Chapter 13 - The Ghost of the Pine Barrens
I refused to leave Marcus to bleed out on the splintered wood.
I dragged him into the kitchen, wrapped his torso with sterile trauma gauze from my tactical kit, and secured a tourniquet.
I radioed the state trooper barracks two counties over using an untracked frequency, demanding an unmarked medevac.
"Trust nobody in Blackwood uniform," Marcus whispered, fading in and out of consciousness.
"Sterling bought the county commissioners twenty years ago."
"When my daughter ran away... she thought she was escaping Conrad... but Conrad was just hunting for Sterling."
I left Marcus with his service revolver cocked in his uninjured left hand.
I sprinted out the back door and dashed across the overgrown field toward Conrad Vance’s abandoned estate.
The house was an eerie tomb in the morning light, yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind.
I kicked open the storm cellar doors and descended into the damp, mold-scented basement where Clara had been hidden.
Behind the rusted water heater, just as Marcus had said, a loose brick gave way.
Inside the cavity sat a heavy steel strongbox stamped with the seal of the Georgia Timber Exchange.
I smashed the rusted padlock with a crowbar, prying back the lid.
Inside was a leather-bound journal filled with offshore account numbers, shipping manifests, and lists of bribed officials.
Tucked into the back was a photograph of a younger Raymond Sterling standing beside a man who looked shockingly familiar.
My hands froze as I stared at the photo under the dim basement bulb.
The man standing beside the corrupt senator was my late father, Captain David Vance of the Atlanta Metropolitan Police.
The realization slammed into my chest like an eighteen-wheeler at full speed.
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This was never just a random highway traffic stop.
My entire life had been steered toward this deadly stretch of asphalt.
