Chapter 8 - The Fire at Black Pine
Three vehicles entered the clearing.
Marcus immediately called for backup.
No signal.
"They're jamming us."
Jack turned off the underground lights.
"Everybody upstairs."
Emma refused.
"The files."
"We can come back."
"They'll destroy them."
Marcus began photographing cabinets rapidly.
"Take whatever fits in one bag."
Lydia found an old canvas duffel.
They filled it with folders, tapes, and binders.
Emma took her own file.
Rachel's too.
Jack helped her toward the stairs.
Before they reached the top, glass shattered above them.
Marcus drew his gun.
"Stay down."
A liquid splashed across the cabin floor.
Emma smelled gasoline.
Jack's face hardened.
"Fire."
A bottle exploded.
Flames rushed across the living room.
Lydia screamed.
Smoke poured down the stairwell.
"They're burning us alive."
Jack shoved the steel door closed.
"We need another exit."
Marcus looked around.
"Does one exist?"
Jack ran toward the rear corridor.
"When we built this, there was ventilation access."
"Big enough for people?"
"We're about to find out."
They reached a metal grate.
Jack kicked it.
Nothing.
Marcus fired two rounds into the hinges.
The grate fell.
Behind it was a narrow tunnel.
Emma stared.
"I can't crawl."
Jack looked at her ankle.
"You can if I pull."
Smoke slipped beneath the steel door.
They entered the tunnel.
Jack went first.
Emma followed on her elbows.
Every movement sent pain through her ribs.
Lydia pushed the duffel behind her.
Marcus came last.
Above them something collapsed with a roar.
The cabin.
Emma kept moving.
The tunnel climbed gradually upward.
Twenty yards.
Thirty.
Forty.
Then Jack stopped.
"Blocked."
Emma's heart sank.
"What?"
"Rockfall."
Marcus crawled forward.
"Can we move it?"
"Maybe."
Smoke thickened behind them.
Jack and Marcus pulled stones away.
Emma coughed.
Lydia began sobbing.
Then cold air touched Emma's face.
A gap appeared.
Jack pushed through.
One by one they emerged onto the far side of the ridge.
Behind them, flames rose from the cabin.
Emma watched her husband's home burn.
Photographs.
Letters.
His clothes.
Years of memories.
Gone.
But someone wanted the underground room gone even more.
Marcus tried his radio again.
Static.
Jack pointed toward the valley.
"My truck is half a mile east."
They moved through the woods.
Emma leaned heavily against Lydia.
Every step was agony.
Ten minutes later they reached Jack's eighteen-wheeler parked along a service road.
He unlocked the cab.
Then stopped.
A small envelope had been taped to the windshield.
Emma stared at it.
Her name was written across the front.
Jack removed it carefully.
Inside was a photograph.
Evan.
Alive.
Sitting in a chair.
A newspaper in his hands.
Today's date visible.
On the back:
THE BOY LIVES AS LONG AS SUBJECT 14 STOPS DIGGING.
Emma nearly collapsed.
Marcus read it.
"We treat this as a kidnapping."
Emma turned toward him.
"No."
"No?"
"They want us to believe Evan is their hostage."
"You think he isn't?"
"I think he helped them."
"He's seventeen."
"He stood over me with a box cutter."
"And then warned you about the hospital."
Emma looked again at Evan's photograph.
His face was expressionless.
But something bothered her.
His left hand rested against the newspaper.
Three fingers extended.
Two curled inward.
A childhood signal.
Daniel had taught it to Evan during hiking trips.
Three fingers meant:
Danger.
Two curled meant:
Follow.
Emma took the photograph.
"He's trying to tell us something."
Lydia frowned.
"What?"
Emma turned it over.
Behind the newspaper, barely visible, was a wall.
On it, written in faded paint:
MERCER COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY.
Marcus looked up.
"I know that building."
"Where?"
"Old pumping station north of town."
Emma stared at the photograph.
May you like
Evan was not asking her to stop.
He was asking her to find him.
