Page 73 of Fire Peak

“You’re just waking up? Are you okay?” Charlie murmured in her ear.

“I haven’t been sleeping well. Also, something happened. But I don’t want to tell Nick.”

Charlie turned to Nick and said stiffly, “Can you give us a minute?”

“Sure, I’ll…uh, check on Goldilocks.” He ambled over to the fish tank, while Lila tugged Charlie into her bedroom.

“I met Nick’s daughter,” she whispered. “And I got a strong feeling that something’s not right.”

Charlie rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead. She trusted Lila’s intuition, no matter how vague, but would Nick? “Any specifics?”

“No. I’m sorry. I told you, I don’t sense things as strongly here. That’s why I was pretty shocked when I got that feeling with Hailey. Will you watch out for her? Promise?”

Charlie thought of Hailey back at the cabin. She had plans with Elias later. He was going to teach her how to handle a knife. Survival skills 101, she called it. Surely she’d be safe with Elias around.

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell Nick?”

“He doesn’t know me. He’ll just think I’m imagining things. But it’s up to you,” she added quietly. “If you trust him, I trust him.”

Did she trust Nick? She didn’t know anymore. “Thanks for telling me, Lila. I’ll watch out for Hailey. Do you mind if we look at that old stash of papers I found behind the safe again?”

“Of course not. I love digging up stories from the old days.”

Charlie went into Lila’s bedroom and shifted the safe to the side. The folder was exactly where she’d left it. She brought it into the front room and emptied it onto the rug. As the three of them sorted through papers and photos, Charlie told Lila what they’d learned about Chadwick Tudor aka Bulldog.

“You know, that’s two tragic deaths tied to this hardware store,” Lila said. “Should I be worried?”

“Don’t even say that,” Charlie scolded her as she sorted through scraps of paper and documents. “If you get spooked, you can always stay with me at the lodge.”

“The lodge has bad vibes,” said Lila absentmindedly. She sat cross-legged on the floor to flip through an old photo album.

“Worse than murder?”

“Worse than murder, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

Charlie didn’t like the sound of that. Lila put aside the photo album and grabbed a handful of paperwork.

“Look at this!” Lila said triumphantly as she waved a yellowed document in the air. “This says Chadwick Tudor on it.”

“Oooh, jackpot.” Charlie leaned over to peer at it. “It looks like a will or something. What do you think, Nick?”

Lila angled the faded piece of paper so Nick could see it.

“It looks like it was notarized, but other than that, it’s handwritten.”

“I think they’re a lot more casual out here. Most everything was handwritten,” Lila explained. “Bear showed me his deed for The Fang, it’s in lovely cursive, from back when there was a notary here with really good handwriting.”

Charlie read aloud, filling in the blanks where she couldn’t make out the words. “‘In perpetuity, forthwith from the date of January tenth, nineteen seventy-nine, Chadwick Tudor III and Vasily Pyotr Petrov agree to equally and exclusively share all profits from any subsurface mining of Fire Peak.’ Wow. It’s notarized in the Borough of Fangtooth Gulch in the State of Alaska.”

They were all quiet, digesting that.

“Maybe that’s why Vasily is back,” Nick said slowly. “He wants to mine Fire Peak.”

“I bet April doesn’t want that.” Charlie glanced out the front bay window, but couldn’t catch a glimpse of Fire Peak from here. “This doesn’t say that he can mine it, just that he’d get half the profits. She’s the owner, after all.”

“Well, partially.” They both looked over at Lila, who held another old document. “They agreed to buy it together, April and Chadwick.”

Lila handed the faded piece of paper to Nick, who was closest to her. He scanned it, then read aloud, “April Whitfield and Chadwick Tudor III agree to equally share in the purchase of Fire Peak. Signed and dated, August ninth, nineteen seventy-eight.”

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