Chapter 5 - The Boathouse Trap
Candlewood Lake was twenty-five minutes north. The boathouse belonged to my family—a rustic, two-story timber structure perched over dark, deep water, abandoned since my father passed away three years ago.
I didn't take the electric bike. I walked across the road to the all-night diner, called an independent taxi with cash from my pocket, and had the driver drop me off a quarter-mile down the forested access road.
The rain had turned into a thick, clinging fog that rose off the black water.
I entered the boathouse through the side window, stepping into the damp, pine-scented darkness. I didn't turn on a single light. I knew every plank of this floorboard by heart; my father had taught me how to tie sailing knots here when I was Rosie's age.
In the corner near the workbench hung my father’s antique flare gun and a steel tackle box containing his heavy gutting knives and nylon mooring ropes.
I loaded a red magnesium flare into the heavy steel chamber of the flare gun with a sharp *clack*.
Ten minutes later, twin beams of headlights cut through the fog outside.
A sleek black sedan pulled up onto the muddy gravel. The engine died. A car door opened, and heavy footsteps crunched through the wet leaves.
"Audrey?" Julian’s voice drifted through the wooden slats of the door. He sounded nervous, breathless. "Audrey, are you in here? It’s Julian! Caleb sent me to get you! It’s not safe at the house!"
He pushed the heavy sliding wooden door open. The rusted iron wheels squeaked loudly in the darkness.
Julian stepped inside, holding up the flashlight on his phone. The beam sliced through the gloom, reflecting off the damp wooden hulls of the old canoes suspended from the rafters.
"Audrey?" he whispered, stepping closer to the center of the room.
I stepped out from behind the tackle locker, twenty feet behind him.
"She recognized you, Julian," I said.
Julian spun around, his flashlight beam catching my face. He froze. His face went completely slack, his eyes widening in pure horror. He wasn't wearing his designer suit anymore; he had thrown on a grease-stained canvas jacket, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.
"Audrey... what are you talking about?" he stammered, taking a cautious step toward me, his hand slipping toward his jacket pocket. "Listen to me, you're in shock. Vance Kane is looking for you. We need to get in my car right now—"
"Pull your hand out of that pocket, Julian," I said, raising the heavy flare gun and pointing it directly at the center of his chest.
His flashlight beam flicked down to the flared steel muzzle. He stopped dead.
"Audrey, put that down. That's a flare gun. You're losing your mind—"
"I heard the recording," I said, my voice steady, ice-cold. "I heard Rosie screaming your name. I heard you tell Caleb she saw your face."
Julian’s face collapsed into absolute, pathetic terror. "No... no, Audrey, you don't understand. Caleb made me do it! Caleb owed five million dollars to the Albanian syndicate in Queens! They were going to skin him alive! He said it was just a fake ransom! He said your father had fifty million sitting in the offshore trusts that you refused to touch!"
"And what happened at the salt shed, Julian?" I took a step toward him. "Why was her body in the drainage pipe?"
Tears began streaming down Julian's cheeks, mixing with the rain on his skin. "Kane’s guy... the scarred one... he saw that Rosie had Caleb’s cufflink. Caleb dropped it when he forced her into the trunk at our staging garage. Rosie was holding it like a lucky charm. When Kane's guy tried to take it from her... she bit him. She screamed that her daddy would kill them."
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Julian swallowed hard, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the words.
"Kane looked at Caleb and said, *'A kid who bites is a kid who testifies.'* And Caleb... Caleb didn't say a word. He just turned his back and walked out of the shed."
