Chapter 2: The Tunnel Beneath The Farm
The watch wasn't a watch.
It was a key.
Hidden beneath the back cover was a tiny brass key.
The old man introduced himself.
"My name is Walter Finch."
"You knew my father?"
He nodded.
"We served together."
He led me to the remains of the barn.
The bulldozer had unknowingly exposed an old concrete hatch buried beneath the floor.
Garrett had never known it existed.
Neither had I.
The tiny key fit perfectly.
Click.
The hatch opened.
Cold air rushed upward.
A staircase disappeared into darkness.
Walter smiled.
"He always said..."
"'If greed destroys the barn... the truth will finally come out.'"
We climbed down.
The underground room looked untouched.
Shelves.
Locked cabinets.
Military crates.
Boxes filled with journals.
Then...
One enormous steel safe.
Inside...
Not gold.
Not cash.
Hundreds of land deeds.
Maps.
Legal files.
Photographs.
And one thick folder labeled:
LAWSON FAMILY – NEVER DESTROY
My hands shook.
I opened it.
Inside was a survey map nearly seventy years old.
The farm didn't end where everyone believed.
It stretched another twelve hundred acres.
Land nobody had claimed.
Land everyone forgot.
Today...
Worth nearly two billion dollars because of a newly discovered lithium deposit.
Walter quietly said,
"Your father found out six months ago."
I couldn't breathe.
"So Garrett..."
Walter nodded.
"He sold the wrong property."
Then another envelope slid from the folder.
My name.
Handwritten.
May you like
Inside was only one sentence.
Don't trust your brother. He already knows who killed your grandfather.
