Chapter 9 - THE HOUSE THAT BURNED
The lake house had been abandoned for six years.
Ruth remembered summers there.
Daniel fishing from the dock.
Charles drinking beer beside the fire.
Thomas teaching them to swim.
Now it looked dead.
Marcus entered first.
Ruth followed.
Emma remained with Patricia and two officers in Chicago.
The house smelled of dust and damp wood.
Thomas had left clues.
Numbers scratched beneath the kitchen table.
A photograph behind a loose brick.
A key beneath the fireplace.
It opened a safe under the floor.
Inside was the ledger.
And something else.
A handwritten confession from Eleanor Shaw.
Ruth read it.
Eleanor admitted falsifying Lucy’s death record.
She admitted taking money from Charles.
She admitted helping place Lucy with Margaret and her husband.
But the final paragraph changed everything.
Daniel did not die in the car accident.
Ruth stopped reading.
Marcus took the paper.
“What?”
Daniel had supposedly died when his car went over an embankment seven years earlier.
The body had been badly burned.
Identification had been made through dental records.
Eleanor wrote:
Charles changed the dental records.
Ruth whispered,
“Then whose body was buried?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
He drew his weapon.
“Police!”
No response.
They moved toward the staircase.
Then gasoline poured through the ceiling.
Ruth smelled it.
“Marcus.”
Fire erupted across the hallway.
Someone had been waiting.
The front door slammed shut.
Locked from outside.
Flames climbed the walls.
Ruth grabbed the ledger.
Marcus kicked a window.
Glass exploded outward.
Smoke filled the room.
They escaped seconds before the roof collapsed.
Ruth lay on the wet ground gasping.
Marcus looked toward the road.
A black sedan disappeared between the trees.
But something remained behind.
A man stood near the dock.
Thin.
Bearded.
Watching them.
Ruth slowly stood.
The man stepped into the light.
She dropped the ledger.
May you like
“Daniel?”
Her dead brother stared back at her.
