The House Across the Lake

As the storm rages outside, Casey interrogates Len about his murders. He tells her that he’d always struggled with the urge to kill, but still trying to earn her sympathy, he blames it on his terrible childhood. Casey is still angry and admits that after she learns where he’s placed his victims, she intends to kill him once more. Len, speaking from within Katherine’s body, tells her that she would also be killing Katherine.

Just then the storm reaches a zenith and the electricity in the house goes out. Casey gathers candles, reflecting on how ugly the situation has become. While talking more with Len, she learns there is a way to bring Katherine back, but Len refuses to share it with her. As Casey threatens Len with a knife, he tells her, “I always knew we were a good match” (297) causing her to realize with horror that she also feels part of Len within her.

Len tells her that after death, part of the soul dissipates into the natural environment. Because he drowned, part of his soul went into the lake. By just breathing on Casey, he was able to infect her with part of himself. Spooked by this new horror, Casey goes downstairs to pour herself a drink. Wracked by guilt and fear, Casey determines that the only thing she can do to save Katherine is make Len go into a different vessel. She resolves to sacrifice herself, returning to the room only to discover that Len has escaped and taken the knife with him. Searching the house in the dark, she contemplates running, when suddenly the lights come back on. Len is standing behind her with the knife and the two tussle with the weapon. Just as Len has gained the upper hand and is straddling her and preparing to stab her, Eli arrives and yanks him off her.

Eli helps Casey tie Katherine/Len to a chair, and Casey begins to confess to him everything: Len’s murders, her murder of Len, and Len’s possession of Katherine. After listening to her story, Eli speaks privately to Katherine and returns to tell Casey that he believes her. Casey informs Eli of her plan and asks for his help.

Casey tells Len that if he confesses where he put the girls, she will bring him to the Royces’ dock and set him free to do whatever he pleases. Agreeing to this, she moves him to the boat and tells Eli to go distract Boone while she goes through with the plan. However, as she’s hugging Eli goodbye, she tells him to tell her mother and Marnie whatever he thinks best, and Eli realizes she intends to do something else.

Len directs Casey to Old Stubborn, the dead tree that pokes out of the water. Looking at the water, Casey feels relieved that now the victims can be reunited with their families. She takes a picture of the location and then texts it to Eli. When Len prompts her to release him, as she promised, she crosses the boat and kisses him. Returning the kiss, Len transfers his essence into her body instead of Katherine’s, which is what Casey hoped for. For a moment she feels herself completely obliterated. Then, she reawakens as she feels herself rapidly changing into Len. Katherine becomes herself again, and Casey instructs her to go to Boone’s place and tell them she has been lost in the woods. As she unties Katherine, she feels Len pleading with her to not carry out her plan. However, resolved to end the suffering, Casey grabs the anchor and jumps into the lake. There, she feels her burial will be fitting alongside Len’s other victims. She fights against him and wins, swallowing water.

The next thing she knows, she is being lifted out of the water by Katherine who has rescued her. Len is gone from her body, and she realizes that he’s returned to Lake Greene. Tom, Katherine, and Casey decide their story will be that Katherine and Tom fought, and afterward she took a walk in the woods and got lost. After the storm, Casey will say she found her at the edges of the forest in a daze. Before Tom and Katherine leave, Katherine pulls Casey aside to say that in Len’s memories, she learned that he truly loved Casey, and that the murders had nothing to do with her, that her presence might have prevented more from happening.

At her dock, Boone greets her. He divulges that the suspicions surrounding his wife’s death were because he hadn’t given the police the full story; his wife had died by suicide. Casey tells him she believes him. He gives her his card and invites her to join him at an AA meeting someday when she’s ready.

After giving her report about Katherine to Wilma Anson, Casey tells her there’s something else she needs to tell her. She takes Wilma in the boat out to Old Stubborn and shows her the driver’s licenses and locks of hair, telling her she found them in her basement. She tells her that she knows the bodies have been dumped here, claiming it’s the only place Len would bring them. Wilma cautions her that her life is about to change, that this will change the way the public sees her. She also hints that she suspects Casey of being involved in Len’s death but will not press the matter.

Feeling liberated from her past, that night Casey pours all her liquor down the drain, cycling through feelings of excitement and sadness, but spares the expensive bottle of wine from Tom Royce. As she muses on the wine, memories surface that make her doubt Tom Royce once more. She remembers that Katherine said she was feeling unlike herself before drowning and wonders again if Tom poisoned her. She calls Wilma and leaves a voicemail asking her about the lab report on the shard of wineglass. Taking out the binoculars, she once more focuses on Katherine as she sits in her living room with a large glass of wine. She tries to call Katherine, but as the phone rings, Tom sneaks up behind Casey and throws the phone into the yard.

Tom confesses that he has indeed been slowly poisoning Katherine, hoping to inherit her wealth. Now that there is police attention, he has realized that he can imitate her murder of Len by drugging Katherine with an antihistamine and wine before drowning her. Casey calls out to Katherine and Tom hits her with the wine bottle. They struggle, with Casey eventually falling from the porch. Tom pursues her using the wine bottle as a weapon, the two of them trailing into the water. Spurred by fear of being repossessed by Len, Casey manages to grab the wine bottle as Tom tries to drown her and bludgeons him until he is motionless. In the distance, she sees police cars pulling up to the Royces’ and knows Wilma has sent them. At that moment, Len possesses Tom’s corpse, jolting it back to life as he greets Casey with her old nickname, Cee. Using the shards of the bottle, Casey stabs him in the throat until she’s certain he’s dead.

In the final section, entitled “Later,” Casey awakens on the new year to her mother, Marnie, Eli, and Boone setting the table. She remembers ringing in the New Year the night before with ginger ale and sleeping with Boone afterward. The two have begun a relationship, though Casey still hasn’t revealed the full truth of what transpired that summer. She remembers how the police found the bodies of the missing girls exactly where she knew they’d be, the media reacted to Tom Royce poisoning his wife, and the subsequent chaos of the press; “That’s when the helicopters arrived, hovering just above the water, photographers leaning out the sides like they were Navy SEALs about to leap into battle” (347). Meanwhile, Casey maintains a low profile and continues to regret her past mistakes and hopes to make better choices moving forward.

Katherine arrives, and the group sits down for their meal. Casey reflects on her newfound friendship with Katherine, and the strength of her support group in her early days of sobriety. Though part of her fears the mysterious Lake Greene and the chance that it can bring Len to life again, she feels transformed by the events of the summer and ready to face whatever lies ahead.