Chapter 15 - The Final Candle Goes Out
The cabin was dead silent as the digital countdown on the flash drive clicked down to zero with a final, echoing beep.
Victor froze, half-risen from the floor, staring down at the device in his hand. The tiny LED light on the flash drive flickered once, turned from flashing red to a steady, brilliant green, and then went completely dark.
“You missed it,” Mark panted, struggling to his feet with Clara’s help. He wiped the blood from his forehead and looked down at Victor with a grim smile. “The server recognized the override code embedded in the rotary phone's signal. The syndicate accounts are frozen, and all our identities have been legally cleared by federal prosecutors as part of a five-year sting operation.”
Victor’s face drained of all color. He dropped the flash drive as if it had suddenly turned into a hot coal. “You... you were working with the feds the entire time?”
“I had to be,” Mark said quietly, wrapping one arm around Clara’s waist to steady himself. “It was the only way to keep my family safe from people like you.”
Outside, the heavy rain suddenly stopped, replaced by the first pale, golden rays of dawn breaking through the dense canopy of the pine forest. The storm had finally passed.
A few moments later, the flashing red and blue lights of several police cruisers and federal vehicles illuminated the tree line, their sirens wailing through the quiet woods as officers swarmed the hunting cabin to secure the area and arrest Victor and his men.
Later that morning, back at the small diner where it all began, the sun was shining brightly through the grease-stained glass windows.
Lily sat at the exact same wooden table, wearing her pink knitted sweater and swinging her legs happily. In front of her sat a brand-new chocolate birthday cake with a single white candle burning brightly.
Clara and Mark sat on either side of her, holding hands tightly beneath the table. David sat across from them, nursing a cup of black coffee with a small smile on his face.
Resting right next to the cake was the small white handwritten card that read, LOVE YOU, DAD.
May you like
“Make a wish, sweetheart,” Mark whispered, smiling down at his daughter.
Lily closed her hazel eyes tight, took a deep breath, and blew out the candle with all her might. As the thin wisp of smoke drifted up toward the ceiling, the family leaned in together, finally safe, together, and free at last.
