Chapter 8 - The Boathouse
Ruiz shook her head before I could answer.
I kept my voice steady.
“Where are you?”
“You know the place.”
“Lily is eight.”
“And she’s safe. Keep it that way.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen.
Ruiz took the number down.
“You’re not going.”
“If he thinks I’m coming—”
“He wants you isolated.”
“He threatened my daughter.”
“And that is exactly why you’re going to let us do our jobs.”
I wanted movement.
A door to kick.
A man I could put my hands on.
Instead, I sat in a plastic chair while a detective made phone calls.
It felt unbearable.
It was still the right thing.
The boathouse sat on the edge of a lake behind my father’s old property.
Mark and I used to fish there.
He knew the broken dock board.
The narrow service road.
The back window that never latched.
By dawn, officers had approached from the road and the water.
Mark was gone.
But he had left something behind.
Ruiz showed me a photograph after breakfast.
A folder lay open on a workbench.
Inside were copies of financial documents bearing my signature.
Transfers from the family fund.
Vendor approvals.
A statement naming Hannah as the person responsible for missing money.
I recognized my handwriting.
“I signed those pages.”
Ruiz said nothing.
“Not that statement. But the signatures are mine.”
“Do you remember the documents?”
“No.”
The word tasted like rust.
I had built a company around being careful.
Then my wife disappeared, and I had handed the details of my life to people who told me they would take care of everything.
Ruiz slid the photograph closer.
“Some pages may have been substituted. Some signatures may have been copied. We’ll examine the originals.”
“What if I approved something?”
“Then we establish what you knew.”
I looked at the photograph again.
There was a small dark shape near the folder.
“What’s that?”
“A key.”
“Can you enlarge it?”
She did.
A yellow plastic tag hung from the ring.
B-14.
I knew it.
My father had rented storage units during the renovation of the house.
Unit B-14 held old office furniture, holiday decorations, and boxes nobody wanted to sort.
Mark had offered to clear it out.
A year ago.
I gave Ruiz the address.
She stepped away to make another call.
When I entered Hannah’s room, she was staring at the television.
A local news report showed a photograph of her.
Below it ran a headline.
MISSING WOMAN FOUND; FAMILY CHARITY UNDER INVESTIGATION.
Then the screen changed.
Vanessa appeared in an old party photograph beside Lily.
Hannah’s breathing turned shallow.
“What is it?” I asked.
May you like
She pointed at Vanessa’s necklace.
“That’s where she kept the other key.”
