Chapter 5 - The Cistern of the Vance Clan
The trail wasn't a trail anymore; it was a scar through the mountain. The hemlocks grew thick and low, their wet needles slapping against my face as I followed the two small, white shapes of the twins through the fog. They moved with a terrifying familiarity, stepping over rotting logs and slippery shale banks without ever losing their footing.
After two miles of vertical climbing, the forest suddenly opened into a jagged clearing.
It was an old logging yard from the seventies, surrounded by rusted oil drums, rotting slash piles, and the remains of a collapsed tin shed. At the center of the clearing stood a circular stone wall, barely two feet high, covered by a heavy sheet of rusted corrugated iron held down by three massive river rocks.
"Mom!" Ella cried out, breaking her silence for the first time. She ran toward the stone circle, her twine-tied socks slipping on the wet clay.
"Ella, stay back!" I shouted, lunging forward to catch her by the shoulder just as a shape materialized from the fog on the far side of the clearing.
It was Caleb Vance.
He didn't have his rifle raised, but he was holding a heavy iron pry bar, his face slick with rain and sweat, his eyes bloodshot and wild under the brim of his cap. A massive, mixed-breed hound stood beside him, its low growl vibrating through the damp air.
"You're Brooks," Caleb said, his voice a low, country rattle that sounded like gravel turning in a cement mixer. "The city man from the cottage. I told my grandfather we should have burned that place down after the woman died. You people just don't know when to stay across the river."
"Move away from the well, Caleb," I said, my hand sliding down toward the knife at my belt. I kept my left arm firmly anchored around Ella, while Emma stood close against my right thigh.
"That ain't a well, mister," Caleb said, taking a step forward. The hound took two steps with him, its upper lip curling back to reveal yellow fangs. "That’s Vance land. And whatever’s down in it belongs to the Vance estate. My sister made her choice when she took the books from the office."
"She didn't take your books, Caleb," I said, pulling Olivia’s field journal from my pocket and holding it up so he could see the green leather. "My wife took the records three years ago. The state forestry department already has the digital copies in Charlotte. If anything happens to the woman in that hole, you aren't looking at a timber dispute. You're looking at first-degree murder."
Caleb flinched, his eyes darting from the journal to the satellite phone hanging from my vest. The arrogance in his face didn't vanish—it turned into the desperate, lethal calculation of a trapped animal.
"The fog’s thick up here, Brooks," Caleb whispered, his fingers tightening around the iron bar. "People get lost off the ridge all the time. The search parties don't come up this far until the spring thaw."
He raised the iron bar, his shoulder flexing as he prepared to lunge.
May you like
"Sick 'em, Blue," he barked.
The hound sprang forward, its claws tearing up the wet mud, its jaws wide as it targeted my throat.
