Chapter 33 - Shadows on the Haul Road
The Richmond men were not state troopers. They wore heavy work jackets over tailored dress shirts, their radio antennas whipping violently against the chassis of their trucks as they took the turns with practiced, aggressive speed.
"They're going to the mill," Marcus said, racking the bolt of his hunting rifle and leaning it against the wall. "They know the tank exists."
"They know Arthur had a third stash," I corrected him, stuffing the cassette tapes and the ledger into my canvas field pack. "They don't know we've already opened it."
"If they catch us between the ridge and the main house with that pack, June, Vance’s lawyers won’t even have to file an injunction. We’ll just disappear into a disused logging shaft, and the local sheriff will call it an accidental fall during a midnight trespass."
"Then we don't go to the house," I said. "We go to the creek trail. We cross the state line at the gorge."
The backhoe’s diesel engine roared to life in the valley below, a guttural, tearing scream that shook the frosted pine needles from the shed roof. The sound of metal meeting timber echoed through the hills—they were already tearing into the old water tank, ripping the cypress foundations apart with ruthless industrial efficiency. They weren't looking for a safe; they were looking to destroy whatever was hidden before the noon court order could be served.
We slipped out the back door of the shed, keeping the low stone wall of the old sheep paddock between us and the dust cloud rising from the sawmill. The air smelled of freshly smashed wood and diesel exhaust. Every nerve in my spine felt raw, vibrating with the sudden clarity that comes when you realize the people who were supposed to love you have spent your entire existence measuring your life in acreage and liability insurance.
Halfway down the ridge path, where the mountain laurel grew thick enough to choke out the morning sun, Marcus pulled me down into the leaves.
Through the branches, twenty yards away on the haul road, an unfamiliar man in an oilskin jacket stood beside an idling pickup truck, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip. He was listening to a two-way radio that crackled with sharp, agitated bursts of static.
*"...nothing in the footings,"* the radio barked, the voice tinny and furious. *"Just rotten cedar and crushed limestone. The girl was here. The tracks in the frost are less than an hour old."*
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The man with the cigarette didn't swear. He just reached into his truck cab, pulled out a short-barreled shotgun, and chambered a round with a smooth, heavy *clack-clack* that froze the blood in my veins.
"Check the creek crossings," the man said into the radio, turning his eyes toward the very thicket where Marcus and I were crouched. "She can't make the highway on foot. Eleanor says she wants the bag intact. The girl doesn't matter, but the bag does."
