Chapter 1 - The Stranger on the Dock
The voice came from behind the stone pillars of the carport, sharp and clipped like garden shears trimming dead privet.
I turned around.
A man in his late forties was standing there, wearing a fleece vest over a striped golf shirt. He had wire-rimmed glasses, sun-weathered skin, and the distinct posture of someone who believed he owned not only the land beneath his loafers but the atmosphere above it. His eyes raked over my dented Ford Ranger with its peeling bumper sticker from a 2012 union rally, then landed on me. He didn't look like a welcoming committee. He looked like an exterminator inspecting a wasp nest.
“I asked if you’re looking for somebody,” the man repeated, stepping closer. “Or are you just another contractor who doesn't know how to read a 'Private Property' sign?”
“There wasn't a sign,” I said mildly, keeping my hands in the pockets of my canvas jacket.
“There is at the bottom of the access lane,” he fired back. “I’m Donald Vance. I own the estate next door—the Cape Cod build with the tennis court. And since the legal owner of this place happens to be a personal friend of mine, I make it my business to keep an eye on transients wandering onto the grounds.”
Transients.
The word had a nice, expensive sting to it. I looked at Donald Vance, taking in the way his jaw tightened when I didn't immediately shrink away or start apologizing. Years in Hollywood taught me to read men like him; they were always casting themselves as the heavy in a scene where they thought they were the hero.
“Arthur Callahan,” I said, extending a hand that was calloused from decades of handling timber, rivets, and epoxy.
Vance didn't take it. He just stared at my hand like it might smear oil on his sleeve.
“Never heard of you,” Vance said. “And Mr. and Mrs. Hack told me specifically they weren't expecting any visitors. Especially not from... well, whoever you are.”
“The Hacks,” I repeated, tasting the name like cheap copper.
“Spencer and Lorraine Hack,” Vance said, crossing his arms with a smug little twitch of his chin. “Lovely couple. Bought this place late last year. Spent a fortune renovating the master bath and putting in that infinity-edge hot tub. Of course, they don't live here full-time—they have a primary residence in Bellevue, and Spencer’s logistics firm keeps him hopping down to Portland. But they use it for weekend retreats. So if you’re looking to unload roofing materials or pitch some sort of landscaping contract, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Move the truck.”
I looked past him, through the cavernous glass windows of the empty living room where sunlight was dancing uselessly across bare hardwood floors. No furniture. No boxes. No signs of weekend retreats, unless Spencer and Lorraine liked sleeping on polished oak and drinking water out of cupped hands.
“They don't live here,” I said quietly.
“That’s none of your concern,” Vance snapped, stepping directly into my line of sight. “Now get off the property before I call the county sheriff.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
Vance blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Call him,” I said, taking a slow step toward him. At sixty-seven, I wasn't as fast as I used to be, but I still had the height and the heavy, immovable stance of a man who spent forty years anchoring camera cranes and heavy scaffolding. “Tell the sheriff that Arthur Callahan is standing on his own front porch, and he’d love to have a chat about who owns the deed.”
Vance’s face twitched. A flicker of real, genuine uncertainty crossed his eyes. He looked at my face—at the lines around my eyes, the shape of my nose, the stubborn set of my jaw—and then he looked back at the house.
“Your... your name is Callahan?” Vance whispered.
“It is.”
“Oh,” Vance muttered, his arrogance deflating like a punctured pool float. “Oh, lord. You’re... you’re the father. Spencer said you were... he said you were in a specialized care facility down in Oregon! He said you had advanced dementia!”
The silence that followed was so loud I could hear the wind hissing through the fir trees down by the water.
Dementia.
That was why nobody in the family had ever visited me here. That was why Lorraine had concocted a story about how I “loved my little Tacoma apartment” and “refused to move into anything modern.” She hadn't just stolen a million dollars from her brother; she had buried me alive in a nursing home in my own son's imagination so no one would ever ask why the lake house was empty.
“My mind’s just fine, Mr. Vance,” I said, my voice dropping an octave into the register I used when an actor missed their mark for the third time. “Now, do you have a key, or do I need to go find a crowbar?”
Vance took two steps backward, his eyes wide, and without another word, he turned on his heel and fast-walked back toward his tennis court like a man who realized he had just wandered onto a movie set right before the explosives went off.
May you like
I stood alone on the porch for a long time.
Then I walked down the stone steps toward the boathouse, pulled a heavy-duty flathead screwdriver from my truck's glove box, and went to work on the side door.
