
She looked toward the lake.
The new dock extended into dark water.
But thirty yards east, beneath weeds and collapsed timber, she saw the remains of another structure.
The old dock.
Then a gunshot exploded from the trees.
Everyone ducked.
Margaret screamed Nicole’s name.
A second shot.
Officers spread out.
Victor appeared near the shoreline.
He held Nicole by the arm.
May you like
A pistol pressed against her ribs.
And in Nicole’s hands was a rusted metal box.
