Chapter 13: At the Water’s Edge
The sirens climbed louder, then broke apart as the first patrol car took the turn toward the lake road. I ran to the edge of the gas station lot and waved both arms.
Officer Ruiz leaned across her passenger seat and pushed open the door.
“Where’s Jessica?”
“I don’t know. Her location stopped updating.”
Ruiz’s face tightened, but she didn’t waste a second. She told another officer to check the road shoulder and neighboring properties, then looked back at me.
“Can you identify the boathouse?”
“I can get you to the turnoff. I’ll stay behind you.”
Her gaze held mine long enough to make sure I understood. Then I climbed into the back seat, my duffel still on the floor behind my legs. The siren’s blue flashes swept across the gas station windows as we pulled out.
At the fork, I pointed past the public launch, toward a narrow track nearly swallowed by brush. Ruiz radioed the turnoff to the other units. I watched their headlights swing after us, one by one, then disappear beneath the trees.
The road ended at a clearing by the water. An old boathouse leaned over the shore, its boards silvered with weather and its broad door hanging open. Beyond it, the lake lay black and restless beneath the night sky.
Ruiz stopped well short of the building. An officer beside her raised a hand, signaling me to stay back.
“Police,” Ruiz called. “Come out where we can see you. Keep your hands empty.”
For a moment, nothing moved. Then a shape appeared in the dark opening.
Wade Mercer stepped into the light carrying a hard-sided case. He moved fast toward a pickup parked near the path down to the water, one hand gripping the case handle, the other reaching for the truck’s passenger door.
“Stop right there,” an officer shouted.
Wade froze.
“Set the case down. Slowly.”
He looked from the officers to the truck, then toward the dark water. His jaw worked. The case swung once at his side.
“Set it down,” Ruiz repeated. “Now.”
Wade lowered it onto the dirt. He stepped away with both hands raised, and an officer moved in to secure him. The pickup’s engine was off. No one else stood by the water.
I stayed where I was, my fingers curled around the edge of the open car door. Relief came so suddenly it almost buckled my knees—but I couldn’t yet tell what it meant. The case was here. That was not the same as knowing what had happened to it.
“Don’t touch it,” Ruiz told the officers. “Keep it where it is until we document the scene.”
One officer photographed the case from several angles. Another checked that it was still sealed without breaking or opening it. I saw the familiar markings on the side, and my breath caught. The seal looked intact.
Ruiz glanced toward me.
“Is that the case you reported missing?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
The answer came out thin. I’d spent the last hours bracing for the discovery that it had been opened, damaged, or passed into someone else’s hands. Seeing it whole didn’t erase the locked cabinet, the stolen access, or Ryan’s messages. It only gave me one thing back.
Ruiz called Sergeant Lewis and told him the case had been found, remained sealed, and was being held for the appropriate Army accountability process. She kept her voice low, but I caught the words location and documentation. The investigation at the boathouse remained with her.
Then an officer near the side wall called out.
“Ruiz. There’s someone in here.”
A narrow storage shed stood tucked against the boathouse, almost invisible behind a stand of reeds. The officer opened its door, and Jessica stepped into the beam of his flashlight.
Her hair had come loose around her face. She held one arm across her middle, as if keeping herself from shaking apart.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
“Are you hurt?” I called.
She shook her head.
“No. I’m okay.”
I started toward her, then stopped when Ruiz lifted her hand—not to keep me away from Jessica, but to give the officer room to check the shed. I stayed on the path. Jessica walked out into the open on her own.
“You said you were staying at the station,” I told her.
Her eyes flicked down.
“I know.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I got scared.” She drew a breath that shivered on the way in. “I heard Ryan’s car. I thought if I stayed on the road, he’d see me. I went in there.”
The words did not undo the choice she’d made at the gas station. They did tell me she was standing in front of me, alive and unhurt. My relief and anger tangled so tightly I couldn’t separate them.
An officer asked Jessica what she knew about Wade and the case. She looked at me first, then at Ruiz.
“Ryan told Wade to leave it here until the buyer came,” she said. “Ryan told him to move it tonight.”
Ruiz’s pen moved across her notepad.
“Did you see Ryan tell him that?”
“I heard Ryan say it. I didn’t see Wade bring the case here.”
Jessica’s voice cracked, but she kept going.
“Ryan directed him. I know that much.”
I lowered my eyes to the gravel. The words I’d been waiting for had finally been said plainly, without Ryan’s version wrapped around them. Somehow, hearing them from my sister hurt more than hearing them from anyone else could have.
An officer started walking Wade toward the patrol car, keeping a measured hold on his arm. Wade’s eyes passed over me. He didn’t apologize or explain. He just looked toward the boathouse, where the dark doorway waited behind him.
Then a figure stepped out of it.
May you like
Ryan had no case in his hands. No one had told me where he’d been hiding or how long he’d been there. He came forward into the patrol lights, face flushed, eyes fixed on me.
“You don’t get to destroy my family over a box.”
