“What are we going to do?” Fiona asked.
“Make sure our trust funds are intact. Call our law firm to make sure you and I don’t wind up included in any of these charges, and find out if we’re ever allowed to leave the country.”
Fiona’s eyes were awash with tears, and when she nodded in agreement, they spilled over.
“I’m sorry I’ve been mean. Will you take me with you when you go?”
Nita sighed and, in a rare moment of emotion, hugged her sister.
“Of course, Fee. We have to stick together in this mess.”
*
Andrew Bingham had gone straight to Charleston. The state capitol of West Virginia had its own kind of elegance, which he preferred. He had taken up temporary residence in one of the finer old hotels and spent the last few days resting, working out and going through the video files he’d recovered from the lake house.
It was a somewhat boring task for him, because everything he did was routine and precise, calculated for a client’s greatest satisfaction, but as he watched, he realized there were a few things he should probably switch up. Being repetitive was the kiss of death to someone with his job skills, so he took time to watch all the recordings, deciding which ones he would keep. Those he cataloged and stored, while the others he set aside to be erased. He had to take stock of how much money he’d banked during his stint in Eden, then tie up loose ends before he moved on, preferably out of the country for a while. It would be great if the next job he landed was in Paris, but that wasn’t going to happen unless he made himself available there.
He’d finished most of his lunch from room service and was down to the last five recorded sessions when he happened to look up and catch sight of Nita Wayne’s face on TV. To say he was startled would have been putting it mildly. He upped the volume to hear what was going on and, as the story unfolded, began to realize how fortunate he’d been in leaving Eden before this broke.
He watched the piece all the way through, then turned off the TV and got up to refill his wineglass. Now that he knew what was happening with the Waynes, he was even more eager to get out of the country.
He grabbed a piece of Godiva chocolate from a dish beside the wine decanter, then settled in to view the remaining discs.
The next one he saw was of no importance, so he set it aside to erase and popped in the next. He noted the date and time as he hit Play, expecting to watch yet another episode of sexual antics that went along with the role-playing Charles liked.
To his surprise, the image that popped up was neither Charles nor himself, but another member of the family. He was thinking how easily he and Charles could have been compromised even earlier, and was glad it had been Nita who found them.
But then it dawned on him that the man on screen wasn’t exhibiting his usual emotional control. Andrew watched him run across the room to the gun cabinet, take out a rifle, check to see if it was loaded, then run out of view, the skin crawled on the back of his neck.
The video timed out after no further movement. As Andrew made a note of the date and time, it dawned on him that this was the day of the murder.
“Oh my God! It was you,” he mumbled.
Then he quickly made note of the date and time when the next recording on the disc was made, noting that it occurred about forty-five minutes after the first. He wasn’t surprised when he saw it was the same man with the same rifle, this time racing frantically from one place to another, gathering objects, before he sat down and began to break down the rifle.
When the man began to clean the gun, Andrew realized he was cleaning the murder weapon.
“You sorry-ass bastard,” Andrew said.
His heart was pounding as he watched the man clean every aspect of the rifle, put it back together, wipe it completely of prints, then return it to the gun case in plain view of the camera.
“Despite all your indignation, you actually did it.”
The moment he knew what he had, he never had the impulse not to turn it over to the police. However, he sat for a moment thinking about what he needed to do first. He decided to burn a copy of the disc for safekeeping before slipping the original into a protective sleeve. He wrote the words Lake House, the date and time of the recording, and the word KILLER in caps, and put it in his suitcase, separate from all the others.
The bummer was that he was going to have to take a trip back to Eden. He didn’t want to go, but considering the news report he’d just seen, this was too volatile and too important to trust to the US mail.
He called the front desk and asked them to prepare his bill, then began packing. If he didn’t hit a lot of traffic, he would be back in Eden before dark.