The clearing felt too quiet, the way a room does just before a fight breaks out. Eli’s pulse thumped in his ears as he and Kate stood by the hood of the truck, the tin box resting between them. Across the clearing, three men blocked the narrow path out. Two were broad-shouldered and tense, their jackets hanging just loose enough to hide weapons. The third stood slightly behind them — older, thinner, but radiating a different kind of danger.
The snake-eye ring on his right hand caught the late-afternoon sun as he folded his arms.
“I believe you’ve got something that belongs to me,” he said, his voice dry and deliberate.
Kate’s eyes flicked to Eli, but he kept his gaze on the old man. “We found it fair and square,” Eli said. “Buried and forgotten. If it was yours, you’d have dug it up yourself.”
One of the thugs stepped forward, impatience in his posture. He wore a dark jacket and a baseball cap pulled low, his eyes hidden in shadow. Eli took in the compact build, the coiled readiness in the man’s stance — the kind of body language that sticks in your mind.
The old man raised a hand, stopping him. “They’re not fools,” he said softly. “If they found this, they might have found other things too.” He took a slow step forward, and that was when Eli noticed — his left boot left an odd mark in the dirt, almost like the heel had been filed down into a wedge.
Kate shifted her weight slightly, her hand sliding into the truck bed. Her fingers closed around the crowbar they’d used to pry open the box earlier. “We don’t want trouble,” she said, “but we’re not handing this over without answers.”
The old man smiled faintly, and for a moment Eli thought he might actually talk. Then, with a movement so fast it made Eli flinch, he snapped his fingers. The two thugs — the one in the baseball cap and another with a shaved head — moved in opposite directions, forcing Eli and Kate to back toward the truck.
“Last chance,” the old man said. His gaze dropped to the box — still unopened — and then back to Eli’s eyes. “You don’t even know what you’ve got.”
Eli’s right hand closed around the tin box. “Then maybe you should have kept a better watch on it,” he said.
The old man’s expression darkened. He glanced over his shoulder, and for the briefest instant, Eli thought he saw worry there. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a shout rang out — not one of theirs. The old man turned sharply. “Change of plans. We’re done here.”
Before Eli could react, the thugs fell back toward the tree line, moving fast. The old man followed, his snake-eye ring catching the light one last time before he disappeared into the shadows. Eli caught one last look at the man in the baseball cap as he paused at the tree line, his face tilted just enough to fix them with a long, deliberate glance before melting into the woods.
Eli opened the box. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a flat gold medallion, about the size of his palm. Its surface was worn smooth except for the raised carving of a single eye — narrow, reptilian, the slit pupil giving it an unnerving sense of life.
Under the medallion lay a folded scrap of paper, brittle at the edges. On it was a sketched shoreline with a distinctive curve, and in the margin, a mark that looked like a capital “V” with a slash through it.
Kate leaned over his shoulder. “I’ve seen that shape before,” she whispered.
“Where?” Eli asked.
“West Boggs Lake,” she said. “Near the old pier.”
Eli closed the box. The old man might have escaped, but they’d gotten something he clearly didn’t want them to have. And that meant the game was far from over.
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