Chapter 8 Diner Stakeout and Desperate Threats
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If you have never experienced the sheer logistical absurdity of a five-foot-two Southern woman attempting to blend into the scenery while wearing a straw sunhat roughly the circumference of a satellite dish, consider yourself blessed.
"Birdie, take that thing off," I hissed, pressing my spine firmly against the cracked maroon vinyl of booth number four at the Mountain View Diner. "You look like a patio umbrella with an identity crisis."
"I am undercover, Margaret," Birdie whispered back with terrifying intensity. She adjusted enormous tortoiseshell sunglasses that swallowed half her face. "Spies do not blow their cover in the theater of operations. Read a book."
"We are not in the theater of operations. We are twelve feet from the soft-serve machine in Black Walnut Cove. And the sun set behind the ridge forty-five minutes ago."
"All the more reason to maintain optical vigilance," she insisted, peering through the diner’s grease-smeared window. "Look at him out there. He’s sweating through a four-hundred-dollar dress shirt like a sinner at a tent revival. I told you my sixth sense was tingling."
Through the plastic blinds, I watched Gregory Vance pacing frantically on the sidewalk between the curb and the hardware store.
The late Eleanor Vance’s Raleigh-based second cousin looked even less like an untouchable hedge-fund hotshot today than he had on Tuesday.
His lavender collar was limp with sweat, his sandy hair was plastered to his temples, and he was chewing his thumbnail down to the quick.
Every thirty seconds, he checked his phone and glanced behind him as if expecting the highway patrol.
Then, a sleek black sedan with tinted windows and Charlotte plates pulled smoothly to the curb.
Gregory jumped as though a starter pistol had fired behind his ears.
"Incoming," Birdie muttered, dropping her chin and hoisting the laminated dessert menu to the bridge of her nose. "Target at two o'clock. Act natural. Order something that requires extensive chewing."
Before I could point out that acting natural did not include hiding behind a laminated dessert menu in resort wear, our waitress, Darla, ambled over with a decaf pot.
Darla had slung chicken-fried steak at the Mountain View Diner since Richard Nixon was in office, and little in the known universe could shake her.
"Afternoon, Maggie," Darla drawled, pouring two inches of brown liquid into my mug. She shifted her gaze to Birdie, her left eyebrow hitching upward. "Afternoon, Birdie. Didn't know we was expecting a hurricane indoors."
"It’s an ocular condition, Darla," Birdie replied with icy composure from behind her oversized shades. "Glaucoma flare-up. Doctors in Charlotte said direct fluorescent lighting could blind me before nightfall."
Darla chewed her peppermint gum in three slow beats. "Uh-huh. Well, the blue-plate is meatloaf, but if you're going blind, I'd suggest the Salisbury steak. You won't have to look at the gravy."
"We'll take a pitcher of sweet tea," I intervened hastily as the brass bell above the diner door jingled. "And a basket of sweet potato fries. Extra ranch."
"Make it two baskets," Birdie added in a conspiratorial whisper. "And hushpuppies. Tactical cover requires carbohydrates."
Darla sighed with the patience of a saint and pocketed her pen. "Two fry baskets, hushpuppies, pitcher of sweet. Y'all let me know when the circus train gets in."
She waddled away just as the front door clicked shut.
Crisp mountain air swept into the diner, carrying expensive cologne and impending doom.
The floorboards groaned, followed by the hurried footfalls of a man being herded against his will. Behind him came the heavy, deliberate tread of Italian leather soles.
"Over here," a voice rumbled.
It was flat, urban, and sharp enough to fillet a trout.
"Mr. Stone, please, we could talk in the car," Gregory stammered, his pitch rising near a dog whistle. "My rental has tinted glass—"
"I don't conduct business in rental sedans that smell of panic, Vance," the voice replied. "Sit down."
To my horror and Birdie’s glee, the two men slid directly into booth number five—the high-backed vinyl booth directly behind us.
The partition between our booths was made of cracked faux leather and forty years of compressed foam, meaning every breath, rustle of wool, and squeak of nervous sweat resonated straight into the back of my skull.
Birdie grabbed my wrist across the table, her fingernails sinking into my denim jacket like grappling hooks. Her mouth formed a silent, ecstatic *O*.
"Sit still," I mouthed, swatting her hand away.
I tilted my ear toward the vinyl seam. Through the narrow gap between the seat cushion and the wooden partition, I caught my first glimpse of Stone.
He was late forties, razor-cut silver crewcut, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than my first delivery truck.
His cold slate eyes scanned the room like an assassin checking exits.
Gregory slumped opposite him, mopping his neck with a crumpled napkin.
"You're late, Gregory," Stone said softly. The quietness of his tone was far more terrifying than a shout.
"The mountain pass was backed up behind a logging truck," Gregory babbled, hands trembling so hard he nearly upset the sugar dispenser. "I haven't slept in three days, Mr. Stone."
"I don't care about your circadian rhythms," Stone said evenly.
"I care about the syndicate's ninety-day option on the Vance acreage.
We put four hundred and fifty thousand dollars into your escrow account to secure the timber and development rights to Blackwood Mountain.
That option expires tomorrow at midnight. "
"I know the deadline!" Gregory hissed, leaning forward. "The probate court in Asheville just needs another week to verify the lineage—"
"Do not lie to me, you pathetic little bureaucrat." Stone’s voice dropped, slicing like a razor. "We ran a title audit out of Charlotte yesterday. Eleanor Vance’s estate is not in clear probate. There is a cloud on the mountain deed. A massive cloud."
I held my breath. Across the table, Birdie pressed her ear against the vinyl trim.
"That's just a clerical error!" Gregory squeaked. "An old boundary dispute from the nineteenth century! It's nothing—"
"A boundary dispute?" Stone tapped a manicured fingernail against the table.
*Click. Click. Click.* "The county registrar received an inquiry Monday from a legal foundation regarding an Appalachian land conservancy trust established in 1845.
If that trust is valid, Eleanor Vance didn't own the timber rights, the mineral rights, or the dirt beneath her porch.
The entire twelve hundred acres reverts to a public trust."
"It's not valid!" Gregory whispered harshly. "The original charter document was lost eighty years ago! There's no record in the courthouse—"
"Because Eleanor’s grandfather stole the master registry ledger and hid it in that house," Stone countered smoothly.
"And you knew it. That’s why you hired that pompous fraud from Atlanta, Julian Croft.
You brought him in under the guise of an appraisal to sweep the house and locate the 1845 ledger before the conservancy could get an injunction. "
My heart pounded against my ribs. *Julian Croft.*
Gregory let out a shuddering gasp. "Julian was supposed to bring it straight to me! I promised him twenty-five percent of the timber profits once the ridge was logged and parcelled for luxury cabins. He had the keys to the carriage house, access to the study—"
"And where is Croft now, Gregory?" Stone asked with cold amusement. "In a refrigerated drawer at the morgue with his skull bashed in by antique brass."
"I didn't do that!" Gregory choked out, so shrill an old farmer three booths down looked up from his chili.
Gregory caught himself and lowered his voice frantically.
"I swear, Mr. Stone, Julian tried to double-cross me!
He called Tuesday morning laughing. He said he found the secret compartment in the Moravian desk.
He said the ledger had the signed conveyance charter tucked inside the back cover.
He demanded two hundred thousand in cash upfront, or he was selling it directly to the conservancy! "
"And then he ended up dead," Stone said coldly.
"Somebody got to him before I could get up the mountain!" Gregory pleaded. "When I arrived Tuesday afternoon, the place was crawling with deputies and that meddling antique woman in the apron!"
Birdie’s jaw tightened. She glared at the wall as if wishing it were Gregory's throat.
"I don't care about your dead appraiser, Gregory," Stone said with chilling finality.
"My investors certainly don't care about village drama.
We have pre-sold timber contracts to a pulp mill in Georgia.
If that unencumbered deed is not in my hands by five o'clock tomorrow, we call in the entire four hundred and fifty thousand note.
Plus the sixty-percent default penalty."
"I don't have that liquidity!" Gregory whimpered. "The SEC is auditing my accounts in Raleigh—if you pull the escrow, I'm going to federal prison!"
"Then I suggest you find that ledger," Stone replied, voice silky and remorseless. "Burn it. Shred it. Feed it to mountain goats. Ensure that land trust never sees daylight. If my investors lose millions over an antique book, prison will feel like a vacation."
"I'm handling it!" Gregory stammered desperately.
"The carriage house was searched, but the desk is being moved to Callahan’s warehouse for tomorrow's preview.
The ledger has to be hidden somewhere in the house or the shop.
I will get it tonight. The mountain will be ours.
We will clear-cut every oak on that ridge! "
"Tomorrow. Five o'clock," Stone said, sliding out. "Don't walk me to the car. You smell like failure."
Stone rose, his footsteps receding with deadly precision before the bell chimed.