Chapter 20 - The Last Cast Wasn’t the Last
One year after the viral stick challenge, Ryan returned to Lake Harrison carrying the same maple branch.
“You kept it?” Eli asked.
“Tyler stole it from the trash pile after the first video.”
“I didn’t throw it away.”
“You leaned it against a dumpster.”
“That’s storage.”
Ryan handed it to him.
The branch had been cleaned and sealed but otherwise remained unchanged. The original line was gone. The wine cork sat in a small display case inside Carter’s Dock with a handwritten label:
TEN-THOUSAND-DOLLAR CORK.
Eli hated the label.
Children loved it.
The anniversary event drew hundreds of visitors, but Eli escaped before noon and walked to a quiet bank with Ryan and Caleb.
Caleb was thirteen now and taller.
He carried a mid-priced spinning combo he had purchased with money earned cleaning docks.
His twenty-dollar reel hung on the wall at home.
“Retired?” Eli asked.
“Backup.”
“Good answer.”
They sat beneath the same sycamores where Eli had first watched the shade line move.
Ryan looked across the lake.
“You ever miss being nobody?”
“Yes.”
“Every day?”
“Almost.”
“Then why keep doing interviews?”
“Free dock lumber.”
Ryan laughed.
Eli tied a worm onto the maple branch and handed it to Caleb.
“No way,” Caleb said.
“Afraid?”
“Of breaking history.”
“It’s a stick.”
Caleb cast.
Badly.
The worm landed six feet away.
Ryan laughed so hard he bent over.
Caleb glared. “You try it.”
Ryan took the branch and made an even worse cast.
Eli shook his head.
“Professional fisherman.”
“It has no reel!”
“Excuses have improved since last year.”
They spent an hour catching tiny bluegill and one small bass.
No scales.
No cameras.
No money.
It was Eli’s favorite fishing trip of the year.
When they returned to Carter’s Dock, Marnie stood beside a woman Eli had never seen.
She looked about twenty-four or twenty-five. Dark hair. Green jacket. Nervous hands.
A worn tackle box sat at her feet.
Marnie’s face told Eli the visit was not ordinary.
“This is Grace Nolan,” she said.
Grace looked at Eli for several seconds.
“Mr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“My mother told me not to come.”
Eli glanced at Ryan.
Ryan shrugged.
Grace opened the tackle box.
Inside were old lures, photographs, letters, and a faded red-and-white crankbait.
The same pattern as Mason’s lure that had arrived anonymously before the Masters.
Eli stopped breathing.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
“Who is your mother?”
“Rebecca Nolan. She used to be Rebecca Hayes.”
The name hit him.
Mason’s college girlfriend.
Eli had met her twice.
She disappeared from their lives after Mason’s funeral.
Grace reached into the box and removed a photograph.
Mason stood beside a young Rebecca at Lake Harrison.
Rebecca was visibly pregnant.
Eli stared at the picture.
“No.”
Grace’s voice shook. “My mother found out two weeks before he died. She never got to tell him.”
Eli looked at her face again.
The shape of her eyes.
The slight crookedness of her left eyebrow.
His knees weakened.
Ryan moved beside him.
Grace continued, “She was scared after the funeral. Men came asking whether Mason had given her anything. She moved west. Changed her name. She told me my father died in a car accident, but she never told me who he was until your videos started appearing.”
Eli sat heavily on the dock bench.
“You’re saying…”
Grace nodded, tears forming.
“I think Mason Carter was my father.”
For once, Eli had no words.
Caleb looked between them, completely silent.
Ryan whispered, “Did your mother send the lure?”
Grace nodded.
“She wanted to warn him away from the investigation. She thought whoever killed Mason would come after him.”
Eli gripped the edge of the bench.
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
Grace looked down.
“Because she’s missing.”
The air changed.
Ryan stepped forward. “Missing how?”
“She left home nine days ago. Her car was found at a marina in Oregon. No phone. No wallet. Police think she may have left voluntarily.”
“And you don’t?” Eli asked.
“No.”
Grace reached beneath the letters and removed a small black case.
Inside was another MiniDV cassette.
Eli stared at it.
A handwritten label read:
JULY 18 — LAUNCH RAMP — ORIGINAL.
Nobody moved.
The missing second recording.
The evidence everyone had believed lost.
Ryan whispered, “Have you watched it?”
“No. Mom told me never to.”
Eli lifted the cassette with both hands.
Twenty-five years of fear weighed almost nothing.
Grace said, “There’s something else.”
She removed a sealed envelope with Eli’s name written across the front.
The handwriting was Mason’s.
Eli’s hands began shaking.
“That’s impossible.”
“My mother said he gave it to her the night he died.”
Eli opened it.
Inside was one page.
He read the first line.
Dad, if you’re reading this, then Victor knows I found out what really happened at the Grand American.
Eli stopped.
Ryan leaned closer.
“What?”
Eli read the next sentence.
His face changed completely.
“What does it say?” Grace asked.
Eli looked across Lake Harrison.
A bass broke the surface beyond the shade line and disappeared.
He folded the letter.
“We’re closing the dock early.”
Ryan stared. “Why?”
Eli stood.
Because according to Mason’s letter, the tournament-fixing operation had not begun with Victor Kane.
Victor had been working for someone else.
And that person was still alive.
From the parking lot came the low rumble of an engine.
A black truck stopped beside Carter’s Dock.
An elderly man stepped out carrying a fishing rod older than Eli’s maple branch.
He looked toward Eli and smiled.
“Been a long time, Lake King.”
Eli went pale.
Ryan whispered, “Who is that?”
Eli watched the stranger walk toward them.
“The man who taught Victor Kane how to cheat.”
The stranger stopped at the edge of the dock.
Then he raised the old rod.
“One last match, Eli.”
Eli looked at Grace, at Mason’s tape, at Ryan, at Caleb, and finally at the water.
For the first time since becoming famous again, he smiled the way he had before a dangerous tournament twenty-five years earlier.
“Five fish?”
The old man smiled back.
“Five fish.”
May you like
Eli reached for the maple branch.
And somewhere beneath the dark surface of Lake Harrison, something enormous moved.
