Chapter 6 - The Woman Across the Lake
Police were contacted.
Not because being photographed at a campground was automatically criminal, but because the message demonstrated someone knew where I was and had my phone number.
Angela finally told us the full reason for the trip.
Three days earlier, she received an anonymous message.
BRING LILY TO LAKE CRESCENT. COME WITH FRIENDS. ACT NORMAL. IF DANIEL COMES, I LEAVE.
Angela believed Sarah sent it.
“Why didn't you tell Dad?”
“Because I wanted to know if she was alive.”
“So you used me.”
Angela flinched.
“I thought having you there would make her approach.”
“You thought your missing sister might approach me, so you didn't warn me?”
“I didn't think she was dangerous.”
“You didn't know.”
Angela looked ashamed.
The chores suddenly made another kind of sense too.
Angela kept sending me around the campsite because she wanted me visible.
At the water.
At the trash station.
Near the parking area.
She was using me as bait without admitting it even to herself.
That was worse than being treated like a maid.
Dad said exactly that.
“You took my sixteen-year-old daughter into something you didn't understand.”
Angela cried.
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
For once, I didn't need Dad to defend me.
I told Angela myself.
“You wanted to bond with me?”
She nodded weakly.
“Then start by never lying to me again.”
She couldn't promise.
That told me how deep this went.
Investigators traced the anonymous text through a prepaid service.
No useful identity.
But campground cameras captured the woman.
She drove an older Subaru registered to Sarah Lane.
Sarah.
The address led to Port Angeles.
Dad, Claire and investigators went.
I stayed with Grandma Evelyn.
That became its own confrontation.
Grandma denied stealing foundation money.
Then Dad placed the blue ledger in front of her.
She looked at it for a long time.
“I wondered when that would come back.”
She confirmed the relocation program.
It began after a foundation donor's daughter was killed by an abusive former partner despite repeated attempts to relocate.
The foundation quietly built a network of attorneys, landlords, employers and financial intermediaries.
Some methods violated policies.
Some records were intentionally obscured.
But the purpose was protection.
Then someone corrupted it.
Locations began leaking.
Money vanished.
Claire discovered the financial anomalies.
Sarah discovered the leaked identities.
Two women investigating opposite ends of the same crime.
“Who framed Claire?”
Grandma looked at me.
“I did.”
The room went silent.
Claire stood.
“You?”
Evelyn's voice broke.
“I moved the fraudulent transfers under your credentials.”
Dad stared at his mother.
“Why?”
“To make Thomas believe Claire was compromised.”
Claire looked ready to collapse.
“You destroyed my life.”
“I was trying to keep Thomas away from you.”
“Thomas was helping us!”
“I didn't know that yet.”
Evelyn had suspected Thomas was the thief.
Thomas suspected Evelyn.
Richard suspected both.
Everyone concealed evidence from everyone else.
The real thief benefited from their distrust.
Then Grandma revealed why Claire disappeared.
Not because Evelyn wanted her gone.
Because Claire discovered one leaked relocation file contained a familiar name.
Sarah Harcourt.
Sarah wasn't merely helping the program.
She had entered it herself.
Someone was searching for her.
And the person paying for information about Sarah was Richard Sloan.
Dad's father.
Dad stared.
“My father was hunting Sarah?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why pay for her location?”
“He was trying to find her before someone else did.”
“Who?”
Grandma's eyes shifted toward Angela.
“Thomas.”
Angela's father.
Angela whispered:
“No.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Your father wasn't protecting Sarah.”
“He was her father.”
“That's why he wanted her found.”
Angela's face changed.
May you like
Then Evelyn said:
“Sarah discovered she wasn't Thomas Harcourt's daughter.”
