Chapter 9 - The Midnight Sabotage
By 9:00 PM, the temperature dropped to twenty-eight degrees.
Dave Miller had left with his intake paperwork, promising the first transport truck would arrive at 8:00 AM sharp to take the first two units for preliminary testing. Derek and I had spent the evening working under halogen work lights, running an extension cord from the temporary 200-amp service drop Grandpa had installed years ago.
We didn't go home. We couldn't.
"She’s not going to wait for a court date," Derek said, pouring black coffee from a thermos into two dented tin cups. "You don't know her like I do, Rey. When Elaine loses control of a narrative, she scorches the earth. When Dad tried to leave her in ninety-six, she threw his entire set of Snap-on tools into the bay."
"We're on private property with a legal deed," I said, checking the deadbolt we had just installed on the side entrance.
"Paper doesn't stop an angle grinder," Derek said grimly.
He was right.
We turned off the overhead halogens, leaving the barn shrouded in pitch darkness except for the faint amber glow of a single kerosene heater in the corner office. We sat on two overturned crates behind the fifth compressor, wrapped in our heavy canvas jackets, holding two twenty-four-inch pipe wrenches across our laps.
The hours dragged by. Midnight came and went. The wind picked up, howling through the scrub pines outside, rattling the loose sheet metal on the distant property fence.
At 2:18 AM, the gravel crunch returned.
It wasn't a Cadillac this time. It was a beat-up 2004 Chevy Tahoe with no headlights on, creeping silently into the turnaround using only its amber running markers. The truck came to a stop fifty yards away, tucked deep into the shadows of the pine trees.
Two figures got out.
Through the cracked window of the barn office, I watched them. Both men wore dark hoodies with the drawstrings pulled tight. One carried a red five-gallon plastic jerrycan. The other carried a heavy four-foot demolition crowbar and a pair of industrial bolt cutters.
"Gasoline," Derek whispered in my ear. His voice was freezing, deadly calm. "They're going to torch the barn."
"Wait until they touch the door," I breathed. "If they don't cross the threshold, it’s just trespassing. Once they touch that latch with accelerant, it’s commercial arson."
The two men crept across the gravel. The man with the crowbar reached the sliding wooden door. He didn't even look around; he was brazen, moving with the careless confidence of someone who thought the property was completely abandoned. He wedged the tip of the crowbar into the seam between the door and the jamb, preparing to pry it open so his partner could dump the gas inside.
"Now," I said.
Derek kicked open the side door with an explosive crash that echoed like thunder against the metal siding.
"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE!" Derek roared, his voice tearing through the night air.
The two men jumped as if they'd been struck by lightning. The one holding the gas can panicked immediately, dropping the plastic jug onto the gravel, fuel sloshing across his boots. The second man spun around, raising the heavy steel crowbar like a club.
"Back off, man! Get back!" the man yelled, his hood falling back just enough in the moonlight.
I stepped into the clearing, aiming a four-thousand-lumen tactical flashlight directly into his retinas. The blinding white beam illuminated his face in stark, unmistakable clarity.
It wasn't a stranger.
It was Gary Barksdale—Elaine’s younger half-brother, our deadbeat uncle who had spent the last fifteen years living in Elaine’s converted garage, working off-the-books jobs and running petty errands for her.
"Gary?" Derek shouted, stunned. "Gary, what the hell are you doing?!"
Gary squinted against the blinding beam, his face contorted in a mixture of terror and trapped ferocity. "Derek! Put the damn light down! You don't know what you're doing! Elaine said you stole this stuff! She said you were stripping her inheritance!"
"She sent you to burn it down?!" Derek yelled, closing the distance between them, completely ignoring the crowbar in Gary’s hands. Derek was six-foot-two, two hundred and thirty pounds of solid blue-collar muscle, and at that moment, he looked like an avenging demon. "You brought five gallons of high-test gasoline to burn down Grandpa’s barn?!"
"She said make it unusable!" the second man blurted out, backing away with his hands raised. It was one of Gary’s drinking buddies from the local pool hall. "She said if the units were water-damaged or scorched, the insurance would pay out to the primary estate! She promised us five grand each!"
"Shut up, Leo!" Gary snarled, waving the crowbar wildly at Derek. "Stay back, Derek! I swear to God I'll crack your skull!"
Gary lunged, swinging the steel bar in a vicious horizontal arc.
Derek didn't flinch. He didn't try to dodge. He stepped straight inside the arc, caught Gary’s forearm with his left hand, and drove his right palm violently into Gary’s sternum. The impact knocked the wind clean out of Gary’s lungs with a wet, ragged gasp. The crowbar clattered harmlessly onto the gravel.
In the next breath, Derek had Gary face-down in the dirt, twisting his arm behind his back with the practiced efficiency of a man who had worked heavy machinery his whole life.
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"Get the zip-ties from the truck, Rey," Derek said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "And call Sheriff Dalton. Tell him we have two confessions, five gallons of evidence, and an attempted arson charge for our dear mother."
***
