Chapter 6 - Black Maple Lodge.
Rain began as police vehicles turned onto the forest road leading to Black Maple Lodge.
The bright funeral morning had become a steel-gray evening, and branches scraped the sides of Ortiz’s car.
Ethan and Margaret were ordered to remain at a roadside command post while officers approached the property.
Through binoculars, Ortiz saw an abandoned hunting lodge with one upstairs window glowing.
The front door stood open as if someone wanted the police to enter.
Inside, officers found no Claire and no Daniel.
Instead, an old television played a recording of Daniel seated behind a desk.
He claimed Claire had suffered an emotional crisis, arranged her own disappearance, and placed herself in the coffin to frame him.
The statement was smooth enough to sound believable to anyone who had not seen his face when Ethan raised the hammer.
At the end of the recording, Daniel warned that Claire might harm herself if cornered.
Ortiz recognized the strategy.
He was building a public story before the facts could catch him.
Ethan noticed a brass clock behind Daniel in the recording.
Its hands showed 4:17, but a reflection in the glass displayed moving red lights.
Black Maple had no road sign or traffic signal nearby.
Margaret remembered that the Mercer company warehouse overlooked a railway crossing whose warning lights flashed every afternoon.
Daniel had filmed the message there, not at the lodge.
The property was a trap meant to waste time.
Ortiz alerted the command post.
Before they could leave, smoke drifted from the lodge basement.
Someone had ignited old files stored below.
The officers evacuated while firefighters contained the flames.
Among the damp papers recovered from the lawn was a ledger showing payments to Bellweather Funeral Home’s assistant manager, a private medical contractor, and a company identified only as North Star Logistics.
Paul Reeves insisted he had known nothing about the arrangement.
His assistant manager, however, had disappeared.
Ethan searched the ledger from behind the safety barrier and recognized one handwritten number.
It matched the combination Claire used on a metal cash box in her office.
The box had vanished weeks earlier.
Ortiz understood that the funeral scheme was tied to financial records, not merely Daniel’s marriage.
Claire had discovered money moving through false vendors.
Her supposed death would transfer her voting shares and silence the only person who could prove the theft.
A state trooper approached with urgent news.
North Star Logistics had just requested clearance for a private cargo flight leaving the county airport in forty minutes.
The passenger list included Daniel Mercer and a woman identified as Clara Moore.
The attached identification photograph belonged to Claire.
Daniel was preparing to remove her under a false name.
As everyone rushed toward the vehicles, Ethan heard Margaret gasp.
Raymond Mercer was standing beyond the trees, no longer in police custody, watching them through the rain.
He raised one finger to his lips and pointed toward Margaret’s car.
May you like
Something beneath the driver’s seat began to blink.
THE WOMAN BENEATH THE WHITE LID
