Page 18 of Hell and High Water

“My takeaway is that they really have a flair for the dramatic. Kinda like you…”

“You’re just as much of a performer, in your own way.”

He’s dead on, though. The whole thing stinks of drama, intrigue. Who could resist?

Especially people like us who thrive in the clinch, the stress of making the impossible a reality. I make dreams come true. Tell becomes another person to discover impossible secrets.

“Recap. We know that one of them is Hellena's father, Damon.” Tell rubs his face with both palms.

“Theirs is the only family that traces all the way back. However, yesterday, I finally dug up a list of ten of the richest families that first settled here. Safe to say that seven of those heads of household may have been our founders.”

“So we trace family trees, name changes, aliases. What do you want to bet some of those families are still around?”

“That was my intention. Except this is Sanctum Harbor. There’s always been someone like you, like me, covering up for people, making sure they don’t get exposed.”

“So no family trees. There’s got to be records, though.”

“Some. It’s almost three hundred years’ worth of information, and most of it is piecemeal. Not every one of my predecessors kept as good of records as I did. Not to mention digital record keeping didn’t exist for the better part of the town’s history.”

“Are you saying there’s a secret library warehouse somewhere filled with secret redacted files?”

“Probably.”

“Dude! That’s awesome!”

“Sure, if you can magically find us a treasure map.”

“YES. Call me Jones, Telliana Jones.”

“What?” I look up, raising an eyebrow.

“Please tell me you’ve seen…never mind.”

Of course I’ve seen the movies, but I love getting to him that way.

“Anyway, you said before that Rachelle, or the “Herald”, mentioned that it was a bloodline thing.”

“True, but that doesn’t guarantee it stayed in the family for certain. It’s the best I have to go on, though, so my next step is to start tracing properties. Those are a little easier to find a paper trail on.”

“Then we just have to search every one of them to check them off the list?”

“The bulk are residential, now, owned by nobodies. I just need to trace the big money. They would need land to conceal locations. Power. Water.”

“Alright… so back to the pile, I guess,” Tell grumbles, flapping another page down.

“Take these. Let’s focus on historical land grants for now.”

“Oh. Goodie.”

Another few hours slip by.

Tell breaks the silence. “Do you think they know each other?”

“No clue.”

“They would at least have to have some sort of meeting or communication, right?”

“It’s the digital era, Tell. They could encode calls. Change their voices. Faces.”

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