Meanwhile, the past began to surface in fragments.
Briar Lake was not a town, Daniel confirmed, but a private lakeside community about forty miles north. The Reed family had owned property there for decades through a trust named C.R. Holdings.
“Claudia Reed,” Nora said.
“Probably,” Daniel replied. “There’s a cabin listed, though cabin is a generous word. Six bedrooms, lakefront, private dock.”
The dock in the photo.
My skin prickled.
Daniel clicked through another page. “There’s also a storage facility near the access road. Briar Lake Private Storage. Small place. Climate-controlled units. Owned by the same trust until three years ago, then transferred to a company called Valecrest Management.”
“Valecrest?” Nora repeated.
Daniel nodded. “Sounds fancy. Let me check.”
He typed for a moment.
Then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes lifted from the screen. “Valecrest Management lists its registered agent as Claudia Reed.”
Nora’s pen froze.
I looked at the bassinet. Noah slept with his mouth slightly open, entirely unaware that his grandmother’s name kept appearing like a thread pulled through every locked door.
Daniel continued searching. “I found something else. There was an Anna connected to Briar Lake.”
The room went still.
He turned the laptop toward me.
A newspaper clipping from twelve years earlier filled the screen. The scan was grainy, the headline small.
Local Student Receives Reed Family Arts Scholarship
Below it was a photo of a girl holding a certificate beside Claudia, Evan, and a man I recognized from portraits in the Reed house: Evan’s late father, Charles Reed.
The girl had dark hair and wary eyes.
Anna Moretti.
My throat tightened.
“She was a scholarship student?” Nora asked.
Daniel read aloud from the article. “Anna Moretti, daughter of Briar Lake maintenance supervisor Paul Moretti, was awarded the Reed Family Arts Scholarship for her excellence in music and academic achievement.”
Maintenance supervisor.
Not a family friend. Not a relative.
A girl whose father worked for them.
I thought of the photo again. Evan’s arm around her shoulders. Claudia unsmiling.
“How old was Evan?” I asked.
Daniel checked dates. “Twenty-four.”
“And Anna?”
“Seventeen, according to this.”
Nora’s expression hardened, but she said nothing.
I wrapped both hands around the mug of tea Nora had made, though it had gone lukewarm.
“Is there more?”
Daniel searched again. The clicking keys sounded too loud.
“Not much,” he said. “A few school concert mentions. Honor roll. Then…” He leaned closer. “Nothing after that year.”
“Nothing?”
“No college announcement. No scholarship follow-up. No social media that I can find. But Anna Moretti isn’t an uncommon enough name to be sure.”
