Chapter 4 - The Fishing Box Was Missing One Thing
The green tackle box was still under Mason’s bed.
Claire carried it downstairs and opened it with him at the dining table after police removed Brenda from the house for questioning.
Old fishing lures.
Rust-speckled pliers.
A pocketknife.
Three Polaroids of Aaron and Mason at the lake.
A folded state fishing map.
A small compass.
Nothing that looked remotely important enough to justify months of surveillance.
Mason dug through the trays.
Then stopped.
“There was another picture.”
Claire looked at him.
“What picture?”
“Dad and Uncle Ben.”
Aaron had no brother.
“Who?”
Mason corrected himself.
“Not uncle. Dad called him Ben.”
Claire knew the name.
Benjamin Cole.
Aaron’s closest childhood friend.
They had not spoken in years.
At least, that was what Aaron told her.
“What did the picture look like?”
“They were by the lake.”
“That could be anything.”
Mason shook his head.
“Dad wrote something on the back.”
“What?”
Mason closed his eyes, trying to remember.
Then:
DON’T LET CALEB CHANGE THE STORY.
Claire stopped breathing for a second.
“When did you read that?”
“After Dad died.”
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“Brenda said grown-up things in Dad’s box would make you sad.”
The manipulation was becoming clearer.
Brenda had not merely searched.
She had been intercepting Mason’s attempts to bring Claire information.
“Did Brenda take the photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
Mason thought.
“One day the box was on my bed when I came home.”
Not where he left it.
The photograph disappeared shortly afterward.
Claire felt anger rise, but the missing photograph had already done one useful thing.
It gave her a sentence.
Don’t let Caleb change the story.
What story?
She searched Aaron’s old messages that night.
Not for Caleb first.
For Ben.
There were no recent texts.
No calls.
Then she remembered Aaron was old-fashioned about certain friendships.
Email.
She searched.
One thread remained from three years earlier.
The subject line:
THE SUMMER AT THE CABIN
The last message came from Aaron.
If Caleb keeps telling everyone Ben took off because he was ashamed, I’m done staying quiet. We both know why Ben left.
Claire stared at the screen.
Caleb was not protecting a financial secret.
He was protecting a family story.
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And apparently Aaron had intended to challenge it.
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