CHAPTER 4: The Price of Timber
The silence that followed was total.
Evelyn Vance stepped forward, laying a thick manila folder next to my mother’s handwritten note.
“I am Evelyn Vance, legal counsel for Daniel and Noah Mercer,” she said crisply, addressing the corporate team from Vanguard Forestry. “What you have in front of you, gentlemen, is a preliminary injunction filed two hours ago in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. It freezes all assets of Mercer Timber & Logistics pending a federal investigation into corporate fraud, grand larceny, and conspiracy to commit murder.”
The Vanguard attorney immediately closed his leather binder. “We are pulling our offer. Effective right now.”
“Wait!” Melissa screamed, stepping around the table, her face contorted with rage. “You can’t do this! Daniel, you ruined everything! You were always a leech! Claire was a leech! You sat in your house for two years doing nothing while we worked to keep this company afloat!”
I turned my head slowly to look at my sister.
“You left a nine-year-old boy in the woods, Melissa,” I said quietly.
“We left you food!” she shrieked, her voice cracking into a high-pitched hysteria that shocked even the executives sitting at the table. “We left a cooler by the ridge! We gave you a chance!”
“There was no cooler,” I said. “There was half a stale granola bar and a crushed water bottle. You took the cars. You took the tents. You took the generators. You wanted us to wander off into the draw and freeze so you could sign these papers today.”
“It was for the family!” my mother sobbed from the corner, covering her face with her hands. “It was to save the company, Daniel! If Claire’s files got out, your father would have gone to prison! Everything we built… sixty years of work… gone!”
I looked at my mother. The woman who used to bake cherry pies for Noah’s birthday. The woman who had tucked me into bed when I had the measles.
“You traded your grandson for a balance sheet,” I said.
I picked up the silk handkerchief from my coat pocket and unfolded it. I set the small, bright yellow USB drive onto the center of the mahogany table, right next to the pen my father had dropped.
“This is Claire’s second ledger,” I said, looking directly at my father. “The one she didn’t leave in your safe, Dad. The one that lists the accounts in the Cayman Islands. The wire transfers to the state inspectors who ignored the illegal logging on federal land in the Uncompahgre Forest. The payouts to the local haulers who moved unmanifested timber through the southern corridor.”
Richard’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Claire didn’t die because of a drunk driver, did she?” I asked, the question hanging in the air like a blade.
Richard fell back into his leather chair. The strength seemed to drain out of his posture, leaving him looking smaller, older, and hollowed out—like a rot-hollowed oak tree waiting for the final gust of wind.
“It was an accident,” he whispered, staring at the table. “The driver… he was supposed to just scare her. He was supposed to take the laptop from her trunk. He hit her too hard. God as my witness, Daniel… I didn’t want her dead.”
A collective gasp went around the room. The Vanguard lawyers were already packing their bags, moving toward the side exit without making eye contact with anyone.
“You didn’t want her dead,” I repeated softly. “You just didn’t care if she lived. Just like you didn’t care if Noah and I lived.”
“Daniel… please,” my mother wept, creeping across the room, reaching her trembling, wrinkled hand toward my sleeve. “We’re your family. We can fix this. We can give you your share. Half the company. Whatever you want. Just… don’t do this to your father. He won’t survive prison.”
I looked down at her hand on my sleeve.
Nine days ago, I would have broken my own heart to make that hand happy. Nine days ago, I would have given up everything I owned to feel like I had a mother and a father who loved me.
I reached down, took her fingers, and gently, deliberately, lifted them off my jacket.
“You’re right,” I said. “He won’t.”
I turned toward the door.
Standing in the hallway outside were four federal agents in blue jackets with gold lettering across the back: FBI. Behind them stood Sheriff Tom Vance, his hat in his hands, looking into the room with an expression of quiet, cold disgust.
“Special Agent Miller,” I said to the lead agent as I stepped into the hall. “The evidence is on the table.”
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