Chap­ter 7: After leav­ing the trail­er, Brody noticed my limp and sug­gest­ed I take the access road to the high­way instead of climb­ing out of the gorge. This longer route meant a delayed arrival at my par­ents’ restau­rant, but I appre­ci­at­ed the ease it pro­vid­ed. My arrival didn’t occur until near­ly two in the after­noon, and just as I was back­ing out of the park­ing lot, I spot­ted my friend, the bar­tender, wav­ing at me from the door. I felt a moment of relief, not need­ing to explain my pres­ence there or the events that had unfold­ed.

When I final­ly reached Osprey Cove, the sight of a long line of vehi­cles greet­ed me as guests gath­ered for the wed­ding. The secu­ri­ty team had their hands full, check­ing IDs, but Hugo rec­og­nized me imme­di­ate­ly and ush­ered me through. He men­tioned that Mar­garet had been ask­ing about me, which made me feel a bit guilty for not hav­ing brought any­thing with me. Hugo, being per­cep­tive, seemed to sense my unease, like­ly aware that I was hid­ing the truth about my find­ings in town. When I asked about Gwen­dolyn, the girl con­nect­ed to a recent trag­ic event, Hugo revealed that the police had found xylazine—an ani­mal tranquilizer—among her things. This rev­e­la­tion sent a wave of con­cern through me, solid­i­fy­ing my sus­pi­cions that some­thing far dark­er was at play.

Amid the fes­tiv­i­ties, where guests were engaged in casu­al con­ver­sa­tions and mer­ri­ment, I couldn’t shake the grav­i­ty of what had tran­spired. While walk­ing toward the lodge, I ran into Minh, Maggie’s old col­lege room­mate from Bab­son. This encounter stirred mem­o­ries of Maggie’s col­lege days, filled with both fond­ness and tur­moil. Minh, ever the opti­mist, shared her hopes for Maggie’s bright future, but I couldn’t ignore the gnaw­ing feel­ing that some­thing wasn’t right. It was a reminder that Mag­gie’s future might not be as secure as it seemed, with the com­plex web of rela­tion­ships around her grow­ing even more con­vo­lut­ed.

Tam­my then shared her after­noon with Errol Gard­ner, water­ski­ing, and the sur­pris­ing news that he had gift­ed her stock as a wed­ding present. This news left me puz­zled about Errol’s inten­tions and his involve­ment in our family’s increas­ing­ly com­pli­cat­ed dynam­ics. Just as things began to esca­late in my thoughts, I saw Mag­gie leav­ing the cot­tage with lemon­ade in hand. I imme­di­ate­ly asked to speak with her pri­vate­ly, feel­ing an urgent need to address the mount­ing con­cerns that had been plagu­ing me for days.

In our con­ver­sa­tion, I men­tioned meet­ing Dawn’s fam­i­ly, hop­ing to gauge Maggie’s reac­tion. She seemed tak­en aback, which only fueled my sus­pi­cions. I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that Maggie’s rela­tion­ship with Aidan was far more com­pli­cat­ed and poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous than she real­ized. I described the hid­den threats I saw around her engage­ment, urg­ing her to recon­sid­er her sit­u­a­tion before it was too late. Despite my warn­ings, Mag­gie stood her ground, assert­ing that every­thing was fine and that I was over­re­act­ing. I pushed fur­ther, ask­ing her to trust my instincts, which seemed to be backed up by every piece of infor­ma­tion I had.

As the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ued, Mag­gie recalled a pho­to that had raised ques­tions about Aidan’s involve­ment. She men­tioned how an intern had noticed an anom­aly in the picture—Aidan’s thumb appear­ing on the wrong side, which seemed to sug­gest some­thing was amiss. This seem­ing­ly small detail added weight to my sus­pi­cions, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the already strained fam­i­ly dynam­ics. I was torn between respect­ing Maggie’s auton­o­my and pro­tect­ing her from the dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion she seemed to be walk­ing into.

The con­ver­sa­tion between Mag­gie and I felt like a tip­ping point. Her will­ing­ness to dis­miss my con­cerns about Aidan and the increas­ing com­plex­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship made me fear for her future. As the lay­ers of secre­cy and manip­u­la­tion start­ed to unrav­el, I knew that my role as a father and pro­tec­tor had nev­er been more impor­tant. Despite Maggie’s resis­tance, I couldn’t stand by and watch as she made deci­sions that would like­ly lead to harm. The ten­sion was pal­pa­ble, and the stakes had nev­er felt so high.

In the end, I knew that Mag­gie would have to make her own deci­sions, but I could­n’t help but feel a deep sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty to inter­vene before it was too late. The truth, how­ev­er painful, need­ed to come to light, no mat­ter how many walls Mag­gie put up in the process. I walked away from our con­ver­sa­tion, deeply unset­tled, but also res­olute in my deter­mi­na­tion to pro­tect my daugh­ter from the dan­ger­ous web she was entan­gled in. With each pass­ing day, it became clear that the deep­er I dug, the more I uncov­ered, and the clos­er I got to unrav­el­ing the tan­gled mess that was Aidan Gard­ner and his fam­i­ly.