Chapter 15 - The Blaze of Reckoning
"No, Ella, sit down!" Miller ordered as my daughter lunged for the door handle.
"Everything we built is in that building!" Ella sobbed, tears cutting through the shock on her face. "Her sketches, our furniture prototypes, the entire opening inventory!"
"That's exactly what Marcus Vance wants," Miller barked, his voice commanding and steady. "He wants you at the scene, breathing smoke, hysterical, surrounded by his handpicked municipal deputies while your F-250 sits in the parking lot so they can impound your vehicle and search every bag inside it!"
My heart was tearing itself in two, but the brutal clarity of Miller's words hit home. The fire wasn't an act of revenge; it was an ambush. Marcus had burned our gallery to destroy the physical sanctuary we had just built, and to lure us into an arrest under the pretext of an arson investigation.
"Listen to Hank, Ella," I said, pulling her trembling body into my arms. My teeth were clenched so tightly my jaw ached. "The wood can be rebuilt. The drawings can be drawn again. The only thing that cannot be replaced is the truth on this drive."
Miller slammed his laptop shut, disconnecting the drives. "Marcus Vance thinks he controls the board because he owns the county sheriff and the municipal council. But mineral fraud on federal watershed land doesn't belong to the county."
"Who does it belong to?" I asked.
"The United States Department of Justice, Environmental Crimes Section, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's public corruption task force in Richmond," Miller said, shifting the Suburban into reverse. "I retired twelve years ago, Heather, but the men and women I trained are currently running the Special Operations Division. We have sixty miles of back roads between here and the federal courthouse in Harrisonburg."
As we backed out of the clearing, the headlights of two blacked-out SUVs swept across the logging trail half a mile below us, climbing up the switchback.
"They traced your cell phone's ping before you cut it off," Miller cursed under his breath. "Hold on."
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The Suburban surged forward, its heavy V8 engine roaring through the mountain night as Miller killed the interior dash lights. We plunged into the dense, snow-dusted timber trails, branches scraping against the metal doors like claws.
Behind us, a high-powered spotlight flickered through the pine trunks, hunting us.
