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“Your laptop is fine,” Madison says quickly. “Don’t freak her out like that. No one did anything to your laptop, Laney. But Jayla and I were talking while we searched. I wanted to check into this theory that whoever stages that stuff was trying to buy the island. I was thinking that if I wanted to buy an island, I’d want to see it first. Easiest way to do that?”
“Rent it,” I say.
“Yep. So Jayla and I came up with a list of red flags to look for. We were going to give them to you, but since you were in the tub, and you don’t lock your laptop, and I know you trust me not to look at your private stuff…”
She trails off with a sidelong look of uncertainty, waiting for me to say yes, it was fine. When I do, she relaxes.
“Good,” she says. “So we went on a cyber-spy mission through your rental email folder. We started by looking at people who were here right before it all started. The first thing found was the hex circle under the crawlspace carpet, right?”
I nod. “The people who rented Hemlock Island before that were seniors with young grandkids. Unlikely suspects. However, no one would have moved the crawlspace carpet until I came for a visit, so it could have been two, three, even four renters before them.”
“That’s what I thought. So, like I said, we had a list of red flags we checked against. The suspect we found, though? They did something different.”
Madison waves me from the laundry room into my tiny office, where my laptop is open on the desk. She sits and brings up a tab. On it is a message from a renter, and when I read it, I let out a string of profanity.
“Aunt Laney!” Madison says with a grin.
I pull over the stool and take the laptop. I can’t believe I missed this one. Well, yes, I can, because when I’d been considering suspects for the staging, I’d had certain renters in mind. The trust-fund twentysomething couple who’d treated the island like a hotel room they could trash and have Mommy and Daddy pay the bill. The older couple who’d said they were renting it for themselves and instead let their college-aged son and his friends have it for a party weekend. Or the several groups of renters with teenagers.
The ones Madison and Jayla pinpointed were a couple in their early forties on a getaway. As unlikely to be staging occult nonsense as the elderly pair and their preteen grandchildren.
So what’s in the message that has me swearing? Something that had seemed so innocuous at the time. They were the sort of renters who have a laundry list of questions before they commit, common questions that I have canned answers for.
One of their questions was about the security system. That’s not unusual. I might stress how remote Hemlock Island is, but people still think of the lower Great Lakes in summer, with endless passing boaters who might decide my island looks like a good place to pull over and camp. They want to be certain they’ll be safe from intruders.
I’d given the canned answer, and this guy came back wanting to know what type of system we had. He’d apologized for being a “pain in the ass,” but he owned a security company, and there were plenty of rental properties that claimed to have good security, only for him to discover they’d bought some cheap system online. I’d sent back a link to our system and steeled myself for him to tell me it was trash in hopes of selling me his company’s product. Instead, he’d said that was a great choice, and I never heard a word about it again.
This guy is a security professional. He knew what kind of system I had before he came out. If I’m wondering how someone could get access to my secured house? Here’s my answer.
“That could be a coincidence,” Jayla says. “If you brought this tome wanting to legally pursue damages, I’d laugh you out of my office. But then…”
She leans over and pulls up an email. It’s from one of the companies that has tried buying Hemlock Island. This one bypassed Kit and came straight to me.
“Note the area code and first name.”
I do—it’s a Detroit area code, from a land-development company, the letter sent directly from the CEO, whose name is Rachel Rossi. Then Jayla flips to the rental agreement for the guy who asked about security. She points to the phone number. The area code is the same… and his wife’s first name is Rachel.
I swear under my breath.
“Do you know how much I’d love to have internet access right now?” Jayla says. “It’d be an easy check to link that letter to that renter. Then we have our third piece of evidence.”
She opens another tab, with a message from a person who rented the property shortly before the grotesque wind chimes were found.
Hello! I’m hoping to rent your lovely island for a fall getaway! You hosted friends of ours—John and Rachel—this summer, and they can’t stop raving about the place!
John and Rachel. Security-company guy and his presumed land-developer wife. I don’t remember much about this “friend” couple, and I zip through my messages to find the reason: they did nothing memorable. They had no questions and paid in full. They’d come for a weekend and left without so much as breaking a plate, giving me no reason to contact them later. They’d five-star-reviewed Hemlock Island, and so I’d mentally entered them onto my ideal guest list and returned the five-star rating for them… on their brand-new renters account.
They’d also paid by e-transfer, which came from a corporate account identified by a string of numbers.
John and Rachel’s “friends” didn’t rent Hemlock Island thatweekend. John and Rachel did. They’d come on site, done whatever additional research they needed. They might have set up the wind chimes, or they might have just found a spot to moor a boat so they could access the island whenever they wanted.
I push back from the desk. Then I march into the great room and change my admin codes on the security system.
“You think they also took the gun?” Madison asks.
“Yes,” I say. “If they can crack the security system, they could open the locker. I don’t think they’re prowling the island with my gun, though.”
Jayla nods. “They took it so you don’t shoot themwhilethey’re prowling the island.”
