Chapter 5 - The Lake House
I shoved the phone at Mara.
Her face drained of color.
“Trace it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Don’t try. Do it.”
Caleb moved closer.
“Let me see.”
I pulled the phone away.
“You don’t get to ask.”
“Elise, if that photo is current—”
“If?”
He stopped.
For the first time that night, I saw shame on his face.
Mara took the phone, turned off its cellular radio, and slipped it into a shielded pouch.
“We’re not going to his parents’ house,” she said.
I stared at her.
“My son is there.”
“Someone wants us to think he is.”
Caleb nodded once.
I nearly slapped him.
“Don’t agree with her like you’re on the same team.”
“We’re not.”
“Were you ever on mine?”
His answer took too long.
Mara cut in.
“The photo background.”
She enlarged it on a hardened phone from her pocket.
Behind Noah’s bed was a brass wall sconce shaped like a pinecone.
My stomach turned.
The lake house.
Caleb had bought it two years earlier as an anniversary surprise in rural Maryland.
I had spent whole weekends there believing it was ours.
The raincoat man’s words returned.
She still thinks the lake house was an anniversary gift?
“Noah’s at the lake house,” I said.
Caleb looked genuinely shocked.
“No.”
“You recognize the lamp.”
“Yes, but nobody was supposed to—”
He caught himself.
“Nobody was supposed to what?”
Mara stepped between us.
“Save it for the car.”
We moved in two vehicles.
Mara drove an unmarked SUV with me in the passenger seat. Caleb rode behind us with two agents who arrived after the local police left.
For forty minutes, nobody spoke.
The world outside the windshield became wet highways, black trees, and occasional gas stations glowing like islands.
I kept seeing Noah’s sleeping face.
I also kept hearing the clock.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Even though the brass clock sat sealed inside a Faraday bag in the rear cargo compartment.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
Mara glanced at me.
“Hear what?”
“The ticking.”
“No.”
I pressed my palms against my ears.
It continued.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Stress, I told myself.
My brain repeating a sound it had decided mattered.
At 1:37 a.m., Mara turned onto the gravel road leading to the lake house.
No exterior lights were on.
The property sat above black water surrounded by pines.
Caleb’s SUV stopped fifty yards behind us.
Mara killed the headlights.
“No heroics,” she said.
“That’s rich.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
We approached on foot.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, the air smelled like cedar and the lemon cleaner used by the property service.
Everything looked ordinary.
Too ordinary.
The living-room pillows sat in perfect symmetry.
No toys.
No shoes.
No sign a four-year-old had been there.
Mara raised one hand.
We heard a child cough upstairs.
I moved before she could stop me.
“Elise.”
I ran up the stairs.
The guest-room door stood open.
Noah lay beneath a blue quilt, facing the wall.
My knees nearly gave out.
“Noah?”
I crossed the room and touched his shoulder.
The body rolled toward me.
Not Noah.
A mannequin.
A small speaker taped beneath the pillow played a recording of a child coughing.
I screamed his name anyway.
Mara entered behind me.
On the wall above the bed, someone had written four numbers in black marker.
12:08.
Caleb appeared in the doorway.
He saw the numbers and stopped.
“No,” he whispered.
Mara aimed her weapon at him.
“What does it mean?”
Caleb stared at the wall.
“I thought it was shut down.”
“What was shut down?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Project Twelve Eight.”
The ticking in my head became louder.
“Tell me.”
Caleb looked at me.
“It was Meridian’s family-continuity program.”
Mara’s expression turned rigid.
Caleb continued.
“They selected people whose identities could survive replacement. Married couples. Children. Careers with predictable records. Ordinary lives.”
My skin prickled.
“Replacement by whom?”
“Clients who needed to disappear permanently.”
I stared at him.
“Our life was a template?”
He did not answer.
Mara said, “Who was the client assigned to Elise?”
Caleb shook his head.
“I never knew.”
A floorboard creaked below us.
All three of us froze.
Then the lights came on.
Every bulb in the house.
A woman’s voice filled the speakers.
The silver-haired woman from the sedan.
“Caleb always was sentimental.”
A lock clicked downstairs.
Then another.
Then another.
The house sealed itself.
The woman said, “Elise, your son is perfectly safe.”
I stepped into the hallway.
“Where is he?”
“Exactly where he belongs.”
A television at the end of the hall turned on.
A live video appeared.
May you like
Noah sat at a kitchen table eating cereal.
Beside him sat a woman with my face.
