Chapter 6 - The Witness in the Woods
Ethan pulled Claire behind the basement wall.
Another gunshot shattered a window upstairs.
Daniel shouted.
A body crashed against the floor.
Ethan grabbed an iron pipe and climbed the stairs.
Daniel was crouched behind the stone fireplace.
Blood ran from a cut along his forehead.
The shooter fired from the tree line.
Ethan crawled toward the front window.
A dark SUV waited near the road.
The shooter moved between the trees.
Daniel fired once.
The figure retreated.
The SUV accelerated away.
Its rear license plate had been covered.
“Are you hit?” Ethan asked.
“Glass.”
Daniel wiped blood from his face.
“They weren’t trying to warn us.”
A weak voice came from the back of the cabin.
“You should leave before they return.”
An elderly man stood in the doorway.
He carried an unloaded hunting rifle.
His clothes were wet from the snow.
Claire recognized him from a photograph in Thomas’s old office.
“Mr. Mercer?”
The man nodded.
Caleb Mercer had once been Thomas Whitmore’s personal driver.
He disappeared after the boating accident.
The police believed he had moved to Canada.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to open that basement,” Caleb said.
Ethan stepped toward him.
“Was my father held here?”
Caleb’s eyes filled with guilt.
“For eleven days.”
“By whom?”
“Your mother.”
The words landed with brutal force.
Caleb explained that Thomas had discovered Eleanor and Victor Hale were stealing from the foundation.
They had also allowed criminal cargo to move aboard Whitmore ships.
When Thomas threatened to contact federal authorities, Victor arranged the boating accident.
Lucas Grant disabled the vessel’s emergency transmitter.
Thomas was drugged and placed aboard the boat.
The explosion was intended to kill him.
It failed.
Caleb found Thomas floating near the northern shore.
“He was alive,” Caleb said.
“But he was badly burned.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Ethan demanded.
“I tried.”
“Lucas found us first.”
Caleb lowered his eyes.
“They took my wife.”
“They told me they would kill her if I spoke.”
Thomas was brought to the cabin.
A private doctor treated him.
When he recovered enough to speak, Eleanor visited.
“She wanted him to sign control of the company to her,” Caleb said.
“He refused.”
“So she moved him.”
“To White Oak.”
“The hospital closed.”
“The public building closed.”
Caleb reached inside his coat.
He removed an envelope sealed with wax.
“This arrived six months ago.”
“Who sent it?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
Inside was a recent photograph of Thomas Whitmore.
He looked thin.
His hair had turned completely white.
But he was alive.
Behind him stood a stone building with green shutters.
A clock tower rose above the trees.
On the back, someone had written a message.
Samuel remembers everything.
Ethan held the photograph with both hands.
“Where was this taken?”
Caleb pointed toward the tower.
“That belongs to Saint Augustine’s Sanitarium.”
“It’s in Vermont.”
A distant engine growled outside.
Caleb’s face went pale.
May you like
“They found me.”
Flames suddenly erupted along the rear wall of the cabin.
