Chapter 10 - THE HIDDEN FORTY ACRES
Kyle held the gun steady.
“Where’s the deed?”
Maria stared at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
Shawn stepped forward.
Kyle pointed the gun at his chest.
“Don’t.”
Shawn stopped.
“My mother doesn’t know.”
Kyle laughed.
“Reed says she does.”
“Reed lies.”
“That’s true.”
For the first time, Kyle looked genuinely afraid.
“He promised me half a million. You know what I got?”
Shawn said nothing.
“A target on my back.”
Outside, deputies moved through the mill.
Kyle heard them.
His breathing quickened.
“Call them off.”
“No.”
“Do it!”
Maria suddenly kicked the metal chair sideways.
It smashed into Kyle’s knee.
The gun fired.
The bullet hit the ceiling.
Shawn lunged.
He grabbed Kyle’s wrist.
They crashed into the wall.
Kyle drove an elbow into Shawn’s face.
Shawn held on.
The gun fell.
Maria screamed.
A deputy kicked open the door.
“DROP!”
Kyle froze.
Three weapons aimed at him.
He slowly raised his hands.
Ruiz entered.
“Game over.”
Kyle laughed.
“You think so?”
He looked at Shawn.
“Reed knows where the deed is.”
Shawn’s stomach tightened.
“Where?”
Kyle smiled.
“Ask Brenda.”
At the station, Brenda finally told the truth.
All of it.
Their grandfather had purchased forty acres behind the farm decades earlier through a separate company.
No one had paid attention because the land was swampy and nearly worthless.
Until the state’s proposed highway route changed.
Now the forty acres connected two major parcels.
Without it, developers could not build the planned distribution complex.
With it, the combined property could be worth more than twelve million dollars.
Shawn stared at her.
“And Reed knows?”
Brenda nodded.
“He found the old deed while handling Grandma’s estate.”
“Why didn’t he just offer to buy it?”
“Dad wouldn’t sell.”
Don smiled bitterly.
“Damn right.”
Brenda continued.
“Reed needed control of both properties. That’s why he needed the power of attorney.”
Ruiz asked, “Where’s the original deed?”
Brenda looked at Don.
Don laughed.
“You people think I hide everything?”
Shawn stared.
“You hid a ledger under Mom’s cemetery marker.”
“Fair point.”
Maria spoke from the hospital bed.
“I know where it is.”
Everyone turned.
Maria looked at Shawn.
“When you were sixteen, you built a wooden box in the barn.”
Shawn remembered.
A terrible little toolbox from shop class.
Crooked hinges.
Uneven lid.
His father kept it anyway.
“Dad’s toolbox.”
Maria nodded.
“He put the deed under the false bottom.”
Don smiled.
“You remember.”
“I remember everything you hide from me.”
Shawn immediately stood.
Ruiz raised a hand.
“We go together.”
They drove toward the farm.
From half a mile away, Shawn saw orange light against the night sky.
His heart sank.
“No.”
Flames poured from the barn roof.
Fire trucks screamed toward the property.
Don whispered:
“The deed.”
Shawn jumped from the vehicle before it stopped.
May you like
The barn was burning.
And someone had beaten them there again.
