Chapter 70 - The Midnight Fires
We drove in silence for forty minutes, winding through back roads that skirted the Massachusetts border, avoiding every major highway until the lights of Troy and Albany were swallowed completely by the blizzard.
The truck heater was finally blowing warm air. Lily was wrapped in Campbell’s spare wool army blanket, fast asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion, her face pale but breathing steadily.
Campbell reached into his pocket and handed me a lighter. "Is that it?" he asked, glancing down at the blood-stained folder in my lap.
I looked down at the forged indemnity agreement, Arthur Vance’s legacy of greed, control, and cruelty. "This was the chain," I said quietly. "The chain he used to choke my sister to death, and the chain he tried to hang around my daughter’s neck."
I flicked the lighter. The flame caught the dry edge of the legal parchment, curling it black before bursting into bright, hungry orange fire. I held it out the cracked window, watching the burning fragments get torn away by the gale-force winds, scattering into the frozen darkness across the Taconic Mountains.
The burner phone in my pocket vibrated once.
May you like
A single text message lit up the cracked screen from an unknown number:
*Eleanor is at Albany Medical Center. Intensive Care. Room 412. She has two hours. She asked for you.*
