Jonah stared at the drive when she held it up.
"That contains enough evidence to put powerful people in prison."
"What evidence?"
"Illegal chemical dumping. Bribes. Falsified inspection reports. And something worse."
Nell waited.
Jonah glanced at the cliff above them.
"I didn't crash."
Her eyes followed his.
"What happened?"
"An SUV forced me off the road. Then somebody detonated a charge above the cliff."
Nell looked at the fresh rockslide again.
This time she noticed several black marks along the stone.
Blast marks.
Small.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
Jonah continued.
"They knew where I'd be."
"Who knew?"
"Only four people."
"Then one of your four people betrayed you."
"Yes."
Nell picked up the battery packs.
"What are these for?"
"The ventilation system."
Jonah looked west.
The sun was descending.
"Without those batteries, the emergency fans in the lower tunnel stop tonight."
Nell followed his gaze toward Gray Mesa.
"How long?"
"Maybe six hours."
"And after that?"
"They start running out of breathable air."
For several seconds Nell heard nothing but the wind.
Then she stood.
"Can you sit?"
"Probably."
"Good."
"What are you doing?"
"Getting you into my truck."
Jonah stared at her.
"Where are we going?"
Nell bent to help him up.
"You're going to tell me everything."
"And then?"
She looked toward the distant mesa.
"Then we're going to make sure those twelve people see sunrise."
Jonah Reddick weighed at least two hundred pounds.
Getting him into Nell's pickup required fifteen minutes, a blanket used as an improvised sling, a great deal of swearing from Jonah, and one threat from Nell to leave him beside the road if he continued trying to help.
At last he collapsed into the passenger seat.
Nell splinted his ankle.
She cleaned the cut near his temple and wrapped it.
Then she drove.
Her ranch stood eighteen miles away, closer than San Inez and far enough from the highway that unexpected visitors could be seen long before they reached the house.
"You really live alone out here?" Jonah asked.
"Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"I have forty-seven chickens."
He looked at her.
"They're terrible conversationalists."
Despite the pain, Jonah laughed.
It was the first time Nell saw something other than desperation in his face.
When they reached the ranch, she helped him into Henry's old workshop.
The room had remained almost untouched.
Tools lined the walls.
A workbench stood beneath the western window.
Henry's battered denim jacket still hung from a hook beside the door.
Nell had entered the room fewer than ten times since his death.
Jonah noticed her hesitation.
"This was his?"
"My husband's."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
She pointed toward a cot.
"Sit."
Nell removed his boot.
The ankle was badly sprained rather than broken.
"You're lucky."
"Today hasn't felt especially lucky."
"I found you."
Jonah considered that.
"Fair point."
She gave him water and two painkillers.
"Now talk."
Jonah took a long drink.
"I worked for Mesa Meridian for nine years."
Nell raised an eyebrow.
"You worked for Calder Vale?"
"Environmental compliance."
"That's ironic."
"Very."
He leaned back.
"I believed the company was legitimate. Most of it probably is. Highway projects, mineral recovery, reclamation. Then six months ago my brother Micah got hired at Gray Mesa."
"I thought the mine was closed."
"So did everyone."
Mesa Meridian had secured permits to conduct what it described publicly as a reclamation project.
The company claimed it was stabilizing old tunnels and removing contaminated soil.
But according to Jonah, the real operation happened after sunset.
Trucks arrived without manifests.
Barrels went underground.
Records were altered.
Workers were ordered not to ask questions.
Micah had begun sending his brother photographs.
Labels on some containers identified industrial solvents and heavy-metal waste.
Others had no markings at all.
Jonah investigated quietly.
"What did you find?"
"Vale was charging companies millions to dispose of hazardous waste legally. Instead, some of it was being buried inside abandoned mine chambers."
Nell's jaw tightened.
"Groundwater."
"Exactly."
Three small communities relied on aquifers beneath Gray Mesa.
If enough toxic material leaked into them, hundreds of families could eventually be exposed.
"Why not go to the Environmental Protection Agency?"
"I did."
"And?"
"I contacted an investigator named Claire Donnelly."
Nell studied him.
"One of your four trusted people?"
"No. Claire was careful. We were building a case."
Then three nights ago everything changed.
Micah called Jonah from inside the mine.
He whispered that workers had discovered a chamber filled with hundreds of leaking drums.
One engineer began photographing them.
Security arrived.
Phones were confiscated.
The workers were ordered into a lower equipment room.
Micah managed to hide a backup phone long enough to call Jonah.
Then the connection died.
"Why weren't they simply fired?"
"Because one of them had already copied records."
"The flash drive."
Jonah nodded.
"Micah got it out earlier that week and gave it to me."
Nell looked at the small device on the table.
"Then why keep the workers alive?"
"Vale's security chief thinks they don't know where the drive is. He's questioning them."
"And you?"
"They called me yesterday."
Jonah's expression hardened.
"A man said if I wanted my brother and the others released, I had to bring the drive to Gray Mesa by eight tonight."
"The batteries?"
"Micah told me where they were stored before he disappeared. The emergency ventilation below level four runs from an old independent system. He said it had maybe forty-eight hours of charge."
Nell checked the clock.
5:19 p.m.
"Less than three hours."
"Yes."
"Who knew you were traveling this road?"
"Four people. Claire Donnelly. My friend Mason Pike. A county emergency manager named Peter Danner. And my former supervisor at Mesa Meridian, Rachel Sloan."
Nell's hand stopped.
"What was the emergency manager's name?"
"Peter Danner."
The workshop suddenly seemed colder.
"You know him?"
Nell looked toward Henry's jacket.
"Pete worked with my husband."
Jonah sat straighter.
"At Gray Mesa?"
"For years."
Nell remembered Peter at twenty-three, skinny and eager, following Henry across the mine yard with a notebook sticking from his back pocket.
After the mine closed, Peter joined county emergency management.
He attended Henry's funeral.
He had stood beside Nell and cried.
"Would he know blasting?"
"Very well."
Silence filled the room.
Jonah looked toward her.
"That doesn't mean it was him."
"No."
But Nell's voice lacked conviction.
Her phone rang.
Both of them froze.
Unknown number.
Nell answered.
"Hello?"
For two seconds there was only static.
Then a man's voice.
"Mrs. Vance?"
Nell's skin prickled.
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Deputy Harland. We received a report about an accident on Red Mesa Road. Witness says an older green pickup left the scene carrying an injured motorcyclist."
Jonah shook his head rapidly.
Nell kept her voice calm.
"What witness?"
"Ma'am, I just need to know whether the injured person is with you."
Nell walked to the window.
Far across her property, the dirt road was empty.
"How did you get my number?"
A pause.
"We ran the vehicle description."
"There are six green pickups older than twenty years in this county."
Another pause.
Then the deputy's tone changed slightly.
"Mrs. Vance, if the man is there, he may be dangerous."
Jonah silently mouthed, Hang up.
The voice continued.
"We can send someone immediately."
Nell looked at Jonah.
"No need."
"Ma'am?"
"The motorcyclist wasn't alive when I reached him."
Jonah blinked.
"I checked for a pulse. Nothing."
Silence.
"Where's the body?"
"Under several thousand pounds of sandstone."
Another pause.
"Stay where you are. We'll send—"
Nell disconnected.
Jonah stared.
"You lie extremely well."
"I spent twenty-two years listening to husbands explain why their wives accidentally fell down stairs."
She locked the workshop door.