Chapter 6
Lake House had been empty for years.
At least officially.
We arrived before sunset.
I brought Enzo, four bodyguards, Preston, and Warren.
Warren hated being brought like a prisoner.
I did not care.
The property sat above frozen water, surrounded by pine trees and silence.
Preston stood on the porch staring at a house he never knew existed.
Inside, dust covered everything except one hallway.
That mattered.
Someone had been there recently.
Warren noticed too.
I saw it in his face.
“Who uses this place?”
“No one.”
“Bad answer.”
We followed the clean hallway upstairs.
One bedroom.
Fresh sheets.
A cup beside the sink.
A woman’s cardigan hanging over a chair.
Preston stopped breathing.
On the dresser sat a framed photograph.
Him.
Older.
Taken from far away outside a restaurant two years earlier.
Another photo.
Preston at his thirtieth birthday.
Another.
Preston entering my estate six months ago.
Someone had been watching him.
He picked up the last photograph.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Then we heard movement downstairs.
My bodyguards moved first.
A woman’s voice shouted:
“Don’t.”
Preston froze.
The footsteps came slowly.
A woman appeared at the bottom of the staircase.
Sixty-two.
Gray in her dark hair.
Thin.
Proud.
Terrified.
Preston gripped the railing.
“Mom?”
Celeste Hale looked up at her son.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Warren whispered:
“You stupid woman.”
That broke the spell.
Celeste’s face changed.
Not fear.
Rage.
Preston turned toward his father.
I stepped between Warren and the stairs before he could move.
Celeste climbed one step.
Then another.
Preston descended.
They stopped halfway.
He looked thirteen again.
“Why did you leave me?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“I didn’t.”
One sentence.
Everything collapsed.
Preston began crying.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
The man who had raised a golf club toward me hours earlier folded against the staircase rail while his mother stood one step away.
Celeste did not hug him.
Not yet.
She only said:
May you like
“I tried to take you with me.”
And Warren Hale finally looked afraid of his own son.
