Chapter 15 - The Theater of the Absurd
At midnight, the lake breeze turned bitterly cold. Evan and I walked down the gravel pathway to the orchard, deliberately letting our footsteps sound loud, angry, and unhinged. We stopped just ten feet outside the thin wooden window of Julian’s cottage.
Inside, through the sheer curtain, I could see Julian sitting upright on the sofa, his posture stiff, holding his breath, listening.
"I can't do this anymore, Evan!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, pitching my voice to sound strained, hysterical, and wild. "She is going to take Lily! Do you hear me? Arthur Sterling has the judges in his pocket! She’s going to take my baby!"
"Sarah, calm down! Keep your voice down, Julian is sleeping!" Evan shouted back, his acting pitch-perfect, sounding like a desperate, exhausted husband on the verge of abandoning ship.
"I don't care if he hears me!" I sobbed loudly, kicking a decorative rock against the cottage siding. "Julian doesn't care about us! Nobody cares! Dad is losing his mind, Evan! He spent three hours this morning talking to a wall! If the court sends an evaluator here, they will see that my father can't even remember what year it is!"
Inside the cottage, the silhouette of Julian shifted. He was leaning closer to the window, his hand pressed against his chest—undoubtedly ensuring the tiny microphone was catching every fabricated syllable.
"We have to hide the papers, Sarah!" Evan yelled back. "The Cayman accounts! If Eleanor’s lawyers find the 1998 Brooklyn fire documents Dad keeps in the boathouse locker, the federal investigators will open the whole case! It’s all in the green tackle box under the floorboards of the pier!"
"Don't you dare touch that tackle box!" I shrieked. "That’s the only leverage we have to keep her from putting Dad in an asylum! If Eleanor finds out the original insurance policies and the canceled Cayman checks are hidden in the boathouse, she will burn this place to the ground!"
"We're burying it tomorrow morning at dawn," Evan decreed firmly. "Now get inside before the neighbors call the sheriff!"
I let out one last, dramatic, throat-tearing wail, then Evan grabbed my arm and dragged me away down the path. As soon as we cleared the orchard line and entered the shadows of the main house, we stopped, turned around, and began laughing in complete, breathless silence.
"You deserve an Oscar, Mrs. Bennett," Evan whispered into my hair, pulling me tight against him.
"You weren't so bad yourself, Mr. Bennett," I grinned, checking my wristwatch. "How long do you think it will take for Eleanor’s strike team to take the bait?"
"Eleanor is arrogant, impatient, and believes she is untouchable," Evan replied, looking toward the dark waters of the lake. "Arthur Sterling’s private investigators won't wait for sunrise. If they think the proof of Eleanor’s thirty-year-old arson is sitting unguarded in an unlocked boathouse tackle box, they’ll want it secured before dawn."
We slipped into the boathouse through the side door. There was no green tackle box under the floorboards—at least, not an old one. Instead, Evan placed a fresh, rusted metal box right beneath the loose floor plank. Inside was a crisp, high-definition night-vision wildlife camera pointed directly at the opening, hooked up to a live cellular stream linked directly to the County Sheriff’s dispatch office.
Along with the camera, the box contained a single laminated index card that read:
*Smile for the Grand Jury, Mother.*
We crept back to the main house, sat in the dark living room with Dad, and waited.
May you like
At 3:15 AM, the quiet surface of the lake rippled. A sleek, black motorboat with running lights switched off came drifting out of the fog, cutting its engine as it glided toward our private dock.
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