Chapter 8 - THE HUNT
Police searched the estate all night.
No Vanessa.
No Victor.
But Caleb found tracks near the horse trail.
One heavy boot.
One narrow heel.
Reed stared at him.
“You track people now?”
“I track horses.”
“Same idea?”
“People lie more.”
The trail led toward the abandoned Harrington chemical facility.
Caleb stopped.
“My father died there.”
Grant looked uneasy.
“That can’t be coincidence.”
They drove before dawn.
The plant had been abandoned for twenty-two years.
Rusting tanks.
Broken windows.
Collapsed roofs.
Police approached carefully.
Caleb saw fresh tire marks.
Inside, they found Vanessa tied to a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
She sobbed when Grant entered.
“Help me.”
Grant stopped ten feet away.
He didn’t move closer.
Reed cut her loose.
“Where’s Victor?”
“He left.”
“When?”
“Maybe ten minutes ago.”
Caleb looked around.
Too clean.
Too easy.
Then he noticed wires beneath Vanessa’s chair.
“DON’T MOVE!”
Everyone froze.
Bomb.
Reed ordered the team back.
Vanessa began screaming.
“No! Don’t leave me!”
Grant stared at her.
For one brutal second, Caleb wondered whether he would.
Caleb didn’t.
He crawled beneath the platform while the bomb technician talked him through what he saw.
“Red wire?”
“Yes.”
“Blue?”
“Yes.”
“Pressure switch?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Under the chair.”
Vanessa was shaking above him.
“You hate me.”
Caleb looked up.
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty much.”
“Then why are you helping me?”
Caleb returned to the wires.
“Because I’m not you.”
The technician disabled the device remotely through Caleb’s instructions.
Vanessa collapsed crying.
Grant walked away.
Then Caleb spotted an old metal cabinet.
Inside were documents.
Boxes of them.
Environmental reports.
Payments.
Photographs.
And one file labeled THOMAS MILLER.
Caleb opened it.
The first page contained his father’s complaint.
The second contained surveillance photographs.
The third contained a signed authorization.
Charles Harrington had ordered Thomas Miller’s “termination.”
Caleb’s hands trembled.
Grant read over his shoulder.
At the bottom was another signature.
A witness.
VICTOR DANE.
Caleb stared.
May you like
Victor hadn’t come back only for revenge against the Harringtons.
He had been there the night Thomas Miller died.
