Chapter 6 - Midnight at Lake Lanier
The rain had stopped by midnight, leaving a dense, choking fog rolling off the dark, mirror-flat surface of Lake Lanier. The air smelled of damp pine needles, decaying leaves, and the metallic tang of standing water.
I cut the engine of my pickup a quarter-mile down the access road, stepping out quietly into the dark. I didn't turn on my headlights. I wore my dark wool coat, my work boots sinking silently into the mud as I hiked down the narrow, overgrown trail leading to the private Walker boathouse.
The boathouse was a massive timber-and-slate structure that extended fifty feet out over the black water. Its rusted iron weather vane groaned softly in the midnight breeze.
I flicked on my heavy-duty tactical flashlight, the beam cutting a sharp, brilliant white tunnel through the swirling fog.
"Miller?" I called out, my voice low and controlled.
No answer. Only the gentle lapping of dark water against the wooden pylons beneath my feet.
I stepped onto the weathered wooden dock, the boards groaning under my weight. I kept my right hand resting comfortably inside my coat pocket, wrapped around the heavy steel grip of my father’s vintage Colt .45 M1911 pistol.
As I approached the double doors of the boathouse, I noticed something wrong.
The heavy brass padlock—which had remained rusted shut for the past ten years—was broken. The iron shackle had been cleanly snapped by a pair of bolt cutters.
I pushed the heavy wooden door open with my left hand, sweeping the flashlight beam across the interior.
Old canoes, fishing gear, spare outboard motors, and water skis lined the walls. But in the center of the room, tied securely to a wooden post, was a figure.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Miller?!" I shouted, breaking into a run.
I reached the post and sliced through the heavy nylon rope with my pocket knife. The figure slumped forward into my arms, gasping for breath.
It wasn't Miller.
It was Detective Miller’s teenage son, Toby, who worked part-time as a night clerk at the county courthouse. His face was bruised, his lips split and bleeding, and a thick strip of duct tape was wrapped tightly around his mouth.
I ripped the tape off his mouth in one swift motion.
"Ethan... run!" Toby sobbed, coughing violently and clutching my jacket. "It's a trap! My dad didn't call you—they took him! They've been watching the house all week!"
Before I could process the warning, the heavy oak doors of the boathouse slammed shut behind us with a thunderous crash.
Heavy deadbolts slid into place with a sickening mechanical click.
From the shadows at the far end of the boathouse, a slow, mocking round of applause echoed through the damp air.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
A figure stepped out from behind a stack of fishing nets, illuminated by the dim orange glow of a single overhead bulb.
It wasn't Gerald Vance. It wasn't Arthur Pendelton.
It was a man I hadn't seen in fifteen years—my cousin Richard Jr., whom everyone in the family had assumed died in a mountaineering accident in the Swiss Alps back in 2011.
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He looked older, his face scarred by a jagged white line running from his ear down to his jawline, but his eyes—cold, dead, and predatory—were unmistakably Walker eyes.
"Well, well, well," Richard Jr. said, a twisted, sadistic smile curling his lips as he stepped closer, resting his hand on a heavy lead pipe. "The prodigal lumberjack returns to the slaughterhouse. Did you really think you could outsmart us, Ethan? You and your little graveyard shift crusade?"
