PART 1: The Silence Left Behind
The smoke was still fresh in the air when they drove past what had been Evelyn's cabin.
All that remained was blackened timber and a metal frame, still hissing where the rain hadn't quite cooled it.
No sign of her. No footprints. No car.
Just absence.
Back in Eldenport, Izzy sat in her living room, the USB drive plugged into her laptop, screen glowing in the dark. Jack stood behind her, arms crossed, eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep.
Most of the files were corrupted — folders with names like "BLACKSTAR_LEASE_CHAIN" and "MT_ALT_LEDGER" showed up as gibberish. Password-locked, broken links, dead formats.
But one remained.
A video.
Unlabeled. Dated seven months ago.
Izzy clicked it open.
The screen flickered.
Arthur Rourke appeared. Leaner. Paler. His tie was crooked, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in two days.
The camera was handheld. The angle wobbled.
Arthur leaned forward and spoke directly to the lens.
"If you're seeing this, then I didn't fix it in time."
He glanced over his shoulder. The light behind him was weak. Wood-paneled room. No windows.
"Thorne knows. He's cleaned at least three of the boards. Shells in place. I tried pulling back the Blackstar structure, but it's been split again. They're using proxies I can't trace.
"If you can — burn the trust. If not..."
(He paused. Rubbed his face.)
"Then tell the girl to stay ahead of Marcus. He doesn't use people. He installs them. Like furniture. And when they stop being useful..."
(Another pause. His eyes darkened.)
"I never wanted her in this. Not her. I swear to God, not her."
(Cut to black.)
Silence.
Jack exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the whole time.
Izzy closed the laptop.
"He meant Leah," Jack said.
Izzy didn't speak.
He paced the room. "I have to talk to her."
"You tried already," Izzy reminded him.
"I'll try again."
"She's not going to listen to a voicemail."
"She won't need to. I'll go in person."
Izzy stood. "That's not safe."
"I don't care."
He walked to the door. She didn't follow.
Nadine answered wearing a bathrobe and fury.
"You are not coming in," she said before Jack even opened his mouth.
"I just want to talk to her."
"She doesn't want to talk to you."
Jack tried to see past her — down the hallway, toward the bedroom light. "Please."
"No," Nadine said. "You always show up with chaos behind you. Not this time."
"I'm trying to protect her."
"From what?" she snapped. "From another lie? From another debt? From you?"
Jack didn't respond.
She stepped back. Softened — barely.
"If you care about her," she said, "then stay the hell away."
And she shut the door.
Jack stood on the steps for a long time, listening to the silence inside.
No footsteps.
No voice.
No daughter.
Just the wind.
PART 2: Freeze Order
Jack opened the door barefoot.
It was just past 8 a.m., and the hallway outside his apartment still smelled like burnt toast from someone else's breakfast disaster.
The man at the door wore a crisp black suit, a beige folder in one hand, and a faint smile like he enjoyed what he was about to say.
"Mr. Rourke?"
Jack didn't answer. Just stared.
"You've been served."
He handed Jack the folder, tipped an imaginary hat, and turned without another word.
Jack shut the door and stood in the kitchen for a moment, holding the unopened file like it might detonate.
Then he flipped it open.
It was a formal freeze notice.
Issued by a private court in a commercial district. Emergency ruling.
In re: Rourke, Jack — Financial Tampering, Suspicious Transfers, Protective Custody of Financial Assets
He scanned the lines.
All known checking and savings accounts frozen.
Any incoming funds above $250 flagged.
Credit rating suspension pending audit.
At the bottom, a signature:
Judge Willis Reever — 12th Private Equity Tribunal
Affiliated counsel: Haskell, Vaughn & Thorne LLP
Jack laughed.
A bitter, ragged laugh that didn't sound like humor.
Thirty minutes later, Izzy was pacing her office, the file in her hands, eyes burning through the pages.
"It's not a legal freeze," she said. "It's a financial blackball."
Jack sat on the arm of her worn leather chair, head in his hands. "Can they do this?"
"Not in a fair system. But in Thorne's system? Yeah."
"He's cutting my legs out."
"No," she said. "He's cutting your options out."
She tossed the file on her desk. "They want you reactive. Scrambling. They want to distract us while the trust kicks in."
Jack looked up. "So what do we do?"
Izzy tapped the desk twice.
"Same thing we've been doing. Stay ahead."
She picked up her burner phone, scrolled to a number marked V.
Then she texted:
Status?
A moment later, it buzzed.
Alive. Will talk. One time only. North line. No cops.
She turned to Jack.
"Carl Vanz just raised his hand."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"Friend of yours?"
"Friend of Arthur's," she said.
"And Thorne?"
Izzy smiled without warmth.
"Carl used to count his money."
PART 3: North to Vanz
The road turned to gravel ten miles past Barre, then narrowed again to dirt. Trees leaned in overhead like they were trying to close the path behind her.
Izzy followed the hand-drawn map Carl had texted.
No address. Just landmarks: "right at the rusted tractor," "past the white mailbox with no house," "when the road dies, walk."
And she did.
For a quarter-mile, she hiked the rest on foot, boots crunching over frost-hardened pine needles, air sharp with woodsmoke and cold moss.
Then she saw it.
A rust-colored trailer tucked into a clearing. Solar panels half-covered with leaves. A lean-to stacked with firewood. No visible antenna. No generator.
Just a man on the porch with a shotgun across his lap, waiting.
Carl Vanz didn't stand when she approached.
Didn't wave.
Didn't smile.
He just watched her like she might be the last problem he'd ever solve.
"You Diaz?" he asked, voice dry as gravel.
"Izzy."
He gestured with the barrel of the shotgun. "Sit. Not close."
She obeyed.
For a minute, they just sat in silence. A crow cawed somewhere above the trees.
Then she pulled out Arthur's ledger.
The green one.
Carl leaned forward slightly, squinting.
When he spoke again, his tone was different.
"Didn't think I'd see that again."
"You helped build it."
"I helped bury it."
Izzy opened the ledger to the page marked LEAH ROURKE TRUST.
Carl nodded once. "That one's new."
"Not to Thorne."
Carl spat into the dirt. "Bastard got clever."
"Can you help me dismantle it?"
He looked up at her, face unreadable.
"Lady, you're asking me to rip the threads out of a bomb I stitched ten years ago."
She said nothing.
Carl took a long breath, then stood. The shotgun never left his grip.
"One condition."
"Name it."
"My name stays gone. I give you what you need — timelines, sign-offs, route maps, backdoors. But I don't testify. I don't email. I don't exist."
Izzy nodded. "Fair."
Carl gave her a thin smile.
"Then come on inside."
He opened the trailer door.
"Let's talk about ghosts."
PART 4: Two Ticking Clocks
Jack stared at the calendar pinned to the side of Izzy's fridge.
The date circled in red had been there for weeks. He just hadn't looked at it long enough to see what it meant.
July 18th.
Leah's birthday.
Four days.
He turned to Izzy, who stood over her laptop at the kitchen table, phone on speaker, Carl's voice crackling through it.
"Say that again?" Izzy asked.
Carl sighed. "There are five accounts. All are set to auto-transfer assets out of dormant status on the 18th at 09:00 UTC. Once that happens, the assets appear under Leah's name — and no one can undo it without full criminal proceedings."
Izzy scribbled fast in her notebook. "What's the receiving institution?"
"Two in Zurich. One in Dubai. One in Grand Cayman. The last one's trickier — flagged under a 'provisional stabilization network' based out of São Paulo."
"Brazil?" Jack asked, incredulous.
"No," Carl said. "Worse. Brazil adjacent."
Izzy looked up from the notes. "Can we intercept?"
"I can give you the bank node info. You'll need Leah's notarized consent or full guardianship override. And even then? They'll stall. Especially if Thorne's people are watching."
Jack stepped toward the table.
"I'm going to her."
Izzy didn't look away from the laptop. "You can't force this."
"I'm not. I'm going to tell her. She needs to know."
Midday. Overcast.
Jack leaned against a bus stop pole across from Leah's high school, hood pulled low.
He waited through two bell rings, a class change, and the start of lunch period before he saw her.
Backpack. Jacket. Hair up. Headphones in.
She walked out to the front steps with a group of friends, then slowed.
Stopped.
She saw him.
For a moment, Jack froze.
She didn't say anything. Didn't wave.
But she didn't look away, either.
Jack raised a hand slowly. Not a wave. Just... presence.
Leah looked at him.
Then, quietly, turned and walked back inside.
No words. No signal.
But she'd seen him.
And she hadn't walked faster.
Back at Izzy's, Jack sat on the couch, silent.
Izzy tapped on the laptop, her tone low. "Carl says we'll have the full account map by morning. But it's close. Too close."
Jack rubbed his face. "She saw me."
Izzy looked over. "Did she say anything?"
"No. But she didn't run."
"That's something."
"It's not enough."
Izzy closed the laptop.
"Four days," she said.
Jack stared at the ceiling.
"Not enough time to fix everything."
Izzy nodded.
"Just enough to try."
PART 5: Power of Attorney
The printer spat out the final page with a slow, mechanical sigh.
Izzy yanked it off the tray and laid it on the table beside the others. Three copies. Signature lines. Notary fields. Paragraphs of dense legalese strung together like barbed wire.
At the top:
PETITION TO INTERCEPT AND DISSOLVE TRUST ENTITY — ROURKE, LEAH
Carl's voice crackled through the phone, half-static from the Vermont ridgeline.
"That document gives you one shot," he said. "Get her to sign it, get it notarized, and upload the scan to the receiving banks before the activation window hits. They'll freeze the trust pending review."
Izzy nodded. "And if she doesn't sign?"
"Then it activates. And it's her name on half a decade of money laundering."
Jack leaned against the kitchen wall, arms crossed. "Then I need to talk to her. For real this time."
Izzy gave him a hard look. "No speeches. No guilt."
"I know."
"No apologies either. They're useless currency right now."
Jack nodded once. "Got it."
Izzy handed him the folder.
"Find her. Don't rush her. But don't leave without a signature."
Jack took it.
The folder felt heavier than it should.
Outside Nadine's house, the porch light flicked on as he stepped up.
The door opened before he knocked.
Leah stood there.
No headphones. No backpack. Just her.
She looked at the folder in his hand, then up at him.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
She stared at him for a long time.
Then stepped back.
"Five minutes."
Back in Izzy's apartment, the screen showed the countdown Carl had built into a simple clock.
03 days. 17 hours. 12 minutes.
Izzy sipped her coffee and whispered to herself:
"He doesn't need to kill her. Just the signature."