Chapter 15 - The Road North
Police told me not to respond.
I responded.
WHERE?
The answer came immediately.
OLD HALE QUARRY.
NO POLICE.
COME ALONE.
The old Hale quarry had been abandoned fifteen years earlier.
Dad’s company still owned the land.
Two hundred acres north of the city.
Dense woods.
A flooded excavation pit.
Empty maintenance buildings.
Perfect isolation.
I forwarded everything to the detectives.
Then I said I was going.
They told me not to.
I went anyway.
Not alone.
Not technically.
Leonard stayed three miles behind.
Police units staged farther out.
Ben monitored my location through a second phone hidden inside my boot.
I brought the blue envelope.
The altered one.
The original digital image from Wisconsin arrived five minutes before I reached the quarry.
Thomas had been right.
Dad’s original sentence did not say:
Investigate Thomas Reed first.
It said:
If I disappear or suffer an unexplained accident, begin with Nathan Cole.
Nathan had forged the page.
He had spent fourteen years preparing himself to become Dad’s rescuer.
That was the part I finally understood.
Nathan did not want Richard Hale dead.
He wanted him frightened.
Isolated.
Dependent on the one man who appeared to know where all the bodies were buried.
Nathan had built the maze.
David had expanded it.
Vivian had used it.
Thomas had hidden inside it.
Marcus had exploited it.
But Nathan had been there first.
I parked outside the quarry’s old administrative building.
The door stood open.
“Nathan?”
My voice echoed.
No answer.
I entered.
Dust covered the floor.
A lantern glowed inside the main room.
Dad sat in a chair.
His hands were tied.
Vivian sat beside him.
Her hands were tied too.
Both were conscious.
“Isabella.”
Dad’s voice broke.
I moved toward him.
Nathan stepped from the shadows.
He held a gun.
I stopped.
He looked nothing like the gentle elderly accountant who had offered me coffee by the lake.
His posture was straighter.
His eyes colder.
“Put the envelope on the table.”
I did.
Vivian stared at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Nathan laughed.
“She says that often now.”
Dad looked at him.
“You.”
Nathan smiled.
“You finally figured it out.”
“Fourteen years too late.”
“Twenty-four.”
Dad’s face hardened.
“You stole from me.”
Nathan shrugged.
“Everyone stole from you.”
“You made it easy.”
Dad’s jaw tightened.
“You tried to kill me.”
“No.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
“I tried to scare you.”
I almost laughed at the familiarity.
“That seems to be everyone’s favorite excuse.”
Nathan looked at me.
“Your father was becoming reckless.”
“He was going to expose everything.”
“He should have.”
“And destroy Hale Construction?”
“He built it.”
“Exactly.”
Nathan moved closer.
“Richard always confused ownership with control.”
“He thought because his name was on the building, the building belonged to him.”
Dad looked at him.
“It did.”
Nathan smiled.
“Not the people inside it.”
There was decades of resentment in his voice.
Dad heard it.
“You hated me.”
“No.”
Nathan’s smile faded.
“I hated how easy everything was for you.”
Dad stared.
“My wife died when Isabella was twenty-three.”
“My company nearly failed twice.”
“I worked eighty-hour weeks for thirty years.”
“Do not stand there and tell me anything was easy.”
Nathan’s hand tightened around the gun.
“You always got another chance.”
“And you didn’t?”
“My career was destroyed.”
“By David.”
“Because you gave David ammunition.”
Nathan’s face twisted.
That hit.
Vivian looked toward me.
Tiny movement.
Her eyes shifted toward the floor beside Dad.
His cane.
It lay near the chair.
Two feet from Vivian’s shoe.
She began moving her foot.
Slowly.
Nathan didn’t notice.
I kept him talking.
“Why the blue envelope?”
“Insurance.”
“Against who?”
“Everyone.”
“You altered it.”
“Yes.”
“Why send me toward Thomas?”
“Because Thomas panics.”
“He runs.”
“He makes mistakes.”
“And David?”
“David was useful.”
“Until he wasn’t?”
Nathan smiled.
“You learn quickly.”
My blood chilled.
“Where is David?”
Nathan looked toward the quarry pit.
No words.
He didn’t need them.
Vivian stopped moving.
Even she looked sick.
“You killed your own partner?”
“David was never my partner.”
Nathan’s voice hardened.
“He was a parasite.”
“So are you.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
Dad whispered.
“Izzy.”
I knew.
Too far.
Nathan raised the gun slightly.
Then Vivian kicked the cane.
It slid across the floor.
Dad trapped it beneath his shoe.
Nathan turned.
I moved.
Not toward him.
Toward the lantern.
I knocked it from the table.
Darkness.
A gunshot exploded.
Vivian screamed.
Dad shouted my name.
I dropped behind a metal cabinet.
Nathan fired again.
Then a third sound.
Not a gunshot.
Impact.
Dad had swung the cane.
Hard.
Nathan cursed.
The gun hit the floor.
Vivian lunged toward it despite her tied hands.
Nathan kicked it away.
I tackled him.
We hit the floor.
He was seventy.
But adrenaline made him stronger than I expected.
His elbow struck my cheek.
Pain flashed.
He rolled.
Reached toward the gun.
Then headlights flooded through the windows.
Police.
Nathan froze.
“Hands!”
Commands filled the room.
Nathan looked at me.
Then the gun.
For one terrible second, I thought he would reach.
He didn’t.
He lifted both hands.
Officers stormed inside.
I crawled toward Dad.
His hands were still tied.
His face was wet.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
I cut the restraints.
Dad grabbed me.
Held me.
“I thought—”
“I’m okay.”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
I laughed through tears.
“You said that the first day.”
He laughed too.
Behind us, officers freed Vivian.
Nathan was handcuffed.
Then an officer shouted from outside.
They had found something.
Down near the quarry water.
A car.
Partially submerged.
Registered to David Mercer.
Divers were called.
Hours later, they recovered the vehicle.
But David was not inside.
There was blood.
His briefcase.
His wallet.
His phone.
No body.
Nathan refused to speak.
Everyone assumed David was dead.
I didn’t.
Because inside David’s briefcase police found a boarding pass.
Chicago to Montreal.
Dated the following morning.
And tucked behind it was a handwritten note.
If Nathan moves first, go to Isabella Hale.
She is the only one Richard will believe.
David had known.
He had been planning to come to me.
May you like
And somewhere between realizing Nathan was going to betray him and reaching me, he vanished.
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