The House Across the Lake(47)

I let the phone keep ringing until her voicemail message kicks in.

“Hi, you’ve reached Katherine.”

More worry pulses through me. Everything Katherine brought with her—her phone, her clothes, her jewelry—is still here.

The only thing missing is Katherine herself.

I pick up her phone, using a pair of panties to keep my fingerprints from smudging the screen. Thank you, guest arc on Law & Order.

The phone itself is locked, of course. The only information it provides is what’s available on the lock screen. Time, date, and how much juice is left in the battery. Very little, it turns out. Katherine’s phone is near death, which tells me it hasn’t been charged for at least a day, maybe longer.

I put the phone back where I found it, just in case Tom is keeping tabs on it. No need to alert him to my presence. I close the drawer and am about to leave the closet when Katherine’s phone begins to ring again, the sound muffled inside the drawer.

I return to the drawer, yank it open, see a phone number glowing white against the black screen. Just like me, whoever’s calling hasn’t been deemed familiar enough by Katherine to have their number saved in her phone.

But they have called before.

Along with the number is a reminder of the last time they did it.

This morning.

Because I can’t answer, I whip out my own phone and snap a picture of the number glowing on Katherine’s screen before the caller can hang up. It might be a good idea to call them later. Maybe they’re looking for Katherine, too. Maybe they’re as worried as I am.

I pocket my phone, close the drawer, leave the closet. After that, I move out of the bedroom and into the second-floor hallway, on my way to the only room yet to be searched.

The home office. Very much Tom’s domain. The furnishings have a more masculine feel. Dark woods and glass and a distinct lack of personality. There’s a shelf of antique barware befitting the name of his app and a bookcase filled with business-y titles heavy on aspiration. Sitting atop the shelf, in a silver frame, is the same wedding photo of Tom and Katherine I’d seen years before in People magazine.

By the window is a glass-topped desk upon which sits Tom Royce’s laptop. It’s closed now, as flat and compact as a picture book. I glide toward it, remembering the night I watched Katherine at that desk, using that very computer. I can’t forget how surprised she had looked. So shocked it was clear even through the binoculars and a quarter mile of distance. I also recall how startled she seemed when Tom appeared in the doorway, barely managing to hide it.

My hand hovers over the laptop as I debate opening it up and seeing what I can find. Unlike Katherine’s phone, there’s no way to use it without getting my fingerprints all over it. Yes, I could use my shirt to wipe it down when I’m done, but that would get rid of Tom’s and Katherine’s prints as well. That might look like tampering with evidence, which courts tend to frown upon. Another thing I picked up from Law & Order.

On the flip side, this laptop could be the key we need to unlock the truth about what happened to Katherine. Showing Wilma Anson pictures of Katherine’s phone and discarded rings might not be enough to get a search warrant. In the meantime, it would be so easy for Tom to make sure no one else sees what’s on the laptop. All it would take is a single toss into Lake Greene.

That thought—of the laptop sinking to the lake’s dark, muddy floor—makes me decide to open it. If I don’t look—right now—there’s a chance no one ever will.

I crack the laptop open, and its screen springs to life, revealing a home page of a lake in full summer splendor. Trees a shade of green that only exists in July. Sunlight twinkling like pixie dust on the water. A sky so blue it looks like CGI.

Lake Greene.

I’d recognize it anywhere.

I tap the space bar and the lake is replaced by a desktop strewn with tabs, icons, and file folders. I let out a relieved breath. I’d been worried the laptop was as locked down as Katherine’s phone.

But now that I have access, I can’t decide what to search first. Most of the folders look Mixer specific, with names like Q2 data, Ad roster, Mockups2.0. I click on a few of them, seeing spreadsheets, saved memos and reports using so much business-speak they might as well be written in Sanskrit.

Only one of the spreadsheets catches my eye. Dated three months ago, it consists of a column of numbers, all of them red. I take a picture of the laptop screen despite not knowing if the figures are dollars or subscribers or something else. Just because I can’t understand it doesn’t mean it won’t come in handy later.

I close the folder and start looking for ones that seem unrelated to Tom Royce’s app. I choose one marked with a telling name.

Kat.

Inside are more folders, labeled by year and going back half a decade. I peek inside each one, seeing not only photos of Katherine from her modeling days but more spreadsheets. One per year. Atop each is the same heading: earnings. I scan a few of them, noting there’s not a red number to be found. Even though she’s no longer a model, Katherine’s been making an obscene amount of money. Far more than that net worth website estimated and far more than Mixer.

I take photos of spreadsheets for the past three years and move on to the laptop’s web browser. Two seconds and one click later, I find myself staring at the browsing history.

Jackpot.

Immediately, I see that Tom hasn’t done any obvious web surfing in the past two days. There are no instantly suspicious searches for ways to dispose of a body or the best hacksaws for cutting through bone. Either Tom hasn’t touched the laptop since Katherine disappeared or he cleared the browsing history for the past forty-eight hours.