Chapter 7 - Trucks in the Snow
Darwin fired at the lock.
Nothing.
The vault was designed to resist worse.
Smoke thickened.
Betsy coughed.
Cole searched the walls.
“No secondary exit.”
“There’s always another exit,” Betsy said.
Darwin looked at her.
“In a bank vault?”
“Arthur rebuilt things. He taught me something. Buildings need air.”
She pointed upward.
Ventilation duct.
Cole pulled a chair beneath it.
Within minutes they had removed the grate.
The duct was narrow.
Betsy looked at Darwin.
“You first.”
“You first.”
“I’m wider.”
Darwin almost objected.
Betsy glared.
“Physics, Romeo.”
Cole climbed.
Darwin boosted Betsy.
She crawled through metal darkness while smoke followed.
They emerged in a maintenance room.
By the time firefighters arrived, Vale was gone.
But he had made one mistake.
Security cameras captured his vehicle.
Cole traced it north.
An abandoned resort.
Daniel might be there.
They drove through snow.
Betsy should have stayed behind.
Everyone told her.
She refused.
At the resort, Darwin’s men spread through the buildings.
Betsy remained inside the SUV.
For approximately four minutes.
Then she saw someone moving behind the old lodge.
A gray-haired man.
Daniel.
He stumbled into the trees.
Betsy got out.
“Daniel!”
He turned.
His face matched the video.
“Betsy?”
That stopped her.
“You know me?”
“Arthur showed me photographs.”
Gunfire erupted from the lodge.
Daniel grabbed her.
“Down.”
Darwin appeared between trees.
For twenty-seven years he had imagined finding his brother.
Now neither moved.
Daniel whispered, “Darwin.”
Darwin’s face broke.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
Darwin crossed the snow.
The brothers embraced.
Betsy looked away.
Some moments belonged to families.
Then Daniel saw her ring.
He looked from Betsy to Darwin.
“You married Arthur’s wife?”
“Temporary arrangement,” Betsy said.
Daniel laughed.
Darwin looked offended.
“It’s complicated.”
“Apparently.”
Cole shouted.
Vehicles approached.
Vale’s men.
They escaped through the rear access road.
Back at Oak Haven, Daniel told them everything.
Silas wanted the evidence destroyed because his father’s empire had become his.
But Daniel revealed something worse.
Silas had a person inside Darwin’s organization.
Someone close.
Someone who knew every movement.
Darwin looked at Cole.
Cole’s expression hardened.
Daniel said, “Not him.”
“Who?”
“I never learned the name.”
Betsy remembered the construction.
The trust.
Her mortgage.
Someone had known every detail.
“Who arranged my property trust?”
Darwin frowned.
“My attorney.”
“Who?”
“Marcus Bell.”
Daniel went pale.
“That name.”
Darwin stood.
“What?”
“I heard Silas say it.”
Darwin immediately called Marcus.
No answer.
Cole searched records.
Marcus Bell had disappeared that morning.
Betsy walked toward Arthur’s framed key.
Something behind it caught her eye.
A tiny camera.
She pulled the frame down.
Darwin stared.
They had been watched from inside the diner.
Cole removed the device.
Live transmitter.
Someone had installed it during construction.
Betsy’s anger rose.
“This was supposed to make me safe.”
Darwin looked ashamed.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t get to do that.”
“What?”
“Take responsibility for every evil thing other people do.”
He stared.
“You rebuilt this place.”
“Yes.”
“You protected me.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t put that camera there.”
“No.”
“Then stop looking like you did.”
Darwin’s expression softened.
Daniel watched them with amusement.
Betsy pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
He smiled.
That evening, eighteen men returned to Oak Haven.
The same men from the storm.
No weapons on the tables.
Betsy served stew.
For one strange hour, the diner felt almost normal.
Then a delivery truck arrived.
The driver left a package.
No return address.
Darwin opened it.
Inside was Marcus Bell’s watch.
Blood covered the band.
Underneath was a note.
TRADE THE WIDOW FOR YOUR LAWYER.
Betsy read it.
Darwin tore the note in half.
“No.”
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
Nobody knew he had a phone.
He stared at the screen.
The caller ID displayed one name.
ARTHUR KING.
Betsy stopped breathing.
Daniel slowly answered.
A voice came through.
May you like
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
It was her dead husband’s voice...
