Chapter 3 - The Secret of Cameron Parish
Inside the Maybach, the air was cool, smelling of cedarwood and polished leather. Noah and Sofia sank into the plush rear seats as if falling into a cloud. From a built-in refrigerated console, Jonathan handed Noah two bottles of electrolyte water and a box of fresh artisan pastries.
“Slowly, buddy,” Jonathan said gently to Noah. “Small sips first.”
Noah nibbled on a strawberry pastry, tears of sheer relief spilling silently down his dusty cheeks as Sofia drank thirstily beside him. Seeing my children safe and fed for the first time in three days broke whatever resistance remained in my soul.
Jonathan guided the car off the highway and navigated into the secluded parking lot of a private pine-shaded steakhouse in the foothills near Castle Rock. He led us through a discreet side entrance into a reserved private dining room, where a table was already laden with roasted chicken, steaming buttered potatoes, fresh sourdough bread, and rich vegetable soup.
While Noah and Sofia ate with ravenous joy, Jonathan laid a thick manila dossier across the mahogany table in front of me.
“Fifteen years ago,” Jonathan began, his hands clasping his coffee mug, “my family’s company, Reeves Global Energy, was running exploratory deep-sea wells in the Gulf. The project was overseen by my uncle, Marcus Reeves. Your father, Thomas Carter, was the lead diagnostic engineer on the platform.”
I leaned in, my heart pounding against my ribs.
“Thomas discovered that Marcus had installed counterfeit relief valves to pocket twelve million dollars in procurement funds,” Jonathan explained. “The valves were incapable of handling high-pressure methane surges. Thomas refused to sign off on the inspection report and scheduled a meeting with federal safety regulators in New Orleans. Three hours before that meeting, the platform was sabotaged.”
“Marcus blew up his own rig?” I whispered, horror rising in my throat.
“To bury the inspection logs and eliminate Thomas,” Jonathan said grimly. “I was a twenty-year-old apprentice on that platform. Thomas saved my life by throwing me into an enclosed escape pod. He escaped on a secondary service skiff, but he knew that if he surfaced alive, Marcus would hunt down his family to eliminate any legal leverage. He chose to disappear into the logging towns of northern Maine, living under an alias to keep you and your mother safe.”
Jonathan tapped the dossier. “When I inherited my father’s minority shares and began investigating the disaster five years ago, Thomas found me. Together, we gathered every offshore bank trail, every supplier invoice, and every forged signature Marcus used. But before we could present it to the federal grand jury, Thomas fell ill with aggressive pulmonary fibrosis.”
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Jonathan’s voice grew thick with emotion. “On his last night, he gave me the master decryption keys to the patents he developed—patents currently generating forty million dollars a year for Reeves Energy. He told me: ‘Find Emily. Give her what Marcus stole from us.’”
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