Chapter 6 - The Barge Beneath the Quarry
Police sealed the quarry roads.
Harold, Margaret, Claire, and Victor were somewhere inside forty acres of forest, stone pits, and abandoned equipment.
The sunken barge rested beneath thirty feet of dark water.
Nathan believed Grandmother had hidden original company records there because Harold controlled every bank box and office vault.
Ellison called in a dive team.
I insisted on joining the command post.
My ribs protested every step, but pain had become background noise years ago.
Divers found the barge near midnight.
Its storage compartment had been welded shut.
Inside was a waterproof case.
Before they could raise it, gunshots came from the ridge.
Victor fired toward the dive team.
Officers returned fire.
A dark SUV broke through the barricade and sped toward the service road.
Harold was driving.
Margaret sat beside him.
Claire was in the back.
Ellison pursued.
The SUV crashed through an old gate and stopped near the quarry edge.
Harold pulled Claire from the vehicle and held a gun beneath her chin.
Margaret remained inside, frozen.
“Bring me the case,” Harold shouted.
Ellison raised his weapon.
“Let her go.”
Harold looked at me.
“This is your fault.”
Claire began crying.
“Dad, please.”
For the first time, her confidence was gone.
She looked thirty-five.
Not like an executive.
Like a daughter who finally understood that being favored never made her safe.
The divers carried the case toward us.
Harold ordered them to stop twenty feet away.
“What is inside?” I asked him.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Grandmother left it for me.”
“She left everything for you.”
His bitterness sounded almost childish.
“She spent her final years punishing me.”
“No. She spent them protecting everyone else from you.”
Harold shoved Claire toward the edge.
“One more step and she falls.”
Claire stared at me.
“Evelyn, help me.”
She had watched him beat me.
She had mocked me on the floor.
She had helped him escape.
I still moved toward her.
Because his cruelty would not decide what kind of sister I became.
Margaret suddenly opened the SUV door.
“Harold, stop.”
He turned.
She drove the vehicle forward.
The bumper struck his legs.
Claire fell away from the edge.
Harold fired into the windshield.
The SUV rolled backward, carrying Margaret toward the quarry.
I grabbed Claire.
Ellison grabbed Harold.
The vehicle struck the barrier and stopped inches from the drop.
Margaret survived.
The waterproof case opened at the station.
Inside were the missing Raven Lake reports.
And photographs of a body sealed inside the foundation before concrete was poured.
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The dead man was not one of the workers listed in the official collapse.
He was Harold’s older brother.
