Chapter 31 - The Safehouse in Hollow Creek
By three in the morning, the freezing mountain fog was so thick you could barely see ten feet past the hood of Frank’s battered, unlisted pickup truck. He had hidden it two miles down an abandoned logging road, anticipating that the main access road would eventually be compromised.
Cole sat in the passenger seat, furiously scanning the manila documents using a red-filtered tactical penlight. I sat in the cramped back cab, shivering violently under a heavy wool blanket, watching the mist roll past the tinted glass.
"Look at this, Rebecca," Cole said, turning halfway to hand me a faded carbon copy. "It’s a joint treaty between Vance Mining and the Department of the Interior, signed in October 1989. My father and Richard Hart didn't just build a lodge. They used the lodge’s construction as an environmental cover to seal an abandoned titanium-cobalt deep shaft that had breached federal reserves."
"And the money?" I asked, my voice hoarse. "Evelyn kept screaming that the mountain lodge belonged to her family because of millions in missing offshore funds."
"The offshore funds were hush money," Cole said bitterly. "Richard Hart took bribes to keep the shaft off the public geological maps. When he died, he left Evelyn the standard corporate shell, but he left the physical access keys locked into the structural deed of the lodge itself. That’s why she couldn't just sue for the deed through probate—she needed the literal, physical property cleared to drill down before the federal oversight caught on."
Frank glanced up at the rearview mirror, his brow furrowed. "Which means the people sweeping the lodge right now aren't federal agents. If they were legitimate, they would have rolled in with sirens, marshals, and a court seizure order."
"Private contractors," I realized, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. "Evelyn’s backers."
"Worse," Cole replied, pointing to a name stamped at the bottom of the dossier's last page. "A private extraction syndicate called *Apex Global*. Senator Vance owed them forty million dollars when his campaign collapsed. They’ve been waiting for this node to wake up for twenty years."
Suddenly, Frank’s dashboard radio crackled with static. A frantic, weeping voice broke through the local emergency band.
"Help! Someone please... they broke the windows... they took my son! Cole! Rebecca! If you're listening, they’re going to kill him!"
Cole lunged forward, grabbing the radio dial. The voice belonged to Evelyn. And through the static, a chillingly calm male voice took over the microphone.
May you like
"Miss Rebecca. Mr. Vance. You have something that belongs to our investors. You have until sunrise to bring the Sector Seven card to the old saw mill at Hollow Creek. Or Jason Hart doesn't live to see his twenty-fifth birthday."
***
