Chapter 8 - The Confrontation on Briar Lane
The night was pitch black, swallowed by rolling storm clouds that blocked out the moon and stars. The rain fell in heavy, rhythmic sheets, turning the dirt road of Briar Lane into a slick, muddy quagmire.
I parked my pickup truck half a mile down the road, cutting my headlights and walking the rest of the way in a heavy rubber raincoat. My boots squelched in the mud, every step sounding entirely too loud in the dead silence of the woods.
Sheriff Reeves was waiting by the rusted iron gate, holding a high-powered tactical flashlight and his sidearm drawn.
“You shouldn't have come, Claire,” he whispered, his breath pluming in the cold air.
“We don't have time for this, Daniel,” I whispered back, pointing toward the dark silhouette of the abandoned house at the end of the lane. A faint amber glow pulsed from the boarded-up windows. Someone was inside.
“State police are twenty minutes out,” Reeves said, checking the magazine of his Glock. “We go in slow. We secure the trapdoor before they can grab the vault.”
We crept through the dead weeds, hugging the rotting exterior wall of the house until we reached the side door—the same door Reeves had kicked off its hinges a week ago. It had been crudely propped back up with a wooden plank.
Reeves pushed it open with the barrel of his gun.
The smell of damp wood and old decay rushed out to meet us, mixed with the sharp, clean scent of expensive pipe tobacco.
We moved down the hallway, our flashlights cutting narrow beams through the swirling dust. As we reached the cellar entrance, we heard muffled voices echoing from below.
“...the flash drive is missing from the slot, Arthur,” a familiar, icy voice said.
It was the man from my grocery store.
“It has to be here!” Arthur Pendelton’s voice snapped back, sounding frantic, unhinged, and desperate. “The girl... the grocery store owner... she must have found it during the search! She’s the one who tipped off the sheriff!”
Reeves and I exchanged a single, decisive glance.
The sheriff raised his weapon, kicked the old rug aside, and pulled open the trapdoor.
“Drop your weapons! State and local authorities! Nobody moves!” Reeves shouted, descending the wooden ladder with practiced speed, his flashlight blindingly bright.
I followed right behind him, my boots hitting the cellar floor with a splash.
In the center of the subterranean room, standing beside an open titanium wall safe, were two men. One was Arthur Pendelton, looking disheveled in a rain-soaked overcoat. The other was the man in the charcoal coat, holding a heavy-duty laptop bag in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other.
The man in the charcoal coat didn't panic. He didn't drop his weapon. He simply turned around slowly, looking straight past Sheriff Reeves at me.
“Mrs. Dawson,” the man said smoothly, as if we were meeting for afternoon tea. “Curiosity really is a fatal flaw.”
“Drop the gun, Vincent!” Reeves barked, aiming dead center at the man’s chest.
Vincent—the man in the charcoal coat—let out a cold chuckle. “Sheriff... you really think you’re the only law in this county? Look behind you.”
May you like
Sheriff Reeves froze.
From the shadows of the secondary tunnel opening at the back of the cellar, Deputy Grant stepped out into the light. He wasn't wearing his police cap. He was holding an assault rifle, and the barrel was pointed directly at the middle of Sheriff Reeves’ back.
