Chapter 6: The Lake House

The lake house had been abandoned since before I was born.

My father told us the foundation was unstable.

My mother claimed the place was full of mold.

Vanessa once said someone had drowned there, but when I asked who, she told me to stop being dramatic.

Detective Ruiz obtained a search warrant that afternoon.

Marcus stayed at the hospital with Lily while I rode with Ruiz and Officer Grant.

The property stood at the end of a narrow road surrounded by pine trees.

Its windows were boarded.

The porch sagged toward the water.

Inside, dust covered everything.

Family photographs still hung along the hallway.

In one picture, my parents stood beside my grandfather.

Vanessa was a baby in my mother’s arms.

Grace stood near the edge of the frame.

No one touched her.

She looked like a guest in her own family.

Ruiz found scratches along the pantry door.

Not random scratches.

Letters.

A child had carved a sentence into the wood.

DADDY HURT GRANDMA.

My stomach dropped.

“What happened to my grandmother?” I asked.

“Officially?” Ruiz said. “She died in a boating accident.”

“And unofficially?”

“We don’t know yet.”

A crime scene technician called from the basement.

Behind a false wall, investigators found a narrow room.

There was a mattress on the floor.

A rusted metal cup.

A child’s drawing of four people standing beside a lake.

One figure had been scribbled over with black crayon.

On the wall, dozens of lines had been marked in groups of five.

Grace had been held there for weeks.

Maybe months.

Officer Grant found a cassette recorder beneath the mattress.

The batteries were dead, but the tape remained intact.

Back at the station, a technician cleaned the audio.

At first, there was only static.

Then a little girl’s voice.

Grace.

She was crying.

“Mommy said I have to forget.”

A man spoke in the background.

My father.

“You saw nothing.”

“I saw Grandpa push Grandma.”

“You were dreaming.”

“I’m telling Claire when she gets big.”

My heart stopped.

Grace had known about me before I was born.

Then another voice entered the recording.

My mother.

“Robert, she won’t stay quiet.”

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My father answered.

“Then she can disappear.”