Chapter 35 - Blackwood Ridge
The following night, an icy drizzle coated the winding mountain highway forty miles north of the Vance estate.
I took the old Land Rover, leaving the luxury sedans behind and taking three different backroads to ensure no tails followed me into the hills. Blackwood Ridge was an abandoned logging outpost, defunct since our grandfather’s generation, deep in the timberline where cell service died and the mist hung heavy between ancient redwoods.
I cut the headlights two hundred yards before the rusted perimeter chain and coasted into the brush.
Armed with a high-powered tactical flashlight and my brother's silver lighter tucked in my breast pocket, I stepped out into the mud. The rain tapped a monotonous rhythm against my waxed canvas jacket.
The coordinates led to an old, corrugated metal pump house half-swallowed by blackberry brambles.
The heavy padlock on the door had been recently cut, the fresh silver metal exposed beneath the orange rust. I eased the door open. The hinges screamed in the dark, sending a shiver through the hollow interior.
May you like
"Julian?" I whispered, sweeping the beam across the damp concrete floor.
Old rusted pipes, rotting wooden crates, and shattered glass. But in the center of the room, sitting atop an overturned iron drum, was a modern, glowing satellite transponder—and a folding camping stool with a steaming mug of black coffee beside it.
