Chapter 8 - The Burner Phone and the County Judge
The snow had slackened to a bitter, driving sleet by the time we reached the abandoned boathouse at the edge of the frozen reservoir. Dominic met us there ten minutes later, his black overcoat torn at the shoulder and a dark streak of blood smeared across his cheekbone. He bundled us into the back of a battered, mud-splattered Ford pickup truck that Miller had hidden beneath a tarp in the boathouse lean-to. The engine roared to life, shaking the frosted windows as Dominic threw it into four-wheel drive and tore down the logging trail away from the burning wreckage of the cabin.
In the back seat, Lily and Grace had finally exhausted their terror, drifting into an uneasy sleep against my shoulders. I pressed a clean handkerchief against the cut on Dominic's cheek as he watched the rearview mirror like a hawk.
"Miller?" I asked quietly, my voice barely audible over the roar of the heater.
"He's staying behind to cover our trail with the other two guards," Dominic said, his eyes fixed on the winding county road ahead. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, matte-black satellite burner phone he had stripped from one of the intruders who breached the mudroom. "They didn't come to kill us, Emily. They came to grab the files I kept in the study safe. Reed's getting desperate."
"What files?"
"The ones proving he embezzled forty million from the Vale Foundation to fund his campaign for state senate," Dominic replied, his jaw tight as he navigated a treacherous hairpin turn. He tossed the burner phone onto the center console between us. "His contacts go deeper than corporate boards. Last night, before the signal died, this phone received three encrypted text pings from a local judge in Oak Creek. Judge Arthur Vance."
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"Vance?" I stared at the phone. "My uncle Ray used to work security for the county courthouse before he retired. He said Vance was crooked enough to sell his own mother for a parking spot."
Dominic glanced sideways at me, a flicker of dark realization crossing his tired features. "Then your uncle is the only man in this county we can trust. How far to his farm?"
