Chapter 8 - The Camera Jessica Thought Was Dead
Our father had been dead for eight months.
For several seconds, I thought I had misunderstood Jessica.
“Dad?”
She nodded.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“He died before the first rental.”
“No.”
Jessica’s voice dropped.
“The first one was almost a year ago.”
That changed the timeline.
I opened the door wider, not inviting her inside but unwilling to continue the conversation across the porch.
“Explain.”
She swallowed.
“Dad knew you were going overseas again. He told Ryan the house was wasted sitting empty.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
“He said you wouldn’t mind if family used it.”
“Family using it isn’t renting it.”
“I know.”
“Did he?”
Jessica looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Our father, Robert Carter, had always viewed property differently from me.
He came from a generation and family where boundaries were loose.
A truck belonged to whoever needed it.
A spare room belonged to whichever cousin arrived.
A lake house, apparently, belonged to the family imagination.
Still, he had never been on the deed.
He knew that.
“What did Dad actually say?”
Jessica rubbed her hands together.
“He suggested letting relatives contribute money for maintenance when they stayed.”
That sounded more plausible.
“And Ryan turned that into paid rentals.”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad know?”
“At first, no.”
“At first?”
Jessica began crying again.
“He found out.”
“When?”
“Two months before he died.”
I felt something cold pass through me.
“And?”
“He was furious.”
“At Ryan?”
“At both of us.”
That surprised me.
Jessica continued.
“He told us to stop immediately. He said he’d tell you himself if we didn’t.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“He got sick.”
Our father’s final months had moved quickly.
Hospital.
Home.
Hospital again.
Complications.
Then funeral arrangements.
I had spent as much time beside him as duty allowed.
He never mentioned the house.
Maybe because he had other things to say.
Maybe because he thought Jessica had stopped.
“Did you stop?”
Jessica looked ashamed.
“For a while.”
“And then?”
“Ryan restarted.”
“After Dad died.”
She nodded.
That detail made the scheme feel uglier.
Whatever our father’s original mistake had been, he had apparently tried to correct it.
Ryan waited until the only other person who knew was gone.
“Do you have proof?”
Jessica looked at me.
“Dad left you something.”
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“What?”
“A letter.”
“Where?”
“He gave it to me.”
“When?”
“In the hospital.”
“Why do you have it?”
“He made me promise to give it to you.”
I couldn’t speak.
Jessica started crying harder.
“I was scared.”
“For eight months?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“At my house.”
“Get it.”
She hesitated.
“Now, Jessica.”
She left.
I called Rebecca immediately.
Then Deputy Harris.
Both told me the same thing.
Preserve the letter exactly as received.
Photograph the envelope.
Document the handoff.
By early afternoon, Jessica returned.
This time she didn’t knock.
She waited at the edge of the porch holding a yellow envelope.
My name was written on the front.
Dad’s handwriting.
EMILY.
Nothing else.
I took it.
For a moment, everything else disappeared.
The police.
Ryan.
The rentals.
The cabinet.
I saw my father sitting beside the lake three summers earlier, complaining that my grill was too expensive and then burning every hamburger anyway.
“You should read it alone,” Jessica said.
I looked at her.
“Did you?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Of course she had.
“Go home.”
She left without arguing.
I sat at the kitchen table.
The envelope had already been opened.
I removed four handwritten pages.
Dad began with an apology.
He admitted suggesting that Jessica and Ryan use the property during my absence.
He said he had believed they would invite relatives and contribute toward utilities.
Then he discovered Ryan had advertised the house online.
Dad wrote that he confronted them and ordered the listing removed.
He also wrote something I didn’t expect.
Ryan has been asking too many questions about your property records. I do not trust what he is trying to do.
I read that line three times.
Then another.
I made a mistake by giving them the idea that your boundaries were negotiable. They are not. Your home is yours. If Jessica tells you I approved of what they are doing, she is not telling you the whole truth.
My vision blurred.
Dad had known.
He had tried to warn me.
But there was one final paragraph.
Emily, check the old boathouse camera. Ryan doesn’t know it still records.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
The old boathouse camera.
I had forgotten it existed.
So had Thomas.
It wasn’t connected to the primary security system.
May you like
It saved footage locally.
And if Dad was right, it might contain almost a year of evidence nobody had thought to erase.
