Chapter 9 - The Lake House
The federal search team reached Prescott Lake before sunrise.
The fire had destroyed the storage shed.
It had not destroyed everything.
Investigators found partially burned financial records inside a metal cabinet.
They found two laptops submerged near the dock.
They found a stack of license plates inside the garage.
And behind the lake house, they found disturbed ground.
Dana did not tell Emily immediately.
She told me first.
“They’re bringing in a forensic team.”
My stomach tightened.
“Sarah?”
“We don’t know.”
By noon, the answer came.
No body.
But they found something else.
A woman’s handbag.
Buried beneath eighteen inches of soil.
Inside was Sarah Bell’s employee identification card.
Nora Bell identified the purse from photographs.
The discovery transformed a corruption investigation into a possible missing-person conspiracy.
Then technicians recovered data from one of the submerged laptops.
Most files were damaged.
One survived.
A spreadsheet titled PROTECTION.
Names filled the screen.
Police officers.
Attorneys.
Campaign staff.
Editors.
Consultants.
Private investigators.
Judges.
Thirty-two people in total.
Beside each name was a payment amount.
Some names were marked ACTIVE.
Others were marked CLOSED.
Captain Reeves was active.
Judge Mercer was active.
Charles Wynn was active.
Harrison Pike was active.
At the bottom of the spreadsheet was a separate category.
PROBLEMS.
Sarah Bell.
Closed.
Emily Prescott.
Pending.
Victoria Hart.
Scheduled.
I stared at the word scheduled.
Whoever built that spreadsheet reduced human beings to administrative tasks.
Emily stood beside me.
“They were going to kill you.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do.”
Her voice cracked.
“Stop protecting me from what I already know.”
I looked at her.
She was right.
I had spent years trying to protect Emily by carrying frightening things alone.
But she wasn’t six anymore.
And surviving Ethan had changed her.
“We know someone planned an accident.”
She nodded.
“That’s better.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
That evening, investigators located Brandon’s SUV outside a private airport.
He never boarded a plane.
Airport cameras showed him entering a black sedan.
The sedan belonged to a Wynn Media subsidiary.
Charles Wynn was helping the Prescotts disappear.
Margaret and Ethan remained missing.
Then I received a text message.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Emily and me inside the hospital room.
Taken through the window from the parking structure across the street.
Below the photograph were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE CARD ALONE.
I showed Dana.
She immediately ordered the blinds closed.
Security increased around the floor.
My phone rang thirty seconds later.
The voice was distorted.
“Colonel.”
I said nothing.
“You are making this unnecessarily difficult.”
“Who are you?”
“You know who I represent.”
“The Prescotts?”
A soft laugh.
“The Prescotts are only one family.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“The memory card contains things that do not belong to Emily.”
“Evidence doesn’t belong to criminals.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I am.”
There was a pause.
Then the voice said.
“Ask your daughter about file 19.”
The call ended.
Dana opened the card.
File 19 was an audio recording.
The date was four years earlier.
Long before Emily married Ethan.
We listened.
Two men were talking.
One was Judge Mercer.
The other voice had not yet been identified.
Mercer said.
“The Hart woman could become useful.”
The second man replied.
“Her daughter is already close to Ethan.”
My chest tightened.
Emily looked at me.
Four years earlier.
Emily had believed meeting Ethan at a charity event was an accident.
According to the recording, it wasn’t.
May you like
Their marriage had not simply turned dangerous.
Someone had planned for Emily to enter the Prescott family before she had ever fallen in love with Ethan.
