Chapter 6 - The Lake House
Police reached the cabin before Audrey.
She was not permitted near the search area, and for once she did not argue.
She waited at the hotel with Sarah.
Three hours passed.
Then Reed called.
“They found something.”
Audrey stood.
“Rebecca?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Beneath loose floorboards, investigators had discovered a metal box.
Inside were letters.
Rebecca’s letters.
Several were addressed to a friend named Melanie.
One was unfinished.
The date was two days before Rebecca disappeared.
Detective Reed read Audrey only a small portion.
Rebecca wrote that Dominic had become obsessed with her trust.
That Richard Hale was pressuring her to sign financial documents.
That Victoria kept telling her marriage required sacrifice.
Audrey closed her eyes.
Different woman.
Same script.
Then Reed told her the final line.
Rebecca planned to leave Dominic.
Two days later, she vanished.
Audrey felt grief for a woman she had never met.
Not because their stories were identical.
Because Rebecca had apparently seen the trap first.
And still had not escaped cleanly.
Police searched the land surrounding the cabin.
They found no human remains.
But they found something else.
A hidden compartment beneath the staircase.
Inside were passports.
Financial documents.
Blank contracts.
And forged identification.
Richard Hale had apparently used the cabin for far more than family vacations.
By afternoon, investigators began connecting the records to shell corporations.
The fraud stretched across years.
Audrey was not the first target.
Rebecca might not have been either.
Dominic had not invented the system.
He had inherited it.
And Richard Hale appeared to have been its architect.
That evening, Audrey received an unexpected visitor.
Natalie.
She looked exhausted.
“I need to talk to you.”
Audrey almost refused.
Then she saw what Natalie held.
A photograph album.
Audrey let her in.
Natalie placed it on the table.
“I took this from Mom’s house years ago.”
Inside were family photographs.
Dominic as a child.
Natalie at school.
Victoria younger.
Richard Hale appeared repeatedly.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
Vacations.
Then Rebecca.
Audrey turned pages slowly.
Rebecca smiling beside Dominic.
Rebecca beside Victoria.
Rebecca at the lake cabin.
And finally—
Rebecca standing beside Natalie.
On the back, handwriting:
If anything happens, ask Natalie.
Audrey looked up.
Natalie was crying.
“What did she mean?”
“I didn’t understand then.”
“Understand now.”
Natalie sat down.
“Rebecca gave me that photograph three days before she disappeared.”
Audrey’s heartbeat quickened.
“She told me Dominic scared her.”
“Why didn’t you tell police?”
“I was seventeen.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“My mother told me Rebecca was unstable.”
Audrey flinched at the familiar tactic.
“She said Rebecca wanted attention. Dominic said she was threatening him. Richard said police would destroy our family if I repeated lies.”
Natalie wiped her face.
“So I stayed quiet.”
Audrey looked at the photograph.
“And now?”
“Now I know what silence costs.”
Natalie reached into her purse.
She removed a small brass key.
“Rebecca gave me this too.”
Audrey stared.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eight years and you never checked?”
“I was afraid.”
Audrey took the key.
A number was engraved on it.
314.
Sarah immediately called Reed.
By midnight, investigators discovered the number belonged to an old private railway-station locker.
Locker 314.
It had remained prepaid through an anonymous account.
Police opened it the next morning.
Inside was a backpack.
Clothing.
Cash.
A disposable phone.
And a sealed envelope.
On the front:
IF DOMINIC SAYS I RAN AWAY, HE IS LYING.
The letter inside was written by Rebecca.
She described planning to disappear voluntarily for several days because she feared Dominic.
She intended to contact police from another state.
But the letter had never been mailed.
More importantly, the backpack remained in the locker.
If Rebecca had planned to flee with it, something had interrupted her plan.
Inside the disposable phone, forensic technicians recovered one unsent recording.
Rebecca’s voice.
Shaking.
Breathing fast.
“I think Richard knows I’m leaving.”
A pause.
“Dominic keeps calling.”
Another pause.
Then—
“If Natalie finds this, tell her none of this was her fault.”
The recording ended.
Audrey listened twice.
Then she asked Reed the question nobody wanted to answer.
“If Rebecca never reached the locker again, where did she go?”
Reed looked grim.
“We’re working on that.”
Hours later, another discovery arrived.
Traffic-camera archives from the night Rebecca disappeared had been partially preserved in an old insurance investigation.
One image showed Rebecca’s car heading toward the lake.
Another vehicle followed.
Richard Hale’s.
But there was a third car.
Detective Reed enlarged the registration.
It belonged to Victoria Vale.
Audrey stared at the image.
Natalie whispered, “My mother was there.”
And suddenly the woman who had claimed she knew only about money became something else entirely.
May you like
A witness.
Or perhaps an accomplice.
