Chapter 6 - The Ledger of Ash
The Bell family lake house sat eight miles outside the township, tucked away in the pine ridge where property taxes were miraculously listed as agricultural wasteland on county records. I didn't take the highway; I took the logging trails I had mapped forty years ago when I drove gravel haulers for my uncle.
When I reached the ridgeline overlooking the water, smoke was already curling into the midnight sky.
"Damn it," I muttered, slamming the truck into park behind a thicket of hemlocks.
Down in the gravel circle in front of the cedar-and-glass mansion, two men were throwing cardboard banker boxes into a blazing metal drum. Marcus Vance stood beside the bed of a flatbed pickup, barking into a cell phone while holding a crowbar.
I didn't have a weapon, but I had four decades of grease-monkey instinct and a heavy three-cell steel flashlight in my glove compartment. I slipped down the embankment through the wet brush, moving silently along the shadow of the garage.
"...I don't care what the state prosecutor said!" Vance was shouting into his phone. "Victor’s lawyer says the search warrant doesn't hit until eight tomorrow morning. We have six hours to purge the whole server room and burn the hard copies. If Reed talks to the feds about that concrete testing lab, we’re all going to federal penitentiary!"
Hearing my own name sent a cold surge of adrenaline through my gut. Concrete testing. The school district’s new STEM center, built three years ago, had suffered massive foundation shifting six months after completion. The board had blamed bad soil and raised property taxes to pay for repairs. But it wasn't the soil; Victor’s crew had diluted the concrete mix to skim sixty grand off the top.
One of the workers tossed another stack of blue binders toward the fire barrel. The binders hit the rim and spilled across the gravel, the papers fluttering dangerously close to the embers.
I stepped out of the shadows.
"Vance!" my voice cracked across the driveway like a deer rifle shot.
Vance whipped around, dropping his phone. His two cronies froze, turning like startled predators. The firelight flickered across Vance’s scarred jaw as he recognized me.
"Arthur Reed," Vance chuckled, a low, guttural rasp. "The forty-year-old high school freshman. What’s the matter, grandpa? Miss your bedtime? You should’ve stayed in that classroom with the other losers."
"The feds already have the bank wires from the auditor's office, Marcus," I lied, stepping into the ring of firelight, my flashlight gripped firmly at my side. "State troopers are rolling down the ridge road right now. You burn those papers, you add an obstruction of justice felony to every charge you're already facing."
May you like
Vance’s grin faded, replaced by an ugly, rabid sneer. He gestured with his crowbar to the two men behind him. "Get the hard drive out of the study. I'll handle the old man."
***
