Chapter 9 - The Safehouse in the Ridge**
By 3:00 AM, the truck was winding through the dark pine-forested roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.
Ethan pulled off the main highway onto an unpaved gravel trail that led to a secluded hunting cabin.
The cabin had belonged to his grandfather—a place completely unlisted in any modern digital property registry.
He carried a sleeping Maya inside, laying her gently onto the small twin bed near the stone fireplace.
He built a fire with dry oak logs, the warm amber glow illuminating the simple wooden walls of the cabin.
He pulled his burner phone from his pocket, turning it on just long enough to receive a single encrypted message.
The message was from an unknown number, containing a short video file and a simple line of text:
*I have what Samantha deleted. Meet me at the diner in Roanoke at sunrise.*
Ethan stared at the glowing phone screen, his pulse hammering as he opened the video file.
May you like
Playing on the screen was the crystal-clear footage of Samantha swinging the wooden baseball bat inside his sunlit living room.
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