Chapter 7 - UNEARTHING THE PAST
Z
The thick pine branches scratched against the sides of my truck as I forced the vehicle as far into the wooded terrain as it would go before the tires lost traction on the steep slope. I slammed the vehicle into park, grabbed a heavy iron lug wrench from beneath my seat, and jumped out into the dense forest.
"Thomas!" I yelled, keeping my voice low enough not to carry too far back toward the road. "Thomas, over here!"
A few yards deeper into the dark timber, the bushes rustled violently. Thomas emerged from behind a massive fallen oak, his face pale, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Blood dripped down his left forearm where the broken auto glass had sliced his skin, but his eyes were sharp and desperate.
"Rick! You shouldn't have come!" he cried out, stumbling over a exposed root. "He won't let either of us walk away from this now!"
I caught him by the shoulders, steadying him. "I have the box, Thomas. I found the vault under the workbench."
Thomas froze, his eyes widening in disbelief. "You... you opened it?"
"Yes. I read your father's journal. I know who you are," I said quickly, pulling him toward the passenger side of my truck. "We need to get out of these woods right now. Marcus's man is right behind us."
A gunshot echoed through the trees off to our right, snapping a thick pine branch directly above our heads. Bark spluttered into the air.
"Get in!" I yelled, pushing Thomas into the cab.
I sprinted around to the driver's side, jumped in, and slammed the doors shut just as the bodyguard burst through the thicket thirty yards away, raising his handgun. I reversed hard, spinning the rear tires on the damp soil, sending mud and gravel blasting into the guard's direction. The truck caught traction on the shoulder, and I rocketed back onto the paved road, speeding away down the mountain toward town.
"Where are we going?" Thomas asked, clutching his bleeding arm with a piece of cloth from my floorboard. "The police won't help us. Marcus pays off Sheriff Davies. He has for years."
"We aren't going to the local police," I said, watching the rear-view mirror closely. "We're going to the Federal Building in the state capital. But first, we need to grab the original papers from my house."
"You left them there?" Thomas asked, panic rising in his voice.
"I hid the case inside the house, but I left the garage unlocked," I replied. "If Marcus's men go straight to Elm Street, they'll check the garage first thinking the box is still under the bench. That gives us a small window of time."
As I drove toward the residential district, Thomas looked down at his bloodied hands, his shoulders trembling.
"He killed my father, Rick," Thomas whispered softly, tears finally cutting tracks through the dirt on his face. "Seven years ago, my dad realized Marcus was using the family business to launder money for organized crime syndicates in Chicago. When my dad threatened to go to the authorities, Marcus staged a boat accident on the lake. My dad knew it was coming... that's why he built that hidden vault in the Elm Street garage before he died. He bought that property secretly under an assumed name."
"Why didn't you go to the vault sooner?" I asked gently.
"I was eight years old when my dad vanished," Thomas explained, his voice shaking. "Marcus put me in a private boarding school across the country, locked under constant supervision. I didn't manage to escape until six months ago. I came back here with no money, no identity, and no way to prove who I was. I remembered my dad taking me to that garage once when I was tiny. He told me, 'If anything ever happens to me, go to the red garage on Elm Street and look under the bench.' But when I finally got here, your house was sold, and the garage was locked. I had to pretend to be a local yard worker just to get close enough to find a way inside."
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I looked at the boy, realizing the immense courage it had taken for a fifteen-year-old to survive on his own, playing a long, dangerous game against a ruthless billionaire.
"You're not on your own anymore, kid," I said firmly as I turned the corner onto Elm Street. "We finish this today."
