Chapter 5 - The Geological Fault
At midnight, Eleanor went upstairs to her room.
Jax sat at an antique roll-top desk in the corner of the living room, a small brass lamp illuminating a stack of tax documents he had pulled from the top drawer. Knox stood by the curtained window, watching the rain strike the glass in steady, rhythmic bursts.
"Math doesn't add up, Grizzly," Knox said, pulling a silver flask from his coat. "Three hundred thousand in back taxes on forty acres of wet timber? County taxes around here aren't fifty bucks an acre."
Jax turned a yellowed page inside a leather-bound land survey dated 1982. He ran his thumb over a red line drawn along the bank of Willow Creek.
"Look at this seal," Jax said.
Knox walked over, leaning over the desk. The page bore a blue stamp from the United States Geological Survey. Traced in thick red grease pencil across the riverbed was a single phrase: LITHIUM SEAM - HIGH PURITY GRADE A.
"Lithium," Knox muttered. "Battery manufacturing."
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"Millions," Jax said. "Sterling doesn't want the house. His financial group wants to strip-mine the creek bed. They've been artificially inflating her property values and intercepting her mail to force a tax default."
Before Knox could reply, a faint, metallic click echoed from the far end of the hallway behind the kitchen pantry. It wasn't the sound of the wind. It was the smooth, oiled movement of a heavy deadbolt disengaging from the cellar door.
