Chapter 4 - The House by the LakeThe lake house had once been my favorite place in the world.
The man who spent a decade teaching the city how to recognize abuse was being investigated for abusing his own wife.
News vans filled the street outside our house.
Reporters dug through photographs of our marriage.
Daniel kissing my cheek at charity galas.
Daniel holding my hand at fundraisers.
Daniel smiling beside elected officials.
Daniel and me cutting a ribbon outside Mercer House.
I looked happy in almost every photograph.
That surprised me.
Then it didn’t.
I had become excellent at performing happiness.
At eleven that morning, Rachel switched off the television.
“You don’t need to watch this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“People are defending him.”
That was the part I couldn’t stop reading.
Online comments appeared beneath every article.
I’ve met Daniel. He’s a wonderful man.
This sounds like a messy marriage being turned into a criminal case.
Women lie.
Convenient timing with the nonprofit’s annual fundraiser next month.
Maybe she wants his money.
Daniel had predicted it perfectly.
Some people did believe him.
Not because they knew the truth.
Because they knew his smile.
Rachel took my phone away.
“Stop.”
“What if the jury thinks the same thing?”
“There hasn’t even been an indictment.”
“What if—”
“Claire.”
She crouched in front of me.
“You survived last night. Don’t spend today letting strangers on Facebook put you back in that room.”
That shut me up.
An hour later, Detective Ortiz returned.
This time she brought Rebecca Hale.
I barely recognized the woman from the photograph.
Rebecca was thirty-nine, with short red hair and pale skin. She wore clothes several sizes too large and kept glancing toward the windows.
When she entered Rachel’s living room, she stopped.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Rebecca said, “You look like I used to.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She sat across from me.
Ortiz remained nearby.
Rebecca held a coffee cup in both hands.
“I worked at Mercer House five years ago.”
“I remember your name.”
“You wouldn’t remember me.”
“I remember everybody now.”
Her expression tightened.
“Daniel liked vulnerable women.”
The sentence was simple.
Its meaning wasn’t.
“He didn’t always pursue them sexually,” Rebecca continued. “That wasn’t really the point.”
“What was?”
“Control.”
I looked down.
“Daniel could walk into a counseling room, identify what frightened someone within ten minutes, then become exactly what she needed.”
Rebecca’s voice trembled.
“Some of those women had husbands trying to find them. Custody disputes. Lawsuits. Insurance money. Family wealth.”
Ortiz placed another folder on the table.
“Mercer House collected information.”
“Private information?”
“Everything,” Rebecca said. “Addresses. New names. Court schedules. Financial records. Medical histories.”
My stomach turned.
Shelters survived on confidentiality.
For a woman escaping violence, secrecy could mean survival.
“What did Daniel do with it?”
“Sold it.”
Rachel stared at her.
“To their husbands?”
“Sometimes.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“Sometimes worse.”
Daniel had turned vulnerable women into inventory.
A husband willing to pay to locate his wife could buy an address.
An employer could buy a secret.
A wealthy family could bury a scandal.
And if a woman threatened to expose Mercer House?
Daniel destroyed her credibility.
Mental instability.
Theft allegations.
Substance abuse.
Anything that made the truth easier to dismiss.
“Melissa Crane discovered it first,” Rebecca said.
The missing employee.
“She copied files. She told me she was going to the police.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared.”
Ortiz said, “We’re reopening her case.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Daniel realized I knew something. He started watching me.”
“How did you get away?”
“I didn’t.”
Her answer startled me.
“I spent five years hiding in plain sight.”
Rebecca had changed her name, dyed her hair, and moved repeatedly.
But three months earlier, she received an envelope.
Inside was a photograph of herself leaving a grocery store.
No note.
Just proof.
Daniel had found her.
“So you came back to Baltimore?”
“I thought if I could get inside Mercer House, I could retrieve what Melissa hid.”
“What did she hide?”
“A backup drive.”
Ortiz looked at her.
“You never mentioned a drive.”
“I told your officers there were records.”
“You said nothing about a drive.”
“Because I don’t know where it is.”
Rebecca faced me.
“But I think Claire does.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it seemed impossible.
“I don’t.”
“Melissa left you something.”
“I barely knew her.”
“She trusted you.”
“Why?”
“Because she watched Daniel around you.”
The room went quiet.
“She knew what he was doing before you did.”
A memory surfaced.
A Mercer House Christmas party.
Melissa standing beside me in the restroom.
She had looked nervous.
She asked whether I was happy.
I laughed.
Of course I was happy.
Daniel was wonderful.
Then she said something strange.
If you ever need to know who he really is, remember where you first met.
Two weeks later, Daniel said Melissa had stolen money.
I never heard from her again.
My heart started pounding.
“She told me something.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“What?”
“Where we first met.”
Rachel looked confused.
“Where did you meet Daniel?”
“At the Walters Art Museum.”
Daniel had approached me during a charity exhibition.
I was twenty-eight.
He was charming.
Funny.
Interested in architecture.
He asked me why I had been staring at the same painting for ten minutes.
It wasn’t a famous painting.
A small landscape by an unknown regional artist.
An old blue house beside a lake.
Later, for our first anniversary, Daniel bought a reproduction.
It hung in our bedroom for years.
Then I moved it to our lake house.
My mouth went dry.
“The lake house.”
Ortiz stood immediately.
“What about it?”
“The painting.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
Before she could speak, Ortiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
“Yes.”
Her expression changed.
“When?”
A pause.
“Who authorized that?”
Another pause.
“Keep eyes on him.”
She hung up.
“What happened?” Rachel asked.
Ortiz looked furious.
“Daniel made bail.”
“What?”
“The assault charges weren’t enough to hold him without bond. The broader investigation hasn’t produced charges yet.”
“He threatened to kill her!”
“We’re working on it.”
“He hired someone!”
“We have Rebecca’s statement, not corroboration.”
I stood.
“Where is he?”
“His attorney picked him up twenty minutes ago.”
Fear flooded me.
Ortiz stepped closer.
“You have an emergency protective order. He cannot contact you.”
I almost laughed.
As if paper had ever stopped Daniel.
Then my phone buzzed.
Rachel had placed it on the kitchen counter.
One new email.
No sender name.
The subject line contained only two words.
HELLO, CLAIRE.
Ortiz opened it.
There was no message.
Only a photograph.
The blue-house painting.
Hanging on the wall of our lake house.
Taken recently.
Beneath the image were four words.
Looking for something, sweetheart?
May you like
Daniel was already there.
And if Melissa’s evidence was hidden inside that painting, he was about to find it first.
