Chapter 106 - Voices Through the Mist
The air inside the lower turbine corridor was twenty degrees colder than the ridge above, heavy with the stench of engine grease, ozone, and eighty years of river rot. Water seeped through the expansion joints in the arched ceiling, falling in steady, rhythmic drops that sounded like ticking clocks against the iron floor grating.
Julian leaned heavily on my shoulder, his steps dragging through the puddles. Vance moved five paces ahead, his weapon lowered, scanning every shadow cast by the dripping pipes.
"Katherine," Vance whispered without turning around. "Listen."
I stopped, my heart thumping against my ribs.
Above us, through the ventilation grates that ran along the ceiling to the surface of the dam, Melissa’s voice drifted down. It wasn't loud now; it was thin, frantic, and fractured, echoing through the iron piping like a transmission from a ghost.
"Where are they, Bradley? Find the door! You said the lawyer was dying—he can't have made it down the gorge on foot!"
"The hinges are rusted solid, Melissa!" Bradley’s harsh response rattled the metal. "The torch is running out of gas. If the state police find the Dodge parked at the weir road, we're done! We need to pull back to the interstate!"
"I am not leaving without that key!" Melissa’s voice broke into a high, furious sob. "Do you think I’m going to spend my life in a federal penitentiary while Katherine sits in my house? While she dresses her brat in hand-sewn lace and gives her the bedroom overlooking the orchard? That was supposed to be mine! Mother told me! Mother swore on Arthur’s grave that Oak Ridge belonged to me!"
"Your mother was out of her mind on morphine when she signed those deeds, you idiot!" Bradley shouted back, the sound of metal tools clattering against stone vibrating through the ceiling. "She didn't care about you! She used you to fleece the foundation until there was nothing left to steal!"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
A single shot blasted through the upper gallery—a sharp, deafening snap that ended in a sickening wet thud.
Julian froze in my grip. Vance halted, his body rigid, his eyes turned toward the grate above.
The sound of Bradley Cole choking on his own blood traveled down the ventilation duct, followed by the heavy, limp thud of a body falling across the iron grating.
Silence followed. Cold, hollow, and absolute.
May you like
Then, the soft, rhythmic click of Melissa’s boots slowly pacing across the concrete floor right above our heads.
"Nobody talks to me like that," she whispered down into the dark, her voice dripping with venom. "Nobody tells me who I am."
