My parents were standing on the porch of my lake house with twenty guests when my mother looked straight into my security camera and said, "Claire, stop being ridiculous and open the door." They had driven there with coolers, grocery bags, children, and enough luggage for an entire weekend, even…

"What photograph?" I asked.

Margaret waited until Dad's car door closed before she answered.

"Someone was at the house three weeks ago," she said.

"Wednesday night, around ten.

I saw headlights come down your access road and I thought maybe you'd come up early and forgotten to tell me.

So I watched.

The lights sat there for about twenty minutes, then left."

"You didn't call me."

"I thought about it.

But nothing happened — no entry, no damage, nothing visible.

I took a photograph of the vehicle from my porch with my zoom lens, just in case.

I put it in the folder because I didn't know what else to do with it."

The deputy had stopped walking.

He turned back toward Margaret.

"Do you know whose vehicle it was?" he asked.

Margaret looked at the folder in his hand.

"It's on the last page.

I ran the plate through my nephew — he works county records.

It's registered to a business.

A property management company called Lakeview Asset Group."

I had never heard that name.

"I don't know anyone by that name," I said through the phone.

"I've never had contact with any property management company about that house."

The deputy opened the folder to the last page.

He studied it for a moment without speaking.

"Ma'am," he said toward my phone, "I'd recommend you look into that company before the week is out.

That's not official advice.

That's just — I'd look into it."

I wrote the name down on the back of a hospital parking receipt that was sitting on my kitchen counter.

Lakeview Asset Group.

I said it out loud to make it real.

Back on the camera feed, Dad's car was still in the driveway.

He hadn't pulled out.

Through the windshield I could see him on his phone.

Kyle's truck was gone.

Mom had finally come off the porch and was standing beside the passenger door of Dad's car, still holding her purse with both hands, watching Margaret walk back across the road.

I kept the camera feed open and pulled up a new browser window on my laptop.

I typed in the company name.

Lakeview Asset Group had a website.

Clean, minimal, the kind of site that says very little while looking professional.

Property acquisition.

Lakefront and rural holdings.

Pacific Northwest focus.

There was a contact form and a phone number with a Portland area code.

There was no list of principals.

There was no About page.

There was a logo — a small blue wave — and underneath it, in gray text, the words: *Specializing in off-market acquisitions and estate transitions.*

I stared at that phrase.

Estate transitions.

I clicked back to the camera.

Dad's car had not moved.

I called Margaret.

She picked up on the second ring.

"The company," I said.

"Did your nephew find anything else?"

"Registered fourteen months ago," she said.

"Single member LLC.

He couldn't get the member name without a formal request, but the registered agent address is a law office in Portland."

Fourteen months ago.

I opened my calendar and counted back.

Fourteen months ago was two months after I had told Dad for the first time that I would not be making the lake house available for family use on demand.

The conversation had happened at my parents' kitchen table.

Dad had gone quiet in the way he went quiet when he was not accepting something but had decided not to argue about it yet.

"Margaret," I said.

"Do you still have the photograph of the vehicle?"

"I have the original on my camera.

The one in the folder is a print."

"Can you send me the digital file?"

"Already did," she said.

"Check your email."

I opened it.

A dark SUV parked at the top of my access road, partially visible through the trees.

The plate was clear.