“We’re done for now,” Agent Miller said, gathering her files.“You’re free to go. I’d recommend staying somewhere… low-profile for a few days. The media is going to descend on this story like vultures.”
They were given back their personal effects. Stepping out of the federal building into the cold, clear afternoon felt like being born into a new world. The mundane sounds of city traffic were a jarring contrast to the mountain’s silent menace.
An agent drove them to a quiet, anonymous hotel near Lake Champlain. They were given two adjoining rooms. The normality of it was surreal.
Inside her room, Elara stood by the window, watching the sunset paint the frozen lake in shades of rose and gold. The door between their rooms was open. She could hear Liam moving around in his.
He came to stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He’d showered, his damp hair dark against his forehead. He wore a simple grey t-shirt and jeans, and he looked more like the rugged neighbor she’d first met, yet completely different. The secrets were out. The walls were down.
“They offered me witness protection,” he said quietly.“A new name. Somewhere far from here.”
Elara’s heart stuttered.“What did you say?”
“I said no.” He took a step into the room.“The truth is out. There’s nothing left to hide from. And…” He hesitated, his blue eyes searching her face.“There’s something here I’m not ready to leave behind.”
Her breath caught. The space between them, which had been filled with fear and running, was now charged with a different, more terrifying energy. The kind that built futures, not just survived the present.
“The mountain…” she began.
“Will recover. The land will finally be free of its ghosts. My family’s and everyone else’s.” He was close enough to touch now.“What about you? You have a life to get back to. Book deadlines. The city.”
Elara thought of her sterile apartment, her silent writing desk, the empty calendar of a life dedicated to imagining mysteries. It all felt like a black-and-white photograph compared to the vivid, terrifying, Technicolor reality of the last few days.
“I think,” she said, her voice barely a whisper,“I just lived the plot of my next book.”
A slow, genuine smile spread across his face, the first one she’d seen that reached his eyes. It transformed him.“Yeah? How does it end?”
She reached out, her fingers brushing against his.“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
He closed the small distance, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. His touch was warm, sure.“Maybe,” he murmured, his forehead resting against hers,“we write it together.”
Outside, the last light of day faded over the lake, but in the quiet hotel room, surrounded by the ghosts of a settled past, something new was just beginning to dawn. The suspense was over. The romance was just getting started.
Chapter 11:
The Calm After the Storm
The world outside their hotel room was a whirlwind. The story broke on the evening news—"Corporate Giant Implicated in Century-Old Conspiracy and Murder Plot." Elara’s phone buzzed incessantly with calls from her agent, her editor, and news outlets hungry for an exclusive from the crime writer who had lived the ultimate thriller.
She ignored them all.
For three days, they existed in a peaceful, isolated bubble. They ordered room service, the simple act of sharing a meal feeling like a profound luxury. They talked for hours, not about conspiracies or survival, but about childhood memories, favorite books, and stupid, inconsequential things. Elara learned Liam wanted to restore the old Holt family cabin, the original homestead, not as a monument to the past, but as a clean start. Liam learned that Elara secretly hated the lonely, pressurized process of writing her bestsellers and dreamed of penning a quiet, historical novel.
On the fourth morning, a familiar car pulled up outside the hotel. Roy Holt, his arm in a sling, climbed out slowly, assisted by a stern-looking woman with the same piercing blue eyes as Liam—his aunt, Margaret.
Liam’s posture tightened when he saw them from the window.“The tribunal is here,” he said, a wry twist to his lips.
The meeting in the hotel’s small conference room was tense. Roy looked old and defeated. Margaret was all sharp angles and simmering anger.
“You’ve destroyed a hundred years of history,” Margaret said, her voice like chipped ice. She glared at Elara.“And you. A stranger. You come here and tear our family apart for a story.”
“Margaret,” Liam’s voice was quiet but firm, a low rumble of warning.“She didn’t tear anything apart. She helped bury a lie we should have put in the ground generations ago. The history you’re defending was built on a crime. I won’t apologize for ending it.”
Roy sighed, staring at his hands.“He’s right, Maggie. My father… his father… they lived with that secret like a cancer. It poisoned everything. Maybe now… maybe we can finally just be a family again. A poorer one, perhaps, but an honest one.”
The fight went out of Margaret. She looked from her brother to her nephew, and for the first time, Elara saw not anger, but a deep, weary grief. The family fortress had fallen, and she was standing in the rubble.
After they left, Liam was quiet, staring out at the lake.
