Chapter 23 - The Shadow on the Sluice Gate
Ellis moved like a timber wolf. In a single fluid motion, he snatched the parchment, shoved the zinc box back into the cavity under the white oak sill, and dropped the rotten timber back into place. He pulled me behind the moss-covered stone pier of the turbine foundation, flattening his back against the granite blocks.
Above us, the footsteps were deliberate, measured, and entirely unhurried.
"Abigail?"
The voice echoed down through the planking like frost scraping against glass. It wasn't my father. It was Harlan Greer—Raymond Vance's personal attorney and the man who had drafted every fraudulent land deed in Barry County for forty years.
"Abigail, dear, come out from the damp," Greer called, his cane tapping rhythmically against the mill floor. "Your father has been remarkably patient with this little domestic rebellion. But patience is a luxury Raymond Vance does not extend indefinitely."
Ellis put a finger to his lips, his other hand gripping the iron pry bar he had used to lift the timber. Through the three-inch gap where the old sluice gate met the river wall, I could see Greer’s polished Italian leather shoes through the cracks in the ceiling timbers. Behind him stood another pair of boots—muddy work boots with heavy steel toes. Raymond hadn't sent his lawyer alone; he had sent muscle from the pine yard.
"We know you retrieved the deed book from Clara," Greer continued, his tone dripping with false grandfatherly warmth. "Clara is an old woman with a broken mind. The probate judge won't entertain a single syllable that comes out of her mouth. But your father is a generous man. He's willing to leave you the house on the river. He will even let the Miller boy keep fifty acres of swamp downstream. All you have to do is surrender the walnut box and the deed papers Sanford left in the cedar trunk."
"And if we don't?" I stepped out from the shadow of the stone pier before Ellis could catch my sleeve.
I couldn't stay cowering in the dark. Not anymore. The sting of my father's open palm across my face at my wedding reception had shattered the obedient daughter he had raised; finding Sanford’s confession had burned whatever remained of my fear to cinder.
I walked toward the wooden ladder leading up to the main mill floor, my boots ringing loud and clear against the wet rock. Ellis was right behind me, the iron bar resting against his thigh, his posture coiled like steel cable.
Greer looked down through the square trapdoor, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the dirt on my knees and the cold fire in my eyes. Beside him stood Mack Turner, a hulking sawyer who had worked on my father’s crews since I was a little girl.
May you like
"Abigail," Greer murmured, regaining his composure and adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles. "You look unwell. You should be back in town, resting."
"Tell Raymond that if he wants what is in this mill, he can walk down into the muck and take it himself," I said, my voice steady, carrying over the water. "Tell him the water wheel is still turning over the place where Donald Miller drowned. And tell him that his father kept every single record."
