Chapter 34 - The Hearthstone Revealed
The standoff ended not with gunfire, but with a strategic retreat. Rochefort was a creature of backroom tribunals and quiet institutional violence; he had no appetite for twenty armed mountain farmers with deer rifles and logging chains surrounding his three luxury sedans.
"This is not a resolution, Mrs. Miller," Rochefort said, stepping slowly backward down the steps, his voice lowered so the approaching farmers could not hear. "This is merely a continuance. The court in Lyon sits on Thursday. If the original deed and the gold cipher are not delivered to the French embassy in Washington by midnight tomorrow, a federal marshal will be standing where I stand—and he will carry an order of seizure you cannot shoot."
He turned on his heel, his raincoats opening the car doors in silence. Within ninety seconds, the three black limousines had reversed out of the driveway, their sleek tires spitting gravel, and vanished down the valley road toward the highway.
The porch was silent except for the heavy panting of the Campbell brothers and the deep rumble of Higgins’s truck idling by the well house.
"Dorothy," Higgins called out, spitting tobacco into the weeds. "Them tax fellas?"
"Something like that, Walt," Dorothy called back, lowering the butcher knife. "Just some foreign bank men looking for something Gerald never owned. Thank you, boys. Come up to the kitchen tomorrow for pies—I’ve got three dozen cooling in the pantry."
The men tipped their grease-stained caps, satisfied that blood had been avoided, and slowly turned their trucks around to guard the lower bridge.
The moment the last truck cleared the cattle guard, Dorothy turned to Laurent and Kevin. Her face was gray with fatigue, but her eyes were bright and hard.
"Kevin," she said, her voice shaking slightly, "go to the front gate. Lock the chain with the master padlock. Laurent—come with me."
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She led Laurent into the living room, directly to the limestone fireplace. She kicked back the woven wool rug, knelt on the heart-pine floorboards, and pulled the silver key from her pocket. She slid the tip into the thin, invisible seam between the central limestone block and the pine sill.
With a grinding groan of sixty-year-old mortar, the hearthstone lifted.
