Chapter 10 - The Boathouse Floorboards
The snow crunched softly beneath Elena’s boots as she slipped through the perimeter fence, keeping low behind the frozen boxwood hedges that lined the frozen shoreline.
The biting wind carried the harsh, unmistakable whine of a gas-powered rotary saw echoing from inside the old wooden boathouse down by the water. Orange sparks flickered through the grimy, frosted windows, casting a chaotic dance of light across the ice sheets of the lake.
Elena crept up to the side entrance of the boathouse, pressing her back against the weathered cedar siding. The smell of burning sawdust and damp pine filled the freezing air.
She peered cautiously through a cracked window pane.
Inside, two burly men in heavy industrial parkas were operating a circular saw, cutting a wide, square hole directly through the thick oak floorboards near the center of the structure. Standing over them, directing the operation with a polished silver flashlight, was a tall, sharply dressed man in a tailored overcoat—Victor Vance.
“Careful with that blade!” Victor barked at the workers, his voice cutting clearly over the roar of the saw. “The iron lockbox is embedded right beneath the second layer of joists. If you scratch the exterior casing, the acid vial inside will automatically rupture and destroy the contents.”
Elena’s breath hitched in her throat. An iron lockbox. An acid vial.
She watched as the circular saw screeched to a final, high-pitched halt as the blade cut completely through the last plank of oak. One of the workers dropped to his knees, hooked a heavy steel crowbar into the newly cut seam, and pried the heavy floor section upward with a loud, cracking splinter of wood.
Beneath the floorboards, buried in the dark, damp earth of the foundation, sat a heavy, rusted iron chest encrusted with mold and time.
Victor knelt down, smiling triumphantly, and reached out his gloved hand toward the latch.
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Elena didn't wait another second. She kicked the wooden side door wide open, the crash echoing off the timber walls like a gunshot, and stepped into the doorway with the steel tire iron raised in her hand.
“Step away from the box, Victor,” Elena commanded, her voice ringing with absolute, razor-sharp fury.
