The final roll of film was different; the images were taken outside the car, in a place Elias recognized instantly. It was the Old Quarry, a place where kids used to go to hide from the prying eyes of their parents. The photos showed the girls standing at the edge of the deep, dark water.
In the very last photo, they weren’t alone; a group of men stood in a circle around them, their faces obscured by the harsh flash. One of them was holding a ledger—the same kind used by the local bank to track high-interest loans. Elias realized this wasn’t about a crime of passion; it was business. The girls hadn’t just disappeared; they had witnessed something they weren’t supposed to see at the quarry that night. They had seen the “pillars of the community” conducting a deal that would have ended their careers and sent them to prison. The car in the creek wasn’t an accident; it was a burial.
Elias heard the sound of several engines approaching his shed, the light of multiple headlamps cutting through the cracks in the metal siding. They were coming for the evidence, and they weren’t going to knock this time. He grabbed the satchel and his keys, looking for a way out.
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