Chapter 9
The first gray light of dawn was beginning to bleed over the jagged peaks of the Cascade Mountains when Maya pulled the battered SUV off the highway and down a quiet logging road. The tires crunched over pine needles and loose gravel, the vehicle hidden beneath a dense canopy of Douglas firs.
They were fifty miles outside of Portland, deep in a secluded recreational area near the foothills where Maya and her father used to camp when she was a child. There was an old, disused forest service cabin about two miles down this dirt track—a place David didn't know about, because Maya and her father had built it together during a summer when David was away on a prolonged business trip.
"Where are we?" Elena asked, her voice raspy from exhaustion as she rubbed her tired eyes.
"A safe house," Maya replied, cutting the engine. The sudden silence in the cabin of the car was profound. "Dad and I built this cabin years ago. David was never here. He doesn't even know it exists."
Leo had finally fallen asleep against the car door, his breathing deep and even. Elena carefully unbuckled him, lifting his limp, sleeping form into her arms. Maya popped the trunk, grabbed the metal lockbox, and shouldered the heavy canvas duffel bag.
They hiked the final half-mile on foot, navigating the overgrown dirt path as the morning mist rose from the damp earth. The cabin appeared through the trees like a ghost—a modest structure of weathered cedar logs with a tin roof covered in pine needles.
Maya unlocked the heavy wooden front door with a brass key she retrieved from a hollowed-out stump by the porch. The interior smelled of old cedar, dry dust, and sweet memories. It was primitive—no electricity, just a wood-burning stove, a couple of cots, and a stacked shelf of canned goods left over from previous summers.
Elena laid Leo gently on one of the cots, covering him with a woolen blanket. She turned to Maya, her face pale and drawn in the morning light. "What do we do now, Maya? We can't hide out in the woods forever."
Maya placed the metal lockbox on the wooden table and popped the latch. "We don't have to hide. We use what's inside these files to end this permanently."
May you like
She pulled out the manila folders and began laying the documents out across the table. The morning sun filtered through the small grimy window, illuminating names, dates, financial routing numbers, and corporate letterheads of the front companies funding David’s clandestine operation.
"Look at this," Maya said, pointing to a signature at the bottom of a funding authorization document dated just three weeks ago. "It’s not just David. There’s a board of directors. And their primary financial backer is a pharmaceutical conglomerate based right in downtown Portland."
