By the time I returned home that evening, I no longer wondered why Flynn wanted the deed.

I wondered how much he owed.

And how far he and his mother were willing to go to get what my grandfather had spent forty years protecting.

PART 2 — VANCE LOGISTICS

Flynn came home after dark.

I was waiting on the cedar terrace facing the lake.

Cold September wind moved through the pines.

He sat beside me.

Neither of us spoke for almost a minute.

Then: