The house he had seen in his mind was the third to the last picture on the bottom edge of the page. The picture had been taken from a boat a short distance from the shore. Even from the position and angle the picture had been taken, Lance could tell it was the same building. White rollers could be seen in the base of the picture, and the darkened sky overhead confirmed that a storm was pushing its way across the lake. The house sat on a short rise, its two bay windows jutting out like bulging eyes, as if a horrible event was occurring beyond the photographer. The gazebo was just where Lance had pictured it, the hexagon-shaped building a few yards off the closest point of the house, mere steps from the rocky shoreline. The house itself had a base of large gray stone that ran up to the second story. From that point the construction consisted of logs stained a deep brown. The gables were also framed in wood of the same color, only smaller and hung just below a steeply pitched roof that reminded him of European Gothic churches. A spacious area was cleared around the house, what could actually be called grounds when paired with the huge home that sat upon them. There was only one feature that Lance didn’t recognize: a glass alcove added on to the house. The small area that jutted away from the structure was crisscrossed with black supports for the panels of glass and had a sweeping curve where it met the outside wall at the top, some ten feet from the ground.
Lance sat back from the computer and stared at the image. A soft whisper made him turn his head toward the hall outside of the room. He stared, waiting for movement or another sound that might give away what was there. Unnerved, he stood as quietly as he could and tiptoed across the study to the door. He listened for a full minute before breaking the silence.
“Hello?” His voice sounded calm and reassuringly clear in the quiet of the home. There was no response and no further noises. When he sat back down in the chair at the desk, an idea struck him like a mallet. He reached out and moved the mouse so that the arrow on the screen hung directly over the picture of the house, and clicked.
A website opened behind an enlarged version of the picture. A banner at the top of the page that read Open Water Realty rippled with clever animation, and Lance could see text of a real-estate listing disappearing behind the picture in the middle of the screen. He closed the picture and started to read the description. His heart began to snare-drum in his chest once again, and he double-checked the date of the listing in the upper right-hand corner of the page. His hand left the mouse and grasped the phone that lay a few inches to the right. His numb fingertips dialed the number that blinked hypnotically on the bottom of the screen. Just ask for Carrie! jumped out at him as he placed the receiver to his ear and listened to the first ring.
When a pleasant voice answered in perfect unison with the rippling title of the company on the screen, Lance almost smiled and told himself he hadn’t heard the soft whisper again. He ignored the fact that this time he heard his name.
Chapter 6
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
—Auric Goldfinger
“I told you, I’m just doing a little sightseeing and some research for a future project,” Lance said into the phone. Andy’s irritated voice, punctuated with bouts of cussing, kept flowing out of the earpiece like a stream of aggravated white noise. Lance checked the Land Rover’s rearview mirror and changed lanes, although at ten o'clock on a Thursday there wasn’t much traffic on this section of I-35. “Listen, listen.” Lance paused and then tried again. “Will you listen for a minute?” Lance waited until the angry ranting in his ear tapered and finally fell silent. “I’m going on a short trip, just like you said I should do. I’m sorry that it’s concerning a new book, but right now, my friend, I’m taking what I can get.”
Another string of sentences laced with several four-letter words peppered Lance, and he rolled his eyes in exasperation. Instead of riding out the storm of cursing, he decided to intervene and try to cut off the flow.