Chapter 10 - The Midnight Prowler
Night fell over Blackwood Ridge like a heavy black velvet curtain. The wind had died down, leaving the surrounding pine forest trapped in an eerie, frozen silence. Inside the cabin, all the lights were extinguished except for the low, glowing embers of the woodstove. Agent Sterling had returned from the city at dusk, bringing two additional heavily armed tactical specialists who were currently camouflaged in the brush fifty yards out from the front porch.
We were waiting for Russo’s lawyer to respond to our diplomatic overture, but as the hours ticked past midnight without a communication, the tension inside the cabin stretched to the breaking point. I sat in the dark rocking chair near the front window, my Remington 12-gauge resting across my lap, watching the moonbeams filter through the towering pine branches.
At 1:45 AM, the tactical radio on the dining table emitted a soft, double-click—the silent signal from the perimeter guards that movement had been detected in the tree line.
"Everyone down," Agent Sterling whispered, instantly drawing her sidearm and moving toward the side window. Officer Davis took a defensive kneeling position at the bottom of the hallway stairs, blocking the path to the master bedroom where Sarah and Leo were sleeping.
I didn't retreat. I stood up slowly from my rocking chair, my sixty-eight-year-old joints popping quietly in the dark, and pressed my eye to the edge of the window blind.
Out on the gravel driveway, fifty feet from the cabin steps, a shadow moved against the white frost of the grass. It wasn't the broad, heavy silhouette of Dominic Moretti or a mob enforcer. It was a tall, slender figure wearing a dark tactical hoodie and carrying a heavy canvas duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
The figure stepped into a patch of moonlight breaking through the trees. My breath hitched.
It was Rachel Thorne.
She was alone. She didn't have a rifle or a tactical team supporting her. She moved with a desperate, frantic urgency, her head darting left and right as she approached the side of the cabin where the external backup generator and the telephone junction box were located.
"Why is she here without Julian or Russo’s men?" Sarah whispered, creeping out of the bedroom in her stocking feet and crouching beside me at the window.
"Because she’s running," I realized, watching Rachel pull a pair of heavy bolt cutters from her duffel bag. "She knows Russo is going to kill them if the money isn't paid by tomorrow noon. She didn't come here to kidnap Leo or fight the police. She came here to steal Sarah’s emergency vehicle from the locked storage shed behind the cabin."
When Sarah’s late husband bought the ridge property, he had parked an old, unregistered 1998 Jeep Cherokee in the rear timber shed as an emergency mountain evacuation vehicle. Only family members and close friends who had spent summers at the cabin knew that Jeep was parked there with a full tank of gas and the keys hidden under the floor mat. Rachel was trying to abandon Julian to Russo’s wrath and escape across the Canadian border using an untraceable mountain vehicle.
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"She’s not getting away," Sarah said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. Before Agent Sterling or I could stop her, Sarah reached out, unlatched the deadbolt on the cabin’s side door with a soft click, and stepped out onto the dark, covered porch.
"Sarah, no!" I hissed, grabbing my shotgun and pushing through the door right behind her, with Agent Sterling and Officer Davis charging out onto the porch seconds later with their flashlights and weapons raised.
