Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Derek nods once.
“You could show a little enthusiasm. This is a momentous occasion.” She releases him and waves at the other guards. “Clear it. Clear it, clear it, let’s go.”
Her team moves with efficiency. Two stay with us, weapons ready. The other two head for a gap between the boulders, clearing snow to reveal timber supports, old and weathered but still intact. A mine shaft entrance, descending into darkness.
They’ve been here before. Scouted it, probably. Mapped the tunnels. They just couldn’t get past the safe.
That’s what Hailey’s for.
Someone produces industrial lights, the kind you’d use on a construction site. Generators hum to life. The darkness retreats, revealing rough-hewn walls and timber bracing and a tunnel that slopes gently downward.
“This is very Indiana Jones.” Marlena peers into the entrance, delighted. “I keep hoping for booby traps, but my advance team was very disappointing on that front. Not a single giant rolling boulder.”
She pulls out her phone and snaps a selfie in front of the mine entrance. Checks it, frowns, takes another one.
“Lighting’s terrible,” she mutters. “Derek, hold the light higher.”
We descend into the mountain.
The temperature rises once we’re underground, the earth providing insulation the open air couldn’t. The tunnel is narrow at first, barely wide enough for two people side by side. Ice coats the walls, glittering in the industrial lights.
The guards move with the confidence of men who’ve walked this route before. They don’t hesitate at the forks, don’t consult maps. Marlena’s been thorough.
But she couldn’t crack the safe. Five years of resources and obsession, and she still needs Hailey for the final step.
The tunnel branches again and again. A maze. One wrong turn and you’d wander these passages until you froze or starved. I understand now why Hailey chose this place.
“Almost there,” Marlena announces, checking her phone. “My team clocked it at fifteen minutes from the entrance. We’re at twelve.”
Three minutes later, the tunnel opens into a chamber. Natural cave formation, the ceiling arching overhead, stalactites hanging down in frozen curtains. The industrial lights throw strange shadows across the walls.
And there, set into the rock at the back of the chamber, is a safe.
Industrial grade. Serious hardware. The kind of thing you’d find in a bank vault, not buried in a forgotten mine. It’s covered in frost but otherwise intact, the dial and handle still visible beneath the ice.
Marlena walks toward it slowly. For once, she’s not talking. She reaches out and brushes frost from the metal surface, her movements almost reverent.
“Five years,” she whispers. Then, louder. “Five years I’ve been looking for this. Do you know how many private investigators I’ve hired? How many psychics? Psychics, Ms. Parker. That’s how desperate I was. One of them told me the diamond was ‘somewhere cold.’ I paid her four hundred dollars for ‘somewhere cold.’ ”
She turns to face us, backlit by the industrial lights.
“But here we are. I guess she was right.” Her composure snaps back into place, that manic brightness returning. “Now. The code, Ms. Parker.” She pulls out her phone again. “And smile—I want to document this moment for posterity.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hailey
Six digits stand between us and whatever comes next.
The safe squats against the cave wall, frost crusted across its face. Five years since I programmed that code. Five years since I walked away from everything I was.
Marlena’s staring at it like she’s found God. Her crew has us positioned in a loose semicircle, guns ready. Eight of us crammed into this frozen chamber, plus her. I can feel Knox’s shoulder against mine, both our wrists still bound.
“The code,” Marlena says. Her breath fogs between us. “Now, Ms. Parker.”
I don’t move.
A guard grabs Knox from behind, forcing him down. His knees hit the stone floor hard. The guard presses a Glock to the back of his head.
“Now,” Marlena repeats. No more camp counselor cheer. This is what lives underneath.
My throat closes. “Let me think—”
“One.”
Knox finds my eyes. Even kneeling with a gun to his skull, he’s calm. His left hand shifts against his thigh. One finger extended. We’re on.
“Two.”
I let the panic show on my face. There’s a gun to his head and every part of me wants to scream. But the decision was made days ago in a blind spot by a fireplace, and this is me following through.
“Three.”
I make my voice crack. “Three. Seven. Nine. Two. Five. Eight.”
Marlena watches me for a long moment, looking for the lie. I give her nothing but a woman broken by a countdown. She must like what she sees, because her smile returns. She crosses to the safe, gloved fingers hovering over the dial. Each click sounds like a gunshot in the silence.
The door swings open.
Inside, cradled in foam I installed five years ago, sits the Snowflake Diamond. Twenty million dollars of crystallized carbon, smaller than people expect. About the size of a walnut. But the clarity is insane, flawless, throwing fractured light across the frozen walls.