Chapter 5 - THE LAKE HOUSE
Nora’s team recovered more from Storage Unit 112 that evening, including a spiral notebook from Peter listing three names in red:
VALERIE.
EVELYN.
DECKER.
Martin Decker was Carter Development’s head of site security.
He was also exactly the type of man who would know how to move evidence and hurt people without visible panic.
Then Emily replayed Peter’s voicemail and heard something she had missed before:
water.
Not rain.
Not a sink.
A dock.
A marina.
A boathouse.
The Carter lake house had one.
Against everyone’s better judgment, Emily and Ryan drove there that night, with Nora arranging county backup ten minutes behind them in case things went bad.
Things went bad immediately.
Peter Nolan was tied to a support post in the boathouse, pale and bleeding through a shoulder wound.
Martin Decker sat ten feet away with a shotgun and an almost amused expression.
He admitted enough to make Emily’s skin crawl: yes, he had helped contain Peter. Yes, he knew about the car. Yes, the trunk contents were “insurance.”
Ryan kept his gun steady.
“Drop the shotgun.”
Decker smiled.
“Your industry types never understand,” he said to Emily. “Evidence is only useful while someone controls where it appears.”
Peter twisted against the ropes and knocked over a lantern.
In the split-second Decker glanced away, Ryan fired.
Decker went down with a scream, the shotgun skidding away.
County deputies arrived minutes later.
Peter was rushed to the hospital alive.
Before losing consciousness, he grabbed Emily’s sleeve and whispered:
“Ask Valerie about Helen Voss.”
Then he added one more thing:
“The garage camera. Valerie used your car. Thomas may not know the footage still uploads.”
That changed everything again.
Because if there was garage footage, then Emily’s mother had not only touched her car.
May you like
She had been filmed doing it.
And somewhere inside the Carter house, the truth might already be waiting to be found.
