Chapter 10
The black federal SUV slid to a violent, gravel-spraying halt directly behind David’s abandoned pickup truck at the edge of the abandoned lumber mill clearing. The rusted corrugated iron walls of the mill groaned in the stiff morning breeze, surrounded by overgrown briars and piles of rotting cedar planks. The driver's side door of David’s truck hung wide open, the engine still ticking as cooling metal contracted in the damp air.
“Stay inside the vehicle, Ms. Vance,” the lead federal agent ordered, unholstering her service weapon with practiced, fluid efficiency before pushing her door open into the tall weeds.
Maya ignored the warning entirely. Adrenaline surged through her veins, overriding every rational impulse. She shoved her door open on the opposite side, her pink shoes hitting the damp earth as she vaulted past the rear bumper of the SUV and scanned the desolate clearing.
“David!” Maya yelled, her voice cutting through the hollow acoustics of the ruined industrial yard.
A sharp, metallic clatter echoed from the interior of the main sawmill building, followed immediately by a muffled grunt of pain and the sound of heavy boots scrambling over splintered floorboards.
The federal agents moved with tactical precision, fanning out on either side of the rotting wooden double doors. The lead agent gestured with two fingers, and the second agent kicked the rotted wood frame inward with a deafening crash.
Maya sprinted up the ramp behind them, her tan long-sleeve top catching on a protruding rusted nail before tearing free as she ducked inside the cavernous, dust-filled interior of the mill. Shafts of pale morning light pierced through holes in the corrugated roof, illuminating floating motes of sawdust and two struggling figures rolling across the grimy floorboards near the massive, silent band saw.
It was David, wrestling savagely with a wiry man wearing a dark gray hoodie and a black baseball cap pulled low over his face. Next to them lay a soaked, high-end laptop bag leaking muddy water onto the sawdust.
“Get off me, you damn thief!” David roared, pinning the man’s arm behind his back with sheer brute force, though the stranger was fighting back with desperate, slippery agility.
May you like
“David, watch out!” Maya screamed, spotting a heavy steel iron pipe lying across a nearby workbench within arm’s reach of the stranger’s free hand.
The man in the gray hoodie twisted violently, breaking one arm free from David’s grip and lunging desperately toward the iron pipe. Before David could recover his leverage, the stranger grabbed the heavy metal bar and swung it in a vicious, horizontal arc directly toward David’s chest.
