Chapter 100 - The Timber Ridge
"Stay with Lily, Clara! Keep the doors locked!" I yelled, stepping back out of the truck before Caleb could grab my arm.
"Katherine, don't! The whole ridge is unmapped ground!" Caleb shouted, grabbing his heavy spotlight from the truck bed. "You don't know what he’s set up out there!"
"He has the original papers, Caleb! He has the Montreal ledgers that clear our name and prove Lily’s trust!" I shouted back over the roar of the burning estate. "If those papers burn or drown in that river, Evelyn’s lawyers will tie us up in federal litigation for the next thirty years! Melissa’s debt will default onto our land!"
Vance was already sprinting toward the tree line, his service flashlight cutting through the pine boughs. Caleb cursed loudly, racked the slide of his shotgun, and nodded to Clara. "Keep the engine running, Clara. If anyone else comes near this truck, lay on the horn."
We plunged into the black timber, the freezing mist clinging to our skin like ice needles. The roar of the weir grew louder with every step, the sound of thousands of gallons of freezing water cascading over the concrete dam at the base of the gorge. Ahead of us, the beam of Vance’s light picked up the dark, heavy wool of Julian’s coat as he navigated the slick, rocky ledge that hung directly over the rapids.
"Julian! Stop!" Vance shouted, coming to a halt twenty yards back, the mud threatening to give way under his boots. "The drop is eighty feet! There's no way across the gorge on foot!"
Julian stopped at the very edge of the precipice, where the old wooden spillway timbers jutted out over the churning foam. He turned slowly, the roaring spray of the river rising behind him like a wall of white ghosts. In his right hand, he held the canvas bag containing the 1974 trust and the Montreal codicil. In his left hand, glinting under Vance’s flashlight beam, was a heavy brass key stamped with a three-digit number: *Lock 11*.
"You think you won, Katherine?" Julian shouted over the thunder of the river, his voice carrying the bitter ecstasy of a man who had reached the end of a lifelong crusade. "You brought down Evelyn. You humiliated Melissa. But you still think this family’s name can be redeemed! You think you can build a clean life on dirt that was paid for with blood!"
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"I'm not doing this for the name, Julian!" I screamed back, stepping past Vance onto the granite ledge. "I'm doing this for my daughter! I'm doing this to end the cycle that Arthur started! Give us the papers, Julian! Let it end tonight!"
Julian looked down at the canvas bag, then back at me. A strange, sorrowful expression softened the hard lines of his weathered face. "It doesn't end with papers, Katherine. It only ends when the vault is emptied."
