Chapter 10 - The Owner of the Mountain
Thomas Mercer walked through the ruined wedding aisle.
White petals clung to his coat. Smoke darkened the horizon behind him.
I had no memory of my father’s voice.
He supposedly died when I was four, two years after Catherine disappeared. Evelyn told me he drove into a river during a storm because grief had made him careless.
Now he stood thirty feet away.
Alive.
Grant had vanished into the parking area during the confusion. Marshals searched the surrounding roads while fire crews prepared to defend the chateau if the wind shifted again.
Thomas stopped in front of Catherine.
“You should not have come here.”
“She is our daughter.”
“She was safer without us.”
I laughed once.
The sound surprised me.
Every parent in my life believed abandonment could be renamed safety.
Thomas looked at me.
“Claire.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“You do not get to say my name like you have been waiting for me. I waited for you.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I know.”
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You knew where I lived.”
“Yes.”
“You watched Evelyn raise me.”
“I watched her control you.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I collected evidence.”
“For twenty seven years?”
His silence was answer enough.
Catherine stepped beside me.
“Thomas believed the network was too powerful to confront directly.”
“He was right,” Evelyn said.
She sat near Madison, her champagne dress stained with dust and ash.
“Everyone who tried disappeared.”
Thomas opened a weatherproof case.
Inside were original property deeds, recordings, and photographs connecting Grant, Preston’s father, county officials, and several corporate executives to illegal land transfers.
He also carried a document from Vale Alpine Holdings.
Elias saw it and became very still.
Thomas handed it to me.
Six months earlier, Vale Alpine’s internal security team had detected fuel purchases, suspicious land options, and communications suggesting someone intended to damage the eastern ridge.
Elias knew there was a potential threat.
I looked at my husband.
“You knew a fire was possible.”
“We did not know when or where.”
“You knew White Pine was involved.”
“I knew someone was monitoring the property.”
“And you let me work without warning.”
“I increased security around you.”
“That is not the same as telling me the truth.”
“No.”
Elias did not defend himself.
That honesty hurt less than excuses, but it did not erase the secrecy.
Thomas looked toward him.
“You were supposed to keep her away from the chateau today.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“You told me the threat had moved east.”
“I was wrong.”
“You used my company to monitor Claire.”
“I used every resource available.”
I stepped between them.
“Neither of you gets to discuss me like a protected asset.”
They fell silent.
Special Prosecutor Ward returned with an update.
Grant’s vehicle had been found near the lower service road.
It was empty.
Inside were two fuel containers, a satellite phone, and a remote connection to the state emergency system.
Grant had not been merely an investor.
He had been directing parts of the response through stolen credentials.
Ward’s technical specialist examined the phone.
“A new evacuation authorization was issued three minutes ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“Under whose account?”
“Yours.”
The order redirected fire crews away from the eastern ridge.
If they obeyed, the flames would reach the largest fuel reserve before nightfall.
Thousands of acres would burn.
White Pine Chateau would become surrounded.
I called the operations center.
The dispatcher answered immediately.
“Deputy Director Mercer, we received your reroute order.”
“Cancel it. The authorization is fraudulent.”
A pause followed.
“We cannot.”
“Why?”
“It carries the governor’s emergency override.”
Grant had access far beyond my office.
Thomas looked toward the ridge.
“The fire was never intended only to lower property values.”
Catherine gripped my arm.
“What was the real target?”
“The mountain.”
He explained that beneath the eastern ridge was a sealed military communications facility built during the Cold War. Vale Alpine had discovered it during a geological survey but kept the finding confidential.
The facility contained old encrypted archives.
Land records.
Government transactions.
And evidence connecting powerful families to decades of illegal acquisitions.
Grant intended to burn the forest, force an emergency excavation, and remove the archive before investigators arrived.
Preston stared at him.
“He never told me.”
“You were never a partner,” Thomas said. “You were another person he planned to blame.”
Madison laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this family married someone who was using them.”
Evelyn looked at Grant’s abandoned vehicle on the security screen.
“No. Grant loved me.”
Thomas turned toward her.
“Grant married you because Catherine’s disappearance gave you access to the trust.”
The final certainty disappeared from Evelyn’s face.
The woman who spent her life choosing Madison over me had just learned she might also have been chosen for her usefulness.
A radio sounded.
Fire crews reported movement near the eastern facility.
Security cameras showed Grant entering an underground access tunnel.
He was not alone.
A woman walked beside him wearing an emergency command jacket identical to mine.
The camera captured her face.
She looked enough like me to pass at a distance.
The same woman had entered my office with Preston.
Madison stood.
“That is not me.”
Thomas stared at the image.
“No.”
Catherine’s hand began trembling.
“I know her.”
The woman removed her hood.
She was my age.
She had Catherine’s gray eyes and Evelyn’s sharp mouth.
Thomas closed the case.
“Claire, there is something your mother and I never told you.”
I looked from him to Catherine.
“What?”
“The avalanche did not separate us from one daughter.”
The woman on the screen turned toward the camera as if she knew we were watching.
Thomas spoke quietly.
“You had a twin sister.”
Evelyn rose so quickly that her chair fell backward.
“That is impossible.”
Catherine looked at her.
“You raised the wrong child.”
The room went silent.
I felt Elias’s hand near mine, but I could not take it.
On the screen, my twin used my stolen credentials to unlock the underground facility.
Grant followed her inside.
Before the steel door closed, she lifted a phone toward the camera.
My phone began ringing.
I answered.
Her voice sounded almost exactly like mine.
“You kept the mountain, Claire.”
Behind her, Grant activated a row of fuel charges beneath the ridge.
My sister smiled.
“I kept everything underneath it.”
The call ended.
A countdown appeared on the facility screen.
Ten minutes.
Outside, the wildfire changed direction again.
May you like
This time, it was moving directly toward White Pine Chateau.
Continue to the next part: Claire must enter the burning mountain to confront the twin sister who has been using her identity for years and discover which daughter Evelyn was actually ordered to raise.
