CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The cabin looked like something from a fairy tale, tucked deep in the Maine woods.
I stood at the edge of the small clearing, catching my breath after the long hike from where our ride had dropped us off. My mother leaned against a pine tree, her face pale with exhaustion.
"This is it?" Maddie asked, studying the rustic log building with skeptical eyes.
"Home sweet home," Jim said, pulling a key from under a fake rock by the front door. "At least until we figure out what comes next."
The inside was simple but clean. One main room with a stone fireplace, a small kitchen that looked like it hadn't been updated since the 1970s, and a bathroom barely big enough to turn around in. A ladder led up to a loft with what looked like bunk beds.
"Summer camp vibes," I said, setting down the evidence container we'd risked everything to protect.
"Journalist safe house vibes," Jim corrected. "This place has sheltered more investigative reporters than I can count."
Hank was already moving through the space with that careful attention I was getting used to. Checking windows, testing the back door, noting sight lines and escape routes. Always thinking like someone who might need to fight or run.
"Defensible?" I asked.
"Could be worse. But if Vincent's people find us here..."
"They won't," Jim said quickly. "This place doesn't exist on any official records. No phone line, no address, nothing that can be traced."
"Vincent found us at every other place we thought was safe."
"Because those places were connected to the digital world somehow. This is different."
I hoped he was right.
My mother had settled into one of the chairs by the cold fireplace. She looked small sitting there, older than I remembered from my childhood. The woman who used to seem so strong and capable now looked fragile enough that a strong wind might knock her over.
"Mom," I said, sitting down in the chair across from her. "When's the last time you saw a doctor?"
"Hard to get medical care when you're supposed to be dead."
"That's not an answer."
She was quiet for a moment, staring at her hands folded in her lap. "Fifteen years, maybe. When I first went into hiding."
"Fifteen years?"
"I couldn't risk it. Any official medical records would have created a paper trail Vincent's people could follow."
The weight of what she'd sacrificed hit me like a physical blow. Thirty years of living in fear, fifteen years without proper medical care, all because she'd tried to help her sister seek justice.
"We're going to fix this," I said. "All of it."
"Are we? Because right now it feels like we're the ones being hunted."
Before I could respond, Hank called from the kitchen. "Found the generator controls. Give me a few minutes and we'll have power."
Watching him work, I was struck again by how naturally he moved through unfamiliar situations. Like he'd been preparing for emergencies his whole life.
The generator rumbled to life, and electric lights flickered on throughout the cabin. It felt like a small victory, having power and warmth in our hidden refuge.
"Better," Maddie said, setting up her laptop on the wooden table. "Now I can work on digitizing all the evidence."
"What's the plan?" I asked. "We can't hide here forever."
"The plan is to survive long enough to get our story out," Jim said. "I've got contacts in the journalism community who can help, but they need proof that won't get them killed."
"We have proof."
"We have fifty-year-old proof. Vincent's operation has evolved since then."
He was right. Sarah's evidence was damning, but it was historical. We needed current information about how Vincent's trafficking network operated today.
"So how do we get current proof?" I asked.
"Very carefully," Hank said.
The way he said it made me look at him more closely.
"What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking we need to get close to Vincent's operation. Close enough to document what he's doing right now."
"That's suicide."
"Maybe. But what's the alternative?"
It was a good question. We could hide in the woods indefinitely, but that wouldn't save any of the girls who were probably being trafficked through Windemere Bay right now.
"There might be another way," my mother said quietly.
We all looked at her.
"Sarah didn't just hide evidence in that underwater cave. She hid it in three different places."
"What other places?"
"One is in the sheriff's station basement. The other..." She hesitated. "The other is somewhere in Vincent's own operation."
The room went silent except for the hum of the generator and the crackle of the fire Jim had started in the fireplace.
"Vincent's operation," Hank repeated slowly. "As in, his base here in town?"
"Sarah tried to be careful and smart. She wanted insurance that couldn't be destroyed by a single attack."
"Do you know where exactly?"
My mother shook her head. "She never told me the specifics. Said it was safer if I only knew the general locations."
"Then how are we supposed to find it?"
"Very carefully," she echoed Hank's earlier words.
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the forest that surrounded our hiding place. Somewhere beyond those trees, Vincent Torrino was probably consolidating his power, spinning the morning's events into whatever story served his purposes.
Girls were dying while we sat in the woods trying to figure out our next move.
"We need to go back," I said.
"Back where?" Maddie asked.
"To town. To finish what we started."
"That's crazy. Vincent's people are probably watching every street."
"Then we don't use the streets."
Hank moved to stand beside me at the window. Close enough that I could smell the pine scent clinging to his clothes, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body.
"What are you thinking?" he asked quietly.
"I'm thinking we know this area better than Vincent's people do. We know the back roads, the hiking trails, the places tourists don't go."
"That's still incredibly dangerous."
"Everything we do from now on is going to be dangerous. The question is whether we're going to let danger stop us from doing what's right."
He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel him weighing options I couldn't see.
"If we do this," he said finally, "we do it smart. Reconnaissance first, careful planning, multiple escape routes."
"We?"
"You don't think I'm letting you go back there alone."
When was the last time someone had been willing to walk into danger beside me instead of trying to protect me from it?
"What about the others?" I asked, glancing back at Jim, Maddie, and my mother.
"They stay here. Maintain communications, coordinate with outside contacts."
"I don't like splitting up."
"I don't like any of this. But we can't all go stumbling around Vincent's territory together."
He was right, but the thought of leaving my mother again, so soon after finding her alive, made my chest tight with anxiety.
"She'll be safe here," Hank said, somehow reading my thoughts. "Safer than she'd be coming with us."
My mother looked up from her chair by the fire. "Go," she said. "Do what needs to be done."
"What if something happens to us?"
"Then at least you'll have tried. That's more than I managed to do for Sarah."
"We'll be careful," I promised.
"Be smart," she corrected. "Careful only gets you so far with people like Vincent."