CHAPTER 6: BURIED TRUTHS
The explosion threw me against the tunnel wall.
For several seconds, I heard nothing.
Not the collapsing concrete.
Not the screams.
Not even my own breathing.
Then sound returned all at once.
Metal twisting.
Stone crashing.
Curtis shouting my name.
A red emergency light flickered near the floor.
Dust filled the chamber.
The staircase had disappeared beneath a wall of rubble. One federal agent lay unconscious near the console. Castillo was pulling another away from falling debris.
Duane was on his knees.
Blood darkened the side of his uniform.
I crawled toward him.
“Where are you hit?”
“Not hit.”
He pressed one hand against his ribs.
“Concrete.”
“Can you stand?”
“I’ve stood through worse.”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“Then stop wasting my remaining youth.”
Another section of ceiling cracked.
Castillo shouted, “Move into the ventilation tunnel.”
Curtis was still tied to the chair.
I cut the restraints with a piece of broken metal.
He collapsed against me.
“I thought you’d leave me.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Because part of me had considered it.
Not seriously.
Not long enough to become a decision.
But when the ceiling began falling, I had looked at him and remembered every lie.
Then I remembered being eleven years old, carrying him home after he crashed his bicycle. His knees were bleeding. He had wrapped both arms around my neck and called me his hero.
Before Elaine taught him that love was a competition.
Before greed became his only language.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then help me with Duane.”
We moved into the ventilation tunnel.
Sloan had disappeared.
The tunnel split twenty yards ahead. One branch angled upward toward the mountainside. The other descended toward an old vehicle-testing chamber.
Castillo checked her radio.
No signal.
“The main entrance is blocked. Rescue teams will need time to reach us.”
“The upward tunnel leads to an exterior vent,” I said.
Curtis shook his head.
“Sloan wired it.”
Everyone looked at him.
“He showed me the charges. The exit tunnel was part of his escape plan, but he said he’d collapse it behind him.”
“Did he trigger them?” Castillo asked.
“I don’t know.”
A low rumble answered the question.
Dust rolled through the upper passage.
Blocked.
Castillo looked down the descending tunnel.
“Then we go deeper.”
The old testing chamber was large enough to hold armored vehicles. Emergency batteries powered a few overhead lamps. Rusting equipment stood in rows like abandoned machines waiting for orders.
The transmitter signal continued humming through cables in the wall.
“Did the archive send?” I asked.
Castillo examined the console mounted near the entrance.
“Transmission began before the blast.”
“Was it completed?”
“No status.”
Curtis sat on the floor.
“If it didn’t send, Sloan wins.”
Duane lowered himself against a support beam.
“Sloan does not win by burying us.”
“He escapes. The evidence disappears. I go to prison.”
“You asked for immunity,” I said.
“That was before I admitted anything.”
Castillo crouched in front of him.
“Then start admitting.”
Curtis stared at her.
“Now?”
“We may have several hours before rescue reaches us. Use them wisely.”
At first, he refused to speak.
Then another tremor moved through the chamber.
The lights flickered.
Fear loosened what loyalty never had.
Curtis told us everything.
He had first met Malcolm Voss at a Titan charity dinner when he was nineteen. Voss praised his business instincts and told him my father had wasted the company’s future on outdated ideas of honor.
By twenty-two, Curtis was approving consulting payments to Meridian.
By twenty-five, he had created shell vendors.
Elaine discovered the missing money after finding a bank statement in his apartment. Instead of confronting my father, she helped Curtis disguise the transfers as international development costs.
“She said Dad would forgive me once I became CEO,” Curtis whispered.
“You believed her?”
“I wanted to.”
“No. You wanted the money.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
After my father changed the will, Sloan warned them that I would examine every vendor contract.
That was when the plan changed from financial concealment to destruction.
They created the forged will.
They planted altered correspondence suggesting my military claims had influenced my father.
They contacted a reporter.
Then they provided investigators with counterfeit documents showing I had purchased medals from an online collector.
“Who planted the tracker?” Castillo asked.
“Sloan.”
“How?”
“He replaced the backing of the shadow box before submitting it to the prosecutor.”
“Did Holloway know?”
“No. Sloan said the prosecutor was ambitious, not corrupt.”
That matched what I had seen in court. Holloway believed the case.
He had been manipulated too.
I looked at Curtis.
“What happened to Dad’s medication?”
His face collapsed.
“Mom handled that.”
“What did she do?”
“Sloan brought new pain medication. He said it was stronger.”
“Did she know it was altered?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know less when the truth becomes ugly.”
“She said Dad was suffering.”
“That is not an answer.”
Curtis began to sob.
“She knew it would keep him asleep.”
The chamber went silent.
My father had spent his final week trapped inside a failing body, unable to speak while his wife and son waited for him to die.
I walked away before anger became violence.
Duane watched me.
“You are allowed to hate them.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That is also allowed.”
A metallic clang echoed from the descending corridor.
Castillo raised her weapon.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Another clang.
Footsteps.
Sloan emerged from the darkness.
His left arm hung uselessly. Blood covered his shirt. In his right hand, he held the pistol.
Behind him walked Elaine.
My mother’s hands were bound.
A strip of duct tape covered her mouth.
Curtis stood.
“Mom?”
Sloan pressed the gun against her head.
“Your family reunion was touching,” he said.
Castillo aimed at him.
“How did she get here?”
“There is a secondary service entrance. Mrs. Wright came to Black Ridge on her own.”
Elaine’s eyes found mine.
They were filled with terror.
Sloan pulled the tape from her mouth.
She gasped.
“I came to stop him.”
Curtis stared at her.
“How did you know where we were?”
She looked at the floor.
Sloan laughed.
“Tell them, Elaine.”
She remained silent.
He pushed the gun harder against her temple.
“Tell Rebecca why you kept the key.”
My mother’s voice shook.
“Because your father gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“He knew I was involved.”
“Involved in what?”
She began crying.
“In the forged will.”
I waited.
“But not only that,” Sloan said.
Elaine closed her eyes.
“I was the one who told Victor your military records were sealed.”
The air left my lungs.
“How did you know?”
“Your father told me years ago.”
“You said he never spoke about my service.”
“He asked me to protect your secret.”
“And you used it to destroy me.”
Her face crumpled.
“I thought you were taking everything.”
“No. Dad gave me responsibility.”
“He gave you Titan. He gave you his trust. He always looked at you like you were the child who mattered.”
Curtis whispered, “Mom.”
She turned toward him.
“I did it for you.”
Sloan laughed again.
“No, Elaine. You did it because you could not stand that your husband respected the daughter you spent her whole life resenting.”
A warning tone sounded from the wall console.
Castillo glanced toward it.
The display lit up.
ARCHIVE TRANSMISSION COMPLETE.
Sloan’s smile vanished.
For the first time, he looked defeated.
Then he raised the pistol toward the console.
Duane moved before anyone else.
He struck Sloan’s arm with his cane.
The gun fired.
Elaine screamed.
Curtis tackled Sloan.
All three crashed to the floor.
Castillo rushed forward.
Another tremor shook the chamber.
A support beam snapped.
May you like
The roof began coming down.
And beneath the collapsing concrete, I saw my mother trapped directly in its path.
