Page 91 of Obscurity
Which meant that everyone she cared about—including Jason—was now in danger from an enemy who’d been planning his moves for over a decade.
The Grayfall Festival grounds looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster.
Federal agents moved methodically through the campsite, documenting evidence and taking statements, while confused festivalgoers packed their belongings with the bewildered efficiency of people who still couldn’t quite process what had happened to their weekend getaway.
In the distance, the members of Obscurity were setting up their equipment on the makeshift stage—apparently no one had thought to tell them that their headlining performance was now completely irrelevant. The surreal sound of a proper sound check drifted across the ruins of what had been an elaborate criminal conspiracy.
Olive sat on a fallen log near the old mercantile building, her laptop open as she coordinated with Rex via satellite phone. Tevin sat beside her, uploading encrypted files to Aegis servers, while Jason stood guard with the casual alertness of someone who’d learned not to trust apparent safety.
“Forensic teams are processing the mine,” Rex’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Initial estimates suggest this operation extracted more than fifty million dollars’ worth of lithium and rare earth elements. We’re tracking shell companies across six states now.”
“What about the helicopter?” Olive asked, though she already suspected the answer.
“Gone. But we’ll find them eventually—operations this size leave paper trails.”
Olive hoped that was the truth. But a measure of doubt still lingered inside her.
CHAPTER 70
Across the campsite, Chloe Kingston sat wrapped in a blanket beside Tristan Pembroke, who looked like he’d aged five years in the past twenty-four hours. He’d told them her father was sending a helicopter for her.
Maya Riggs was, predictably, documenting everything for her social media followers, though her tone had shifted from influencer enthusiasm to genuine journalism. “This is probably the most insane story I’ll ever tell,” she’d said while setting up her camera. “My followers are not going to believe this.”
Dr. Z—whose real name turned out to be Dr. Martin Zimmerman—sat on the curb with a calculator, apparently trying to figure out how much money he’d lost.
The local sheriff, a weathered man in his sixties named Patterson, was clearly in over his head trying to coordinate the evacuation of several hundred disappointed festivalgoers while federal agents processed a major crime scene around them.
“Most folks just want to get home and pretend this never happened,” he’d told Olive. “Can’t say I blame them.”
Neither could she.
She glanced at the woods above the town. She no longer saw the Dark Watchers there. Maybe they really were townspeopletrying to protect this place but feeling voiceless. When Chloe said, “The trees are watching,” she must have meant the people in the woods. The forest did feel like it had its eyes on everything.
Perhaps that was what had happened to those missing hikers as well. They’d stumbled somewhere they hadn’t been welcomed. They’d paid the price with their lives.
Their bodies had been found buried in the woods close to the migrant camp.
Just then, someone else caught Olive’s eye.
Someone she really wanted to speak with.
She excused herself and headed across the grounds.
Elias Mercer stood near the food tent, speaking with a federal investigator who took detailed notes. The lodge owner looked like a man who’d been carrying a terrible burden and was finally able to set it down.
“I agreed to help host people and get them to Grayfall,” she heard him saying as she approached. “They said it was just a music festival, maybe a little unconventional, but legitimate. I had no idea all of this was going on.”
“But you suspected something,” the investigator pressed.
“Toward the end, yes. The organizer was very pushy, very controlling. When I tried to back out of the arrangement, things at the lodge would get sabotaged. Equipment would break, supplies would go missing. The message was clear—cooperate or suffer the consequences.”
“And Connor Walsh was your primary contact?”
“Him and a few others. But Connor was the one who made it clear what would happen if I didn’t cooperate.” Elias’s voicecarried genuine regret. “I should have called the authorities, but they made it seem like I was already too deep in to get out clean.”
The investigator made a few more notes, then moved away to interview other witnesses. Olive approached Elias, who looked up at her with the weary recognition of someone who’d been expecting this conversation.
“Could I have a moment alone with you?” Olive asked.
