Chapter 13 - quiet static
I plugged the encryption drive into my hardened off-grid laptop. A stark black screen appeared, prompting a twenty-four-digit alphanumeric passkey.
"Did Ethan give you a code?" I asked Nora, leaning closer to the glowing screen.
"No," she said, shaking her head frantically. "He only said 'The song we sang at the cabin'."
I stared at the blinking cursor, my mind racing back through fifteen years of childhood memories. Every summer, our family stayed at the lake cabin. On cold August nights around the fire pit, Ethan and I would sing an old Scottish folk lullaby our mother taught us: The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.
I typed the first line of the chorus in lowercase letters, omitting the spaces: takethehighroad.
The red lock icon on the screen flashed green, and a cascade of organized folders expanded across the desktop. Financial logs, shell company registries in Panama, wire transfer receipts, and high-definition audio recordings filled the directory.
I opened the top audio file dated four months ago.
A sharp static hissed through the laptop speakers, followed by Uncle Richard's distinct, raspy voice: "If Ethan doesn't sell his forty percent stake by the end of the quarter, make sure the sailboat doesn't make it past the lighthouse. The underwriters won't question an accident during a gale."
A cold rage burned through my veins like liquid ice. My own uncle had tried to drown my brother for corporate shares.
May you like
Suddenly, the house lights flickered twice and died completely, plunging the library into total darkness save for the dim blue glow of my laptop screen.
Outside, the heavy gravel driveway crunched beneath the tires of an approaching vehicle.
