Chapter 13 - The Hearthstone
Thirty-eight miles away, the afternoon sun cast long, skeletal shadows across the boarded windows of the Marlow homestead.
On the second floor, in what had once been the master bedroom where Mark Marlow drew his last breaths at home, the air was cold and smelled of old cedar and damp chimney soot.
Tobias Crane was kneeling in front of the massive hearth, holding an antique iron mason’s hammer.
Faye stood behind him, holding a high-intensity battery floodlight.
“Are you sure this is what Dad meant in the letter?” Faye asked, her voice trembling slightly as the wind rattled the plywood over the windows. “Della texted you twenty minutes ago to check the hearthstone, but this masonry looks solid.”
“Your dad didn't use standard Portland cement when he built this fireplace in ninety-four,” Tobias said, running his fingers along the mortar lines between the river rocks. “He used a soft lime mortar mixed with horsehair. It’s designed to look weathered, but it gives way under concentrated pressure.”
Tobias tapped the chisel into the center joint beneath the heavy carved oak mantelpiece.
With three sharp, rhythmic strikes of the hammer, the mortar crumbled like dry bread. Tobias set the chisel aside, inserted the tip of his framing bar, and gently levered the central river stone outward.
The eighty-pound stone slid forward on two concealed iron pins, swinging out like a vault door on hidden hinges.
Behind the stone sat a hollow chamber lined with sheet lead.
Inside was a weathered steel strongbox, painted with naval primer, secured by a heavy brass Yale padlock.
Before Tobias could touch the handle, the floorboards in the hallway outside creaked with the unmistakable weight of heavy footsteps.
Tobias froze. His hand moved silently to the twenty-four-ounce framing hammer resting in his tool belt.
“Faye,” he whispered, barely moving his lips. “Get behind the chimney breast. Now.”
The footsteps stopped outside the open bedroom door.
A man stepped into the frame.
He wasn't wearing judicial robes, and he wasn't carrying a gavel. Horace Albright was dressed in a dark wool overcoat and driving gloves, holding a small, snub-nosed .38 revolver resting at his side, pointed casually at the floorboards.
Behind him stood two men dressed in county sheriff’s reserve uniforms—men whose badges were pinned to civilian hunting jackets.
“Tobias Crane,” Albright said, his voice carrying the smooth, resonant baritone that had commanded courtroom benches for three decades. “You have your father’s stubbornness. And unfortunately for you, his complete lack of self-preservation.”
Faye let out a stifled gasp, pressing herself into the shadow of the chimney.
Albright didn't even look at her. His cold, pale eyes remained locked on the steel box sitting in the lead-lined void.
“Step away from the fireplace, Tobias,” Albright ordered, raising the revolver two inches until the muzzle was centered on Tobias’s chest. “You’ve spent enough time digging up things that don't belong to you.”
Tobias didn't move. He stood between Albright and the strongbox, his framing hammer held loosely in his right hand.
“Mark Marlow was your friend, Horace,” Tobias said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, rumbling growl. “You were the godfather at Della’s christening.”
“Mark was an idealist,” Albright said, stepping into the room, his leather soles crunching on the fallen mortar dust. “And idealists don't understand how power is maintained in this commonwealth. Mark wanted to lock up four hundred acres of the most valuable logistics land in western Pennsylvania in a public conservancy to protect a few hundred hemlocks. He was irrational.”
“So you had Eileen kill him?” Faye’s voice suddenly pierced the air, sharp and hysterical, as she stepped out from behind the chimney.
Albright’s gaze flickered to Faye, a look of profound, patronizing pity crossing his face. “Little Faye. The child who never asked a single question as long as her credit card cleared at the boutique.”
He chuckled—a dry, rattling sound. “Eileen didn't need my instructions to kill Mark. She was terrified of going back to being poor. All I did was leave the medical logs on her kitchen counter showing how easily an insulin dose could be miscalculated. She did the rest herself.”
He gestured with the revolver toward the strongbox. “Pull the box out, Crane. Place it on the floor. Now.”
Tobias didn't reach for the box.
Instead, he reached into his work vest pocket, pulled out his jobsite radio remote control, and pressed the center button.
Down in the driveway, the industrial horn on Tobias’s flatbed truck let out three deafening, rhythmic blasts that echoed across the valley like air-raid sirens.
Albright flinched, his eyes darting toward the window.
In that half-second of distraction, Tobias moved.
He didn't swing the hammer; he lunged low, driving his shoulder straight into Albright’s midsection, tackling the seventy-year-old judge onto the hardwood floorboards with bone-shattering force.
The gun fired.
The bullet tore upward into the ceiling, obliterating a plaster medallion in a shower of white dust.
The two reserve deputies surged into the room, their batons raised, but from the stairwell below came the sound of running boots, breaking wood, and a woman’s voice screaming with lethal authority:
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“STATE POLICE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! ON THE GROUND NOW!”
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