Chapter 3 - Beneath the Floorboards
The snow was coming down harder now, sweeping in thick, blinding sheets across the unplowed logging road that led down to the abandoned boathouse. The headlights of James’s SUV cut through the swirling white, illuminating the rotting timbers of the old structure standing precariously over the dark, icy water of the lake.
Marlow stepped out into the freezing wind, pulling her wool coat tightly around her. The silence here was absolute, broken only by the groan of ice forming along the shoreline and the crunch of their boots on frozen mud.
“Are you sure she doesn't know about this place?” Marlow asked, her breath pluming in the headlights as she unzipped her canvas tote bag to retrieve the rusted brass key Amos had given her twelve months ago.
“Deirdre thinks this land was sold off during the nineties restructuring,” James said, unlatching his heavy flashlight and sweeping the beam across the peeling green paint of the boathouse door. “My grandfather kept it off the corporate ledger entirely. He called it his 'insurance policy.' Open it, Marlow.”
The key protested inside the heavy brass padlock with a dry, metallic screech, but with a firm twist from Marlow, the rusted shackle popped free.
Inside, the boathouse smelled of damp cedar, old canvas, and engine oil. James swept his flashlight beam across a cluttered floor of old outboard motors, tangled fishing nets, and stacks of rusted tools. In the far corner, half-hidden beneath a tattered canvas tarp, sat a heavy wooden workbench bearing the unmistakable brand of the original Bridger workshop.
Marlow walked straight to the bench, kneeling down and running her fingers along the edge of the floorboards.
“Here,” she said, pressing down on a loose plank near the baseboard. With a hollow clack, the board lifted away, revealing a dark, square cavity cut into the concrete foundation.
James knelt beside her, shining his light into the recess. Inside sat a heavy, fireproof metal lockbox, its surface coated in a fine layer of dust. Across the top was taped a handwritten label in Amos’s shaky handwriting: For James and Marlow. When the ice breaks.
Marlow looked at the label, her chest tightening. “He knew. Even then, he knew we’d have to find it together.”
James unlatched the heavy metal lid. Inside weren't just financial records or supplier invoices. Sitting right on top was a certified audit report from an independent forensic accountant, dated three days before Amos’s death—and beneath it, a signed partnership agreement transferring fifty-one percent of the company’s voting shares into a blind trust managed jointly by James Bridger... and Marlow Kittredge.
Marlow stared at the documents, her breath catching in her throat. “Fifty-one percent? James, your grandfather couldn't legally do that without the board’s consent—”
“He didn't need their consent,” James interrupted, his eyes wide as he scanned the legal seals. “As founder and majority stakeholder, he had sole discretionary power to restructure the voting trust in the event of systemic corporate fraud. Deirdre didn't just cross your name off a guest list tonight because she didn't like your dress, Marlow. She crossed you off because according to these papers, you legally own the controlling interest in the Bridger Sled Company.”
Before the weight of the revelation could even settle between them, the crunch of gravel echoed sharply outside the boathouse door.
May you like
Headlights flared through the grimy, frost-covered windows, painting blinding white beams across the rotting timber walls. A car engine cut out, followed by the crunch of heavy footsteps stopping dead on the wooden deck outside.
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