Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE BESIDE THE LAKE
Roman did not tell Lily to stay home. He knew that would only turn her
into another person he tried to protect by making decisions for her.
Instead, he asked what she wanted to do.
“I want to know why my grandmother was frightened of a man who worked
for your family,” Lily said. “And I want to know whether the woman your
father hid is still alive.”
“Then you come with us.”
Eleanor objected to taking Lily near a location that might be under
surveillance. Reeves suggested a compromise: they would send a local
investigator to check the property first. Roman agreed, though he hated
waiting.
The address in the notebook belonged to a weathered lakeside house that
had been sold twice and was now registered to a charitable trust. The
trust’s paperwork listed a nonprofit called Harbor Light Recovery. Its
stated purpose was to provide temporary housing for women leaving
dangerous situations.
The trust had received money from the Kane Foundation.
Roman frowned. “My father funded it?”
“Possibly,” Eleanor said. “The transfers began before your mother’s
accident and continued for two years afterward.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because the foundation’s annual reports grouped the payments under
community support.”
Reeves called from the property. “The house is empty. But someone has
been there recently. Fresh tire marks. A new padlock. No sign of forced
entry.”
Roman looked at the notebook again. “Find out who owns the trust.”
Eleanor did. The original trustee was a woman named Nora Whitcomb, a
retired nurse who had worked at Meridian Health Services.
They found her at a small home in Racine. She answered the door with a
walking stick in one hand and a kitchen towel over her shoulder.
When Roman introduced himself, Nora did not invite him inside.
“I wondered when you would come,” she said.
“You knew my mother?”
“I helped her after the accident.”
“Is she alive?”
Nora studied him. “I won’t answer until I know why you are asking.”
Roman took the photograph from the storage box. Nora’s expression
changed as soon as she saw it.
“Elizabeth,” she whispered.
“She was alive after her funeral.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Nora stepped aside. “Come in.”
Her living room was filled with plants and old nursing books. She
offered tea, then sat opposite Roman and folded her hands.
“Your mother arrived at the clinic with a fractured wrist, a concussion,
and several broken ribs. The car had gone into the river, but she had
managed to get out before it sank. The body recovered from the driver’s
seat belonged to another woman.”
Roman felt sick. “Who?”
“A patient who had died at the clinic two days earlier. Her records were
altered. I never learned who arranged it.”
“Why would my mother agree to that?”
“She didn’t at first. She wanted to call you. Your father convinced her
that the people who attacked her would come after you next.”
Roman looked away.
Nora continued. “The clinic was not a safe place. Dr. Voss had been paid
to keep her there under another name. When I learned that Silas Mercer
had access to the records, I helped her leave.”
“Where did she go?”
“She went to a safe house. Then she moved again. I was told not to keep
her address.”
“Who told you?”
“Your mother.”
Roman leaned forward. “Did she ever try to contact me?”
Nora hesitated. “Several times.”
“Why didn’t I receive anything?”
“Because Silas intercepted the messages. At least two letters were
returned to me with your signature on the envelope.”
Roman felt anger burn through him.
Nora went to a cabinet and removed a small folder. Inside were copies of
three letters addressed to Roman. Each had been stamped undeliverable.
The first was dated one year after the funeral. The second, three years
later. The third, six years later.
“I kept copies because I thought one day someone would ask,” Nora said.
Roman opened the first letter.
“My darling Roman, I don’t know what your father has told you. I don’t
know whether you believe I abandoned you. I need you to know I did not.
I am alive, and I am trying to find a way to come home without bringing
danger to your door.”
He stopped reading.
Lily sat beside him, silent.
The second letter described a woman who had learned to live with a false
name. The third said Elizabeth had seen Roman’s photograph in a
newspaper and was proud of the man he had become.
At the bottom, she had written: If you are happy, I will not disturb
your life. But I will never stop being your mother.
Roman pressed the page flat against his knee.
“Where is she now?”
Nora looked at him for a long moment. “I haven’t seen her in five years.
But I know the person who might.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Roman frowned. “My father is dead.”
“Before he died, he sent me a package. It contained a photograph and a
note. He said if you ever came looking, I should tell you to visit the
chapel where you used to wait for your mother after school.”
Roman knew the place. A small stone chapel on the grounds of the old
family property, closed after a fire damaged its roof.
“What did the note say?”
Nora took a folded slip from the folder.
“If Roman comes, tell him to look beneath the third stone from the
altar. Elizabeth left something there.”
Roman stood.
Reeves warned him not to go until the property had been checked. Roman
agreed. They arranged for a local officer to accompany them and for the
chapel to be searched in daylight.
Before they left, Nora touched Roman’s sleeve.
“Your mother was not perfect. She could be stubborn, and she could make
decisions without explaining them. But she never stopped loving you.”
Roman nodded, unable to speak.
On the drive back, Lily looked out at the passing trees.
“You’re allowed to be angry,” she said.
“I am.”
“You’re allowed to miss her, too.”
Roman glanced at her. “You say things as if they’re obvious.”
“They are obvious. They’re just not easy.”
He looked at the letters again.
For twenty-two years, he had believed grief had ended with a grave. Now
he understood that his mother had been alive somewhere, writing letters
that never reached him, waiting for a son who thought she was gone.
At the estate, Marcus was waiting in the library.
He looked at the letters and closed his eyes.
“You found Nora.”
“You knew about the letters?”
Marcus nodded.
Roman went still. “You knew?”
“I found out that Silas had intercepted them. I confronted him. He told
me your father had ordered the separation.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed your father had made the original decision. I thought the
letters were being held for a reason.”
“You never checked.”
“No.”
Roman stared at his uncle. “You let me grow up thinking she was dead.”
Marcus’s voice broke. “I thought I was keeping you alive.”
Roman turned away.
The next morning, the team would search the chapel.
But that night, Roman could not sleep. At 2:13 a.m., a security alert
appeared on his phone.
Someone had entered the old family property.
The camera showed a woman in a dark coat standing beside the chapel
door.
She looked up directly at the lens.
Roman knew the shape of her face.
His mother was home.
Before dawn, Roman called Reeves and told him about the woman on the
camera. The investigator reviewed the footage frame by frame. The woman
had entered the property through a side gate that had been locked for
years. She knew the old access code.
“Could it be Elizabeth?” Roman asked.
“It could,” Reeves said. “But we won’t assume. Someone may be using her
appearance to draw you out.”
Roman agreed to wait for the officers, but he could not stay away from
the chapel. He watched the camera feed until the woman moved inside and
disappeared from view.
At first light, the team approached the building. Reeves checked the
perimeter while Roman waited at the entrance. The side door was open. No
alarm had been triggered.
Then the voice came from inside.
“Roman.”
It was not a recording. It was not a trick.
When Elizabeth stepped into the moonlit aisle, Roman noticed that she
was holding an old photograph. It showed him at seven years old,
standing beside the chapel with a paper airplane in his hand.
“You kept that?” he asked.
“I carried it with me.”
“Where have you been?”
“Too many places.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she said. “It’s the truth I can give you tonight.”
Roman wanted to ask a hundred questions, but he could see the exhaustion
in her face. He asked Reeves to bring a medical professional and a
female officer to speak with her privately. Elizabeth agreed to a basic
examination but refused to be taken to the mansion.
“I’ll go somewhere safe,” she said. “But not somewhere Silas knows.”
Roman arranged for Eleanor to choose an independent location. He also
told the security team not to photograph Elizabeth or circulate her
image. He would not let her return become another public spectacle.
On the drive away from the chapel, Elizabeth asked whether Arthur was
alive.
“Yes. He’s with Margaret, Helen, and Walter.”
“Are they well?”
“They’re getting by. Lily has been helping them.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Rose’s granddaughter?”
Roman nodded.
“Your grandmother was a good woman,” Elizabeth said. “She once stayed
awake all night because I had a fever and refused to wake the doctor.
She made soup and sat beside me until morning.”
Roman looked at his mother. “You remember all of them.”
“I remember the people who made that house feel like a home.”
He looked out at the road. For years, he had thought his mother belonged
May you like
to a past that could not be recovered. Now he was driving beside her,
listening to her remember the names of people he had almost forgotten.
