Chapter 10 - The Cottage by the Lake
Police arrived before Evan entered the house.
He disappeared through neighboring yards.
Again.
The photograph he held up told me one thing.
They knew about the lake.
Maybe they knew what Elise hid.
Lena wanted police to search the cottage.
The property now belonged to a hospice foundation.
Investigators obtained permission.
I was allowed to accompany them because Elise’s letter referenced my mother.
Grant stayed with Juniper.
Naomi came with me.
The lake looked exactly as I remembered.
Gray water.
Pine trees.
A long wooden dock.
And the small white cottage where Lorraine Mercer spent the final twelve days of her life.
My mother had loved that view.
Orson hated it.
Or claimed to.
Inside, almost everything had changed.
New furniture.
New paint.
Different curtains.
But the stone fireplace remained.
So did the porch.
I walked outside.
My mother had sat in a wicker chair near the railing.
Her last coherent conversation with me happened there.
She told me she was proud of me.
She told me not to spend my life trying to keep Orson happy.
At twenty-six, I did not understand why she said it.
Now I did.
Naomi stood beside me.
“What did your mother say when she said goodbye?”
I closed my eyes.
Then remembered.
“She made a joke.”
“What joke?”
“She said, ‘Your father will never look under anything that requires dirt beneath his fingernails.’”
Naomi stared.
“That sounds like a clue.”
“It sounded like Mom insulting Dad’s gardening skills.”
“Where was she looking?”
I replayed the memory.
The flower beds.
My mother loved hydrangeas.
Blue hydrangeas lined the side of the cottage.
I walked toward them.
The hospice gardener helped identify which beds existed eleven years ago.
One remained almost unchanged.
Near the base sat an old decorative stone.
A carved bird.
My mother loved birds.
Police photographed everything before moving it.
Underneath was soil.
Nothing else.
An officer used a small spade.
Six inches down, metal scraped.
My heart stopped.
They uncovered a rusted waterproof box.
Naomi gripped my arm.
The detective opened it after documenting the seal.
Inside were plastic-wrapped papers.
A flash drive.
A key.
And an envelope with my name.
I recognized my mother’s handwriting.
Not Elise’s.
My knees weakened.
“How?”
Naomi whispered.
“Elise must have known your mother hid this first.”
The letter was eleven years old.
Lorraine had written it during her final weeks.
Caleb,
If Orson ever tells you I trusted him completely, do not believe him.
My throat closed.
She described discovering irregularities in her accounts.
She suspected Orson had forged her signature.
But she was dying.
She lacked the strength for a legal battle.
She made copies.
She hid them.
And she told one person where.
Elise.
I stopped reading.
“Elise knew Mom before we married.”
Naomi nodded.
“Elise visited her.”
I had forgotten.
Elise and I were dating during my mother’s final year.
She sometimes sat with Lorraine when I worked.
My mother had trusted her.
More than she trusted her husband.
The flash drive contained scanned financial records.
Transfers.
Signatures.
Emails.
Payments to shell companies.
Payments to Evan.
Payments to Tabitha.
And one recurring transfer to someone named Dr. Martin Vale.
I frowned.
“Who is that?”
Detective Alvarez searched quickly.
His expression changed.
“He was a radiology administrator.”
My heart stopped.
“At Elise’s hospital?”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Payments to Vale began three weeks before Elise died.
They continued for six months afterward.
“What did Dad pay him for?”
Nobody knew.
Vale had retired.
He lived two states away.
Investigators contacted local authorities.
By evening, he agreed to an interview.
His explanation arrived the next day.
Orson paid him for confidential information.
Elise’s imaging report.
Her appointments.
Her second-opinion request.
Her estimated medical risks.
Vale claimed he never altered treatment.
He never withheld care.
He simply sold information.
That distinction did not comfort me.
Then came a devastating detail.
Elise had scheduled a consultation with a neurosurgeon.
September 15.
The day after she died.
Orson knew.
He knew her aneurysm might soon be treated.
If she survived treatment and exposed the financial records, his control ended.
Again, there was no evidence he caused the rupture.
But he knew time was running out.
Lena used a phrase I hated.
“Opportunity created by tragedy.”
Orson may not have created Elise’s death.
But he had been ready to exploit it.
And he did.
Detectives searched the rest of the recovered files.
One document was dated September 14 at 4:36 p.m.
Hours after Elise died.
It was an email from Orson to Evan.
CHANGE OF PLAN.
SHE’S GONE.
START WITH CALEB.
I stared at those words for a long time.
Then I asked the question nobody wanted to answer.
“What was the original plan?”
Detective Alvarez opened another recovered file.
It contained a draft petition.
Not against me.
Against Elise.
The petition alleged she was medically unstable.
Emotionally unreliable.
Unable to safely parent because of the aneurysm.
Orson had planned to use Elise’s private diagnosis to challenge her control over Juniper.
Her sudden death made that unnecessary.
So he changed targets.
Me.
For two years, my father had comforted me while constructing the case that would eventually take my daughter.
I thought nothing could make that realization worse.
Then Naomi found a handwritten note on the back of the draft petition.
A list.
ELISE.
CALEB.
NAOMI.
Three names.
Each with a box beside it.
Elise’s box had a check mark.
Mine was half-filled.
Naomi’s was empty.
At the bottom, Orson had written:
May you like
ONLY ONE NEEDS TO REMAIN OUT OF THE WAY.
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