Chapter 6 - THE RED LIGHT IN THE FOREST
The mechanical buzz was thin and high-pitched, like an angry hornet trapped in a jar. I stood up instantly, my muscles locking with tension. I walked to the small window of the office, peering through a crack in the rotting wood shutters.
Outside, the forest was dark and wet, but fifty feet above the trees, a small quadcopter drone was hovering. A bright, unblinking red light glowed from its underside—a thermal imaging camera scanning the structure for heat signatures.
The fire in the wood stove.
"Damn it," I muttered under my breath. The stove was venting smoke and heat directly through the chimney pipe. To a thermal camera in the cold night air, this place would look like a beacon. They didn't need to know my family history to find us; they were simply running grid searches of abandoned structures along the highway corridor using advanced surveillance gear.
"Noah," I shook his shoulder gently. "Wake up, buddy. We have to move."
He blinked awake, instantly alert, the terror returning to his eyes. "Are they here?"
"They're looking for us from the air," I said, dousing the fire with a bucket of stagnant water from the corner of the room. The space instantly plunged into darkness, filled with the sharp, acrid scent of wet ash and charcoal. "Grab your jacket. We can't use the car. The drone will spot the headlights the second we clear the roof."
We slipped out the back door of the foreman's office, entering the deep undergrowth of the pine forest just as the drone began to descend toward the cutting floor entrance. The wet pine needles muffled our footsteps, but the terrain was steep and treacherous. Every step was a battle against slippery mud and hidden roots that threatened to twist our ankles.
I kept my arm around Noah, guiding him through the darkness as we climbed the ridge behind the mill. The rain had softened to a cold, persistent drizzle, soaking through my thin sweater until I was shivering uncontrollably.
After twenty minutes of blind climbing, we reached the crest of the hill. Below us, the main road was visible through the breaks in the trees. A single black SUV stood parked on the shoulder, its hazard lights blinking rhythmically. Two men in dark rain gear stood by the hood, holding tablet screens—likely the operators controlling the search drone.
One of the men looked up, his flashlight beam slicing through the tree line, missing us by less than ten feet.
"Emily," Noah whispered, his teeth chattering from the cold. "Look at the watch."
I looked down at the brass watch in my hand. In the darkness of the forest, the glass face had begun to glow with a faint, phosphorescent green light. It wasn't standard paint. It was radium, old and brilliant, illuminating a secondary set of markings etched into the metal rim that hadn't been visible in the bright hospital room or by the firelight.
Beneath the number four was a tiny latitude coordinate: 45.357. Beneath the number seven was a longitude marker: -122.341.
I knew those numbers. They weren't just random coordinates in the wilderness. They were the geographic markers for the old McIver park boat launch along the Clackamas River—less than three miles from where we were standing.
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Megan hadn't just hidden a code. She had hidden a physical drop box near the water.
"Come on," I whispered, pulling Noah closer as we turned away from the road and began our descent down the opposite side of the ridge, heading toward the rushing sound of the river in the distance.
