Chapter 20 - THE BOATHOUSE AT PIKE LAKE
The road leading to Pike Lake was barely more than a scar of gravel cut through dense, suffocating pines.
The rain had turned the dirt into deep, rutted mud that dragged at the wheels of Ethan’s car. Sarah Vance sat beside him, loading a black Glock 19 with swift, practiced motions.
"You can't go down there alone," Sarah whispered as Ethan killed the headlights three hundred yards from the water’s edge. "This is an ambush. Julian spent his entire adult life moving between halfway houses and underground contractor rings. He knows tactical positioning."
"My wife is in that car, Sarah," Ethan said, his voice flat, drained of fear, replaced by a cold, vibrating fury. "If I bring you, he sees two silhouettes. He gives the signal. The glass breaks."
"Then I take the ridge," Sarah said, pointing up toward the tree line overlooking the dilapidated boathouse. "Give me five minutes to get into a high vantage point. Don't step inside until you hear an owl call twice."
"I don't have five minutes," Ethan said. He unholstered his own weapon, racked the slide, and slipped it into his waistband behind his back.
He stepped out into the pouring rain.
The air smelled of rotting wood, wet pine needles, and stagnant lake water. The boathouse loomed ahead like a collapsed ribcage, its corrugated tin roof rusted red, half submerged in the murky shallows of the lake.
Parked beside the structure was Claire’s silver Volvo.
The driver’s side door was hanging open, swaying in the wind. The interior dome light was on, casting a sickly yellow glow over empty seats.
Ethan’s heart dropped into his stomach. The child seat in the back was empty. A single pink baby sock lay on the muddy gravel near the rear tire.
"Claire!" Ethan shouted, abandoning all caution, sprinting through the mud toward the open doors of the boathouse. "Claire!"
He burst through the rotten wooden threshold, his gun raised, the flashlight beam cutting through clouds of dust and mold.
The interior of the boathouse was vast and cavernous. In the center, tethered to the rusted iron cleats of the boat slip, was an ancient wooden skiff.
Sitting on a wooden crate in the center of the dry dock, bathed in the beam of a single halogen work light, was a woman.
Claire.
Her hands were bound behind her back with heavy zip-ties, duct tape sealed across her mouth. Her eyes were wide with sheer, unadulterated terror, staring not at Ethan, but at the dark rafters directly above his head.
"Claire!" Ethan lunged forward.
A heavy steel pipe crashed down across Ethan’s forearm.
The gun went flying into the black water of the boat slip with a hollow *splash*. The shock of the impact sent Ethan sprawling onto the splintered wood floor, his shoulder dislocating with an agonizing pop.
He rolled onto his back, gasping for air, clutching his useless right arm.
Above him stood the man who had stolen his face.
Julian Mercer looked so much like Ethan that looking up at him was like staring into a broken, warped mirror. He had the same jawline, the same deep-set blue eyes, the same hairline. But where Ethan’s face carried the soft edges of a normal life, Julian’s was hollowed out, scarred by a jagged white line running from his left temple down to the corner of his lip—the relic of an old fire.
He was wearing a black canvas jacket, soaked through with rain. In his left hand, he held the iron pipe.
In his right arm, wrapped in a fleece blanket, he held Lily.
The baby wasn't crying. She was drugged or asleep, her head resting peacefully against Julian's shoulder.
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"You look tired, Ethan," Julian said, his voice terrifyingly calm amidst the sound of the rain hammering the tin roof above. "Mother always said you lacked stamina."
***
