Chapter 8 - The Bug in the KitchenA communications technician from another county found the device.
Small.
Crude.
Connected beneath the kitchen telephone junction.
Someone had been listening to calls.
Possibly for months.
Emily felt violated.
Every conversation with her mother.
Every argument about Daniel.
Every tearful night Laura called relatives.
Someone might have heard.
Silas looked furious.
The technician said:
“Don’t remove it yet.”
“Why?”
“If they think it still works, you can decide what they hear.”
Emily understood.
For the first time, they could use the silence against the people who had used it against them.
They created a false story.
On the phone, Laura told Silas they had discovered Daniel’s “original mine map” and planned to take it to the sheriff Friday morning.
There was no map.
Friday before dawn, Silas and two state investigators waited near the north barn.
Emily was ordered to stay inside.
She hated it.
But agreed.
At 4:40 a.m., headlights appeared.
A pickup stopped beyond the trees.
One person entered the barn.
Not Victor.
Deputy Mercer.
State officers arrested him as he searched for the nonexistent map.
Mercer denied everything.
Then investigators showed him the monitoring equipment.
He changed.
He claimed Victor had threatened his family.
Maybe partly true.
But records later revealed money.
Thousands of dollars.
Mercer had supplied police information.
Vehicle locations.
Daniel’s reports.
He had been the leak that told the network Daniel had found the gold.
Emily asked:
“Did he tell them when Dad drove to Denver?”
Yes.
Mercer had.
Her father’s route was compromised before he ever left.
“What happened to him?”
Mercer refused.
Emily nearly screamed.
Silas stopped her.
Investigators offered Mercer a deal.
Information for reduced charges.
Hours later, he talked.
Daniel delivered nine gold bars to federal agents.
Then left the building.
Victor’s men followed.
Daniel realized quickly.
Instead of driving home, he deliberately headed west.
Away from Red Creek.
The men followed.
That part of Daniel’s plan worked.
The family stayed untouched.
For four days.
Then Daniel disappeared.
Mercer did not know exactly what happened.
But he knew one thing.
Daniel had not vanished voluntarily.
Emily felt the room move.
“What?”
Mercer repeated:
“He was supposed to meet a federal investigator in Salt Lake City.”
“He never arrived?”
“No.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
For fourteen months she believed Daniel chose not to come home.
Then she learned he chose to protect them.
Now she learned even his continued disappearance may not have been a choice.
“Was he taken?”
“Maybe.”
“By Victor?”
“Victor claimed he didn’t have him.”
“Frank?”
Mercer looked away.
That was answer enough.
Emily whispered:
“Frank took my dad.”
Mercer finally said:
“Frank Carter wanted something Daniel found in the tunnel.”
“What?”
“Not gold.”
Emily leaned closer.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
The same hidden ledger Daniel mentioned on the cassette.
Names.
Dates.
Shipments.
Transactions stretching almost twenty years.
Evidence powerful enough to destroy everyone involved.
Daniel found it before the gold.
He hid it.
Frank believed Daniel still possessed it.
That was why Daniel remained valuable alive.
Emily’s pulse raced.
“If Frank needs the ledger, maybe Dad is still alive.”
No one corrected her.
For the first time, hope was not based on a rumor.
There was a reason Daniel might have been kept alive.
Mercer gave them one more location.
An abandoned ranch outside Black Ridge.
Frank had used it as a meeting site.
State investigators prepared to search.
Emily was not allowed to go.
This time she did not argue.
Hours later the telephone rang.
Silas answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
Laura stood.
Silas slowly lowered the receiver.
“They found somebody.”
Emily could not breathe.
“Dad?”
Silas looked at her.
“No.”
A dead man had been found in the ranch cellar.
Not Daniel.
Victor’s second rider.
The man who had stood beside Emily while she was tied to the post.
May you like
And in his pocket was a photograph of Daniel—
taken only six weeks earlier.
Related Stories
