Chapter 75 - Flight into the Gale
The old utility truck coughed, spat a plume of pale gray exhaust into the cold carriage shed, and finally settled into a rough, rhythmic rumble. Julian killed the headlights before rolling the vehicle out of the barn, navigating the tractor ruts behind the dense row of hemlocks by memory and the dim glow of the dashboard.
The storm had evolved into a full-scale gale. Freezing rain battered the windshield, freezing on contact into a crust of jagged ice that the worn rubber wipers struggled to scrape away. Out on the county road, the storm had emptied the valley; not a single civilian vehicle dared brave the black ice coating the mountain passes.
"Tyler thought he could play both sides," Julian said, his eyes scanning the rear-view mirror for any sign of following headlights. "He thought he could humiliate you to make Richard trust him, and then use the true pedigree documents to blackmail Vance into dropping the debts. He was out of his depth, Evelyn."
"He was twenty-three years old and surrounded by wolves," I replied, watching the frozen landscape blur past the window. "His father has spent twenty years using him as a tax shelter and a pawn. Tyler's cruelty toward me was calculated theater. He knew if he appeared loyal to me, Richard would have intercepted him weeks ago."
"That cake incident was monstrous, Evelyn. You were humiliated in front of every prominent family in the county."
"The humiliation was the point, Julian," I said, a bitter edge in my voice. "The cake was decorated with an exact reproduction of the 1961 Mercer Trust seal. When Tyler blew it apart, he wasn't just acting like a spoiled internet delinquent. He was destroying the evidence in plain sight before Vance’s accountants, who were sitting at the back table, could photograph the crest. Tyler was telling me that the foundation was already dead."
Julian turned the truck sharply off the tarmac onto the unpaved logging access road that wound up toward the old municipal reservoir. The trees leaned inward under the weight of accumulated ice, their branches scraping against the roof of the cab like frantic fingers.
May you like
Ahead, through the curtain of blowing sleet, the chain-link perimeter of the decommissioned water treatment facility emerged from the darkness. A solitary guard shack stood by the gate, its amber floodlight swaying violently in the wind.
***
