The House Across the Lake(87)

“I—” I struggle to speak, flustered by both surprise and relief. “Why? I mean, what convinced you?”

Eli cranes his neck to pass a glance into the distant living room. “She—sorry, he—admitted it.”

That word—he—tells me Eli’s serious. Knowing that he believes me would typically leave me fainting with relief if not for the last thing I need to tell him.

My plan for what’s next.

Again, I go through every step, answering all of Eli’s questions and addressing each of his concerns.

“It’s the only way,” I tell him when I’m done.

Eventually, Eli nods. “I suppose it is. When do you plan on doing it?”

I turn to the window, surprised to realize that while I was talking to Eli and he was talking to Len, the storm had moved on. No more gusts rattle the windows and no more rain thrums against the roof. In their place is the quiet stillness that always follows wild weather, as if the atmosphere, having blustered and bellowed to exhaustion, is now taking a long, restful breath. The sky, once so dark, has now thinned to a medium gray.

Dawn is on its way.

“Now,” I say.





In the living room, Eli and I stand before Len, who’s still trying to pretend he’s bored by all of this. The old Len might have been able to get away with it. The new one, stuck with Katherine’s exquisitely expressive face, can’t. Curiosity peeks through his impatient facade.

“Tell me where you put those girls,” I say, “and I’ll let you go.”

Len perks up, his feigned boredom vanishing in a snap. “Just like that? What’s the catch? There has to be one.”

“No catch. There’s not a whole lot I can do here. I can’t kill you because it would mean killing Katherine, too. And I can’t keep you tied up like this forever. Like Tom Royce, I could try. Chain you up in the basement. Feed you and bathe you. But more people are going to start looking for Katherine, and it’ll only be a matter of time before they find you.”

“And I can go anywhere?”

“The farther, the better,” I say. “You can try to live like Katherine Royce for a while, but I suspect that’ll be extremely difficult. She’s pretty famous. Her four million Instagram followers will easily pick you out in a crowd. My advice is to change your appearance and get away as far and as fast as you can.”

Len thinks it over, no doubt considering the hurdles of starting a new life in a new place in a very recognizable body.

“And you’re willing to help me?”

“I’m willing to drop you off at the Royces’ dock,” I say. “After that, you’re on your own. What you do is none of my concern.”

“It should be,” Len says. “I could cause a whole lot of trouble out there on my own. Or, for that matter, a whole lot of trouble right here. You know what I’m capable of.”

If his goal is to get a rise out of me, it doesn’t work. I assumed he would make such a threat. To be honest, I would have been shocked if he hadn’t.

“It’s a risk I have to take,” I say. “This isn’t an ideal option. It’s the only option. For both of us.”

Len looks to Eli. “He stays here.”

“I already told him that.”

While I would love to have Eli by my side through all of this, I need him to go to the house next door and distract Boone. The last thing I want is for Boone to see me and someone he thinks is Katherine out on the lake.

He would definitely try to stop me.

So would Eli if he knew what I really have planned.

“It’ll just be the two of us,” I tell Len.

He beams. “Like I always wanted.”

Before we leave, I fold Megan’s, Toni’s, and Sue Ellen’s driver’s licenses and locks of hair back into the handkerchief and force Eli to take them.

“If I don’t come back, give these to Detective Wilma Anson,” I say, writing down her name and phone number. “Tell her they’re from me. She’ll know what to do with them. And what they mean.”

“You do plan on coming back, right?” Eli says.

I respond with what I hope is a believable “Of course.”

With Eli’s help, I release Len from the chair. Once he’s standing, we force his wrists in front of him and bind them together, much to his protest.

“I thought you were letting me go.”

“I am,” I say. “After you show me exactly where you put those girls. Until then, the ropes stay.”

Len shuts up after that, remaining mute as we walk him onto the back porch. The blanket from the boat sits heaped in one of the rocking chairs. I pick it up and drape it over Len’s shoulders. While not quite a disguise, it will hopefully make it slightly harder for Boone to see who’s in the boat with me if Eli fails to distract him.

The three of us march down the porch steps, across the grass, and to the dock. Signs of the recently passed storm are everywhere. The trees have been stripped of their autumn leaves, which now litter the ground in patches of orange and brown. A large branch, snapped by the wind, lies across one of the Adirondack chairs by the firepit.

The lake itself has swollen past its banks, with water pooling in the grass along the shore and covering the dock in spots. Len splashes through it, a noticeable spring in his step. He has the appearance of a hostage who knows he’s about to freed.