Chapter 6 - THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE
Police surrounded the Lake Briar house before dawn.
The property appeared empty.
Curtains covered every window.
No vehicles were parked outside.
A tactical team entered through the rear door.
The living room contained recent food containers and fresh footprints.
Someone had left only hours earlier.
Upstairs, officers found a child’s bedroom.
Lily’s name had been painted across the wall.
Her photographs stood on the dresser.
New clothes filled the closet.
A school uniform hung beside the bed.
Evelyn had prepared for Lily to live there permanently.
The bathroom cabinet contained prescription bottles labeled with Lily’s name.
The medication had never been prescribed by her doctor.
One bottle contained a strong sedative.
Another contained an antipsychotic drug sometimes used to treat severe behavioral conditions.
Evelyn planned to portray Lily as unstable after taking her from me.
The drugs would make her confused and exhausted.
Any accusation she made could be dismissed as imagination.
On the ground floor, investigators discovered a locked room.
Inside were computers connected to my home security cameras.
Michael had installed hidden access when he helped upgrade my system.
Evelyn and Sloan had been able to watch us.
They knew when I left for work.
They knew when Lily slept.
They knew where I stored medical supplies.
One video showed Anna at our kitchen table two nights before her death.
She was speaking to Michael.
The audio was faint, but detectives enhanced it.
“You promised to tell Daniel,” Anna said.
“I cannot,” Michael replied.
“Evelyn will destroy me.”
“You stole from a child.”
“I was going to replace it.”
“With what money?”
Michael lowered his head.
Anna placed the blue folder on the table.
“You are going to the police with me.”
“No.”
“Then I am going alone.”
Michael stood.
“If Sloan finds out, he will kill both of us.”
Anna looked toward the camera.
She seemed to realize someone was watching.
Then she reached upward and disconnected it.
The video ended.
The next morning, her brakes failed.
Detective Collins searched the computer’s login history.
Jonathan Sloan accessed the camera remotely twenty minutes after Anna spoke with Michael.
He knew she was going to the authorities.
The evidence against him was growing.
Yet we still did not know where Michael was.
At the back of the locked room, officers found a wall map.
Red circles marked Lily’s school, the hospital, my office, and Anna’s grave.
A fifth circle surrounded an abandoned veterinary clinic outside Lake Briar.
The clinic had once been owned by one of Sloan’s companies.
Police entered the building that afternoon.
They found Michael tied to a surgical table.
His shoulder wound was infected.
A camera pointed toward his face.
Beside him stood a laptop displaying a countdown.
Four minutes remained.
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Wires ran from the computer to an intravenous pump connected to Michael’s arm.
The pump contained the same insulin mixture found inside Lily’s counterfeit injector.
