Chapter 32 - The Broken Matriarch
The rain turned into sleet as we pulled into the rusted yard of an abandoned Shell gas station three miles outside Hollow Creek. Sitting on the rotten wooden porch in the freezing downpour was Evelyn Hart.
She had no designer coat now. Her tailored clothes were torn, caked in mud, and her immaculate blonde hair was matted against her face with grease and rainwater. When she saw the headlights of Frank’s truck, she stumbled forward like a wounded animal, collapsing onto the gravel in front of the bumper.
Cole and I stepped out into the biting wind. Frank remained by the driver’s door, his hand resting openly on his rifle.
"Where is Jason?" Cole demanded, his voice hard as flint, showing no mercy to the woman who had spent months trying to destroy our lives.
"They took him!" Evelyn sobbed, clawing at Cole’s trousers. "They broke into the townhouse in town... men with masks... they threw him into a van! They told me to come here, to wait for you! They said if you didn't give them the black card, they’d bury him in the deep shaft!"
I walked up to her, staring down at the woman who had smiled while ordering my home burned to the ground. "You invited them in, didn't you, Evelyn? You contacted Apex Global when your frivolous lawsuits failed."
Evelyn looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot, wild with terror and guilt. "I didn't know what they were! I thought they were venture capitalists... I thought they were going to help me claim the mineral rights my husband promised me! They said the deed Rebecca bought was an accident of an overlapping parcel!"
"You sold your own son’s soul for an abandoned mine," Cole spat, ripping his pant leg from her fingers. "The lodge was Rebecca's. It was earned with every cent of her sweat, while you sat in country clubs signing away rights to toxic land you didn't understand."
"Please!" she wailed, banging her fists against the frozen ground. "I don't care about the lodge anymore! I don't care about the millions! Jason... he’s an idiot, but he’s my boy, Cole! He’s your cousin! Don't let them kill him!"
I crouched down in front of her, forcing her to look me in the eye. "You sign the total quitclaim deed right now, Evelyn. Every claim on the mountain, every slanderous claim against my name, every forged corporate filing—you sign a confession on video right now. Frank has the paperwork."
"I’ll sign! I’ll sign whatever you want!" she gasped hysterically. "Just get my son back!"
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"Get in the truck," I told her coldly. "We're going to the mill. But we're not trading the card. We're ending this."
***
