Chapter 11
Ethan was already moving. He caught my coat from the back of a chair and held it open while I slid my arms into the sleeves, my phone still lit in my hand.
“Call the sheriff,” I said.
“I’m doing it.”
Mom stepped into the hallway behind us. “You can’t just rush out there.”
“We’re not going inside,” Ethan said. His voice stayed even, but his hand closed around mine. “We’re calling for help.”
Blake appeared in the living room doorway. “That alert could be a glitch.”
“Then no one will be hurt by checking,” I said.
His eyes flicked to my phone, then to the BMW keys in my fist. For a moment I wondered whether he would try to stop us. He only leaned aside, leaving the doorway clear.
Chloe came after us as far as the porch. “I’ll follow you.”
Mom’s expression tightened. “Chloe, stay here.”
“No,” Chloe said. The word came out small, but it held. “I’m going.”
The drive to the cottage took less than an hour and felt longer than the night before. Ethan kept both hands on the wheel. I watched the dark shapes of bare branches sweep past the passenger window, my palm pressed lightly to my belly, waiting for any new tightening. The baby shifted once beneath my hand, a firm little nudge that made me breathe again.
Ethan put the call on speaker. He gave the dispatcher the cottage address and told her we’d received an alert from the rear-door sensor. We didn’t know if anyone was inside.
“Stay outside,” she told us. “A deputy is on the way.”
The cottage came into view beyond the trees, dark against the lake. The rear door stood ajar, its edge splintered around the latch. A narrow strip of porch light spilled across the steps.
Ethan parked well short of the house.
“Don’t get out yet,” he said.
I was already reaching for the handle. Then I stopped, my fingers curled around it, and looked at him.
He didn’t ask me to calm down. He didn’t tell me it would be fine. He just waited with me until the deputy’s headlights appeared at the end of the drive.
The deputy went inside first. Ethan and I stayed by the car, and Chloe pulled in behind us a few minutes later. She climbed out carrying a small brass key between two fingers. She stared at it, then closed her fist around it.
No one came out of the cottage. No voice called from inside.
When the deputy returned, he said the rooms were empty. Someone had forced the back door, but he hadn’t seen anyone on the property. He asked us to wait while he finished checking the place.
I could see the den through the open doorway. The cabinet drawers hung crooked, papers scattered across the floor. I lifted my phone and photographed what I could from where I stood, careful not to cross the threshold until the deputy waved us forward.
“Only look,” Ethan murmured beside me. “Don’t pick anything up.”
“I know.”
His eyes searched my face, not my stomach. I appreciated that he didn’t make me prove I could manage the fear.
The deputy stayed nearby while we stepped into the cottage. Damp air carried the smell of pine and cold ash. The back door’s broken frame looked raw and pale, the wood split where the lock had held.
I photographed the damage, then the scattered papers. The drawer where the deed folder belonged was empty, just as it had been the last time we searched. Now the rest of its contents had been shoved aside, and a smaller drawer beneath it gaped open.
I leaned closer without touching it.
“The envelope,” Chloe said behind me.
She had gone very still.
I turned. She was looking at the open drawer, the brass key hidden again in her fist. Her face had drained of color.
“What envelope?”
Chloe looked at Ethan, then at me. “Mom asked me to make a duplicate key.”
The words seemed to land between us and stay there.
“When?” I asked.
“Before the engagement party. She said someone might need access to check the house.” Chloe swallowed. “She said Blake needed a key.”
My throat tightened. “You made one for him?”
“Yes.” She didn’t look away. “I did.”
No explanation followed. No reminder that she’d been trying to help, or that Mom had asked, or that she thought the loan was temporary. The honesty made the admission worse, not better.
I glanced at the brass key in her hand. “Did you give it to him?”
“I gave it to Mom.” Her fingers squeezed the key. “She said she’d pass it along.”
The deputy was speaking quietly with Ethan near the doorway. I could hear the low murmur of their voices, the soft rasp of paper shifting under my shoes. Chloe stood close enough that I could see the faint tremble in her knuckles.
“You told me about the scan,” I said. “You told me what you sent. You never told me you gave him a way in.”
“I know.”
“Why not?”
Her lips parted, but no answer came. Then she looked down at the key.
“I kept thinking I could undo what I’d done before it mattered,” she said. “That’s not the same as fixing it.”
“No,” I said. The word came out sharper than I intended. I felt it cut through the space between us, and I didn’t take it back.
Chloe nodded once. “I know.”
I reached for the inner pocket of my bag. The folded paper was still there, softened along its crease from being carried. Dad’s note. I pulled it out and held it carefully, as if the words might fade if I let the damp cottage air touch them too long.
This place belongs to both of you. Decide together what happens here.
My father’s handwriting was still safe in my hand. But the drawer beneath the cabinet had been turned out, and something else that belonged to him was gone.
Chloe stared at the empty space. “The second envelope.”
“What was in it?”
May you like
She looked up at me, and the fear in her face was different now—not fear of Mom, or Blake, or what the lender might do. Fear of what she had helped them reach.
“It held Dad’s original letter about the cottage,” she said.
