Chapter 12 - The Hidden Cabin
The footprints led to a clearing that did not appear on any modern map of the park. Hidden behind thick vines stood an abandoned wooden cabin with broken windows and a collapsed porch.
"It shouldn't be here," the old park ranger murmured after catching up.
"It was demolished years ago."
Elias slowly approached the front door.
The dust around the cabin suggested abandonment.
The footprints did not.
Someone had entered recently.
A rescuer carefully pushed the creaking door open.
Inside, sunlight filtered through cracked boards, revealing overturned furniture, rusted shelves, and dozens of old newspaper clippings pinned to one wall.
Every article mentioned the lake.
Missing fishermen.
Smuggling investigations.
Unsolved disappearances.
One photograph immediately caught Elias's attention.
It showed the very same dock.
The date beneath it was twenty-one years old.
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Standing in the background was a much younger Elias... and beside him stood a man whose face had been deliberately scratched away.
Someone wanted that identity forgotten.
