I Found My Son By The River, Barely Alive. With His Breath Fading, He Whispered, “It Was Her Father.

I didn't stay hidden in the rafters.

I stood up straight on the high steel catwalk, stepping right into the beam of a spotlight that was sweeping the upper structural beams.

“VANCE! UP THERE!” a mercenary shouted from below.

Instant laser sights painted red dots across my chest and jacket.

“DON’T SHOOT!” a loud, commanding voice boomed from the open loading bay doors.

Wade Harrow himself stepped into the interior of the sawmill. He had unbuttoned his cashmere coat, revealing a tailored charcoal suit beneath. He carried an expensive silver-plated pistol in his right hand, his posture relaxed, like a man casually walking onto his private golf course.

Sheriff Douglas followed two steps behind him, looking sweaty, nervous, and pale under the harsh work lights.

“Jack,” Wade called out, looking up toward the catwalk with a dark, pitying smile. “You always were dramatic. Just like Thomas. Climbing up into the rafters like a trapped raccoon. Come down before my men turn you into Swiss cheese.”

I looked down at Wade, holding my phone flat against my belt line with the call timer ticking: 01:42... 01:43... connected directly to the State Prosecutor's recording office.

“You came out here yourself, Wade?” I called down, my voice echoing loudly through the iron rafters. “You usually send Miller or Douglas to do your dirty work.”

Wade chuckled softly, taking a few steps closer to the center of the bay floor.

“When you want a dirty job finished clean, Jack, you don't send mid-level civil servants,” Wade replied, adjusting his cuffs. “Your father didn't understand that. He thought a badge and an auditor’s seal made him invincible. He came to my house on a Tuesday night, standing in my library, telling me he was going to submit his audit to the state capital.”

“He was doing his job!” I shouted back, my voice dripping with pure disgust. “He was protecting the people of this county from a thief!”

“This county belonged to NOBODY until I built it!” Wade roared back, his calm facade dropping, revealing the raging megalomaniac beneath. “I built the bridges! I brought the shipping routes! I bought every piece of land from here to the state line! Your father was an accountant making forty thousand dollars a year trying to tell ME how to run my empire!”

“So you killed him,” I said coldly.

“I eliminated an obstacle!” Wade yelled, his voice bouncing off the corrugated tin roof. “Just like I’m going to eliminate you, your sister, and that weak-spined boy of yours! Do you think anyone in Atlanta gives a damn about Thomas Mercer? Do you think the state police care about a dead auditor from seven years ago? I OWN the judges in this district! I OWN the state representatives!”

Sheriff Douglas stepped forward nervously, pulling at Wade’s sleeve. “Wade... take it easy... let’s just get the drive and get out of here before—”

“Shut up, Douglas!” Wade snapped, shoving the sheriff’s arm away. He aimed his silver pistol straight up at my chest on the catwalk. “Throw the drive down, Jack! Or I give the order to clear this building!”

I held up my phone, turning the screen outward so the bright display caught the light.

The call timer read: 03:15.

And bold text across the screen read: STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL – OFFICIAL RECORDING IN PROGRESS.

“I don't need to throw the drive down, Wade,” I said, a slow smile breaking across my face for the first time all night. “Because Prosecutor Vance and twenty federal marshals just heard every single word you said.”

Wade’s face went completely grey.

The silver gun in his hand trembled.