Chapter 38 - The Voice from the Bed
I turned toward the speaker, my muscles tensing.
The voice was raspy, broken by the lingering effects of the stroke, but the cadence was unmistakable. Harrison Keaton.
"Harrison," I said, stepping toward the drill console where the camera feed was mounted.
"You were always too sentimental, boy," the speaker crackled, followed by the wheeze of an oxygen concentrator in the background. "Just like your old man. Thomas thought a piece of paper and a Bible could stop thirty million dollars' worth of Texas light crude."
"You're in a hospital bed in Nashville, Harrison," Corinne spoke up, her voice ringing clear and steady through the subterranean chamber. "You can't stop the state audit. Judge Miller denied Vance's injunction. Tract Forty-Two is frozen."
A dry, rattling cough came through the line.
"Corinne," Harrison said, his tone softening into something horrifyingly paternal. "My beautiful, stubborn girl. You look just like Clara when you’re angry. Same high cheekbones. Same fire in the eyes."
"Don't speak her name," Corinne said, her knuckles turning white where she held the flashlight.
"I gave Clara everything she asked for," Harrison wheezed. "She wanted the creek kept clean. She wanted the trees on the ridge protected. I told her we could have it all—the wealth, the land, the family. But she couldn't understand that you have to break the earth to build an empire. She tried to ruin me, Corinne. Just like you’re trying to do now."
"She didn't try to ruin you," I shouted at the speaker. "She tried to save this town from your greed! Your brother Vance is already turning on you, Harrison. He tried to liquidate the trust behind your back."
"Vance is a fool," Harrison rasped. "He thinks he can run Keaton Enterprises without me. But neither of you understands what is happening above your heads right now."
Luke suddenly looked at his phone. "Grant... the cell signal just dropped. My data feed is dead."
"The appellate court didn't wait seventy-two hours," Harrison said, a chilling satisfaction creeping into his broken voice. "Judge Miller was recused twenty minutes ago for conflict of interest. His brother-in-law holds two percent of the conservation trust. The state appellate division vacated his order at noon."
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My chest tightened. "They can't vacate without an emergency hearing."
"They can when the governor declares the Cavern Four property an imminent environmental hazard zone under emergency state authority," Harrison said. "The National Guard has closed Franklin Road. The heavy equipment isn't Vance’s, children. It belongs to the Department of Transportation. They’re capping the shaft right now from the top ridge. You have about eight minutes to walk out that tunnel before the blast gates seal the outer entrance."
