Mom's Kill List

Smack! The detective slammed a bloodsoaked crime scene photo onto my coffee table: "This guy died yesterday." My eyes locked onto the stranger's ashen, lifeless face.

Meanwhile, my fingernails dug into the spine of an old, battered notebook. I had pulled it from beneath the pillow of my dead mother, Ruth.

Two words were ruthlessly gouged into the yellowed cover: Kill List. Line one: The OBGYN who delivered me. Date of death: The exact day I was born. Line two: My father, Marshall.

Date of death: The day of the mining accident. Line three: The stranger in the photo. Date of death: Yesterday. But here was the sickening catch.

The owner of this list was Ruth—the same meek, cowardly woman who had spent her entire life letting people walk all over her.

And the same woman I had personally lowered into the dirt exactly one month ago. Chapter 1 Ruth was dead. Endstage liver cancer.

I found a notebook shoved under her pillow while clearing out her things. The notebook reeked of unsettling mildew.

Gouged into the title page with dark red ink that looked exactly like dried blood were two words. Kill List. I recognized the handwriting. It was Ruth's.

The first threequarters of the pages were ripped out. Only a single intact page remained. Roland. March 7, 1988. I knew that name. He was the OBGYN who delivered me.

March 7, 1988, was my birthday. It was also Roland's death anniversary. The man dropped dead right after pulling me into the world. Marshall. August 12, 1995.

Marshall was my father. He died in a massive mine collapse on August 12, 1995. Why the hell was his name on this kill list? Was that cavein not an accident? Thorne. May 5, 2025.

A complete stranger. My eyes darted to the wall calendar. Today was May 6, 2025.

Staring at a date from yesterday scrawled in an ancient notebook sent a sudden, icy jolt through my spine. Who was Thorne? Did he die yesterday? Was this some sick joke?

Since when could Ruth predict the grim reaper's schedule? A heavy knock pounded on the door just as I shoved the notebook away.

I wrestled my wheelchair around and hauled the security door open. Two towering, broadshouldered detectives stood on the porch.

Their oppressive gazes swept over my wheelchair before they swiftly whipped out their badges. "NYPD Homicide. Is this the residence of Ruth?" NYPD?

Homicide? "Yeah." "And you are?" "Jaxon. Ruth was my mother." "Mind if we step inside? Relax, we're just gathering some routine info." I wheeled back to let them in.

I reached for the pitcher to pour water, but one of the suits instantly blocked my arm. "Point me to the pitcher. I'll pour." I aimed a finger at the kitchen counter.

A cold knot tightened in my gut.

This wasn't going to be a quick chat. "I'm Captain Pierce, Homicide Division," the lead detective said. "Do you mind me asking about your… condition?" "Congenital deformity.

Born this way." I raised my hands toward him. My left middle, ring, and pinky fingers were fused together, the joints locked stiff.

Only the thumb and index finger possessed any real function.

My right hand was severely underdeveloped—the fingers could twitch, but they were half the size of a normal adult's, protruding from a mangled palm. "So what do you do for a living?" "Freelance content creator.

Voicetotext. Doesn't slow me down." The polite bullshit dragged on for another minute before the conversation finally locked onto its real target. "Sorry for your loss.

Your mother passed away recently?" "Yeah. Exactly one month ago today." "Take a look at this.

You recognize him?" Captain Pierce slid a glossy photograph out of his manila folder and pushed it across the coffee table, stopping right in front of my face.

Chapter 2 The photograph showed a middleaged man. Slightly overweight, with a face that looked mean. It resembled an ID photo, maybe off a driver's license.

I studied it carefully for a moment. Nothing clicked. "Don't recognize him." "His name is Thorne. Ever heard of him? Or did your mother ever mention him?" Thorne?

The name on Ruth's notebook! "What happened to him?" "He died yesterday." What?! "How?" "Sorry. That's classified." Captain Pierce was like a bloodhound catching a scent.

His sharp eyes locked onto me, the sheer pressure instantly suffocating my throat. He took a slow sip of hot water.

His tone was absolute. "You know him." I agonized over it for a long second before deciding to come clean about the notebook.

I had nothing to hide, and I didn't even know who I was supposed to be protecting. Besides, even if Ruth actually killed the people on that list, she was already in the ground.

What could they do to her now? I cleared my throat, trying to keep my voice level. "Honestly, I was packing up my mom's things today and found a notebook.

The name Thorne is in it." "What kind of notebook? Can I see it?" "Yeah. In the suitcase on the bedroom floor.

Just unzip it," I added. "I was planning to keep it as a memento." The younger detective, Tristan, went into the bedroom and handed the notebook to Captain Pierce.

Pierce saw the words gouged into the cover first. Then he flipped through it, page by page, meticulously. His gaze finally nailed itself to the three names.

His voice dropped an octave. "Tristan, check if Ruth updated her ID. If she did, run it against that partial print from back then." A partial print? From where? I didn't ask.

I knew he wouldn't tell me anyway. Pierce snapped the notebook shut. "Listen, this notebook is now a critical piece of evidence in a serial homicide case.

It belongs to the police." "Fine." "You said you read this earlier, right?" "Right." "The first name on the list. Roland. Do you know him?" "Yeah.

The OBGYN who delivered me." Pierce arched an eyebrow. "He died the day you were born.

How do you know him?" I let out a bitter laugh. "Growing up, everyone around me called me a monster.

They said I ate Roland alive right after I was born." Pierce looked exasperated. "Rumors and bullying are a real bitch." He decided to shift gears. "Alright, let's talk about your parents." "What about them?" "Anything.

Start from your childhood.

Whatever comes to mind." My childhood… A sliding frosted glass door slowly creaked open in my mind, revealing a world suffocated by coal dust and heavy smog.

For years, I had buried the people and events of that place deep down. Today was the first time I was choosing to drag them back into the light. I grew up in a rural mining town.

Chapter 3 Nobody in town farmed anymore. They couldn't. The soil was toxic, choked with coal ash. Whatever you managed to grow always tasted like bitter soot.

Preston Mining fed the entire town. Hell, it fed the whole county. The men broke their backs in the pits, and the women stayed home raising kids.

Our town used to have a different name, but they changed it after the corporation rolled in. It was a sick kind of "thank you" for their economic contribution.

They literally wiped our history to name the town after the company. My dad, Marshall, worked for them too. But he was different.

He came down from the city with the corporate suits, met my mom, Ruth, and settled down here. Marshall was a gentle guy. Educated.

He had a degree in mining engineering, which made him a VIP to the company. That VIP status trickled down to us.

When I was a kid, he always brought me the newest toys straight from the city. I even met the CEO of Preston Mining a few times.

He used to show up at our house with expensive gifts. But his gaze always made me nauseous.

It was that condescending, hypocritical stare of a billionaire looking at a defective piece of industrial machinery. He would pat my head like a stray dog. "Don't worry, kid.

When you grow up, we'll find you a nice desk job at the office. You'll be set for life." I would swat his hand away. Ruth hated him.

I'd catch her cursing him out behind closed doors, spitting that ever since Preston stripped the mountains, the land was dead. She called him a parasite.

Marshall would quickly scoop me up and carry me into the bedroom. "She's just a kid, Mr. Preston. Doesn't know any better.

Got a hell of a temper, totally unlike me." "Haha, careful now, Marshall," Preston chuckled. "She's got your eyes.

Don't go implying your wife is stepping out on you." After Marshall finished playing the perfect host and the suits finally left, he would sit me down.

His voice was always incredibly soft. "Everyone in this world is broken in some way, Jaxon. Some have physical scars, some have mental ones. We're all the same.

Your broken pieces are just on the outside." I was too young to absorb that. All my brain could process was the bullying.

The neighborhood kids took one look at my deformed limbs and branded me a freak. They shut me out.

They'd shove me hard into the dirt while I was struggling to walk, then sprint away laughing. By the time I managed to drag myself back up, the street was completely empty.

It wasn't just me. Any kid with a visible flaw became a target. Over time, I locked myself away. I built a wall, and the higher it got, the more isolated I became.

Marshall was a ghost. He lived at the mine. Most nights, I was already asleep by the time he unlocked the front door. Ruth wasn't exactly a talker.

She obsessed over keeping the yard spotless, scrubbing away the grime before wandering off to find some rare patch of untainted soil to plant her potatoes. It was pointless.

Within three days, a thick, suffocating layer of black soot would bury the yard all over again. Back then, nobody gave a damn about environmental regulations. Cash was king.

Preston was practically a local mob boss. A god. Everyone bowed their heads and kissed the ring when he walked by. As for the locals? Who cared if the air was toxic?

Farming paid pennies anyway. Dragging your ass down into the mines paid ten times more. As long as the company kept running, everyone got to put food on the table.

Chapter 4 Ruth was the only person in town who dared to wear her hatred for the mine on her sleeve. But what right did she have to complain?

Her husband was down there pulling in the biggest paychecks. People envied Marshall's money. But he had a degree and busted his ass—didn't he earn every cent?

He was midmanagement, but he practically lived in the deepest shafts every single day. He led by example, showing the crews how to extract the coal and stay alive.

He kept obsessive safety logs and drilled the protocols into every miner's head.

His only goal was making sure his neighbors walked out of the dark alive. "Sorry to interrupt, Jaxon, but if you don't mind, could we focus more on your mother?" Tristan, the junior detective, rubbed his cramped wrist with a frustrated sigh.

Pierce smacked the back of Tristan's head. Hard. "What the hell is wrong with you? Let the man speak." Tristan flashed an awkward, apologetic grin. "My bad. Keep going, Jaxon.

Whatever comes to mind, I'm all ears." Pierce tossed his phone onto Tristan's lap. "Order three portions of takeout.

We're gonna be here a while." Tristan looked at me sheepishly. "Any allergies?" "No." "I'll just grab whatever then." While Tristan scrolled through a delivery app, Pierce threw out another question. "Did none of the women in your town work?" I nodded. "Right." It was a deadend county.

There were zero jobs to begin with, let alone in our specific town. Before Preston Mining rolled in, everyone just scraped by farming the dirt.

Once the pits opened, they started hiring in droves. Every single ablebodied man marched straight to the mines.

Half the kids dropped out the second they turned eighteen to start cashing Preston's checks. But Preston was a superstitious prick. He banned women from the payroll.

His exact words were that women in the mines brought bad luck, that they were a curse guaranteeing caveins.

The entire Preston Mining operation was exclusively male—even the guys cooking in the cafeteria. A few times, Ruth tried to bring Marshall a hot lunch.

Security shoved her back at the gates. They refused to let her pass, forcing Marshall to hike all the way up to get it.

The facility was massive—if he had the time to hike to the gate, he would've had time to eat in the damn cafeteria.

After that happened a few times, Ruth's hatred for Preston Mining turned radioactive. The only escape was marrying someone like my father.

Someone educated, someone from the outside who didn't buy into that toxic smalltown bullshit. But Marshall was the only city guy who ever settled down in our hellhole.

For the girls born there, their fate was sealed the second they took their first breath: clean the house, raise the kids, and if they were unlucky, act as a punching bag for a frustrated husband.

Tristan finally locked in the food order and grabbed his pen again. We steered the conversation back on track. Chapter 5 Marshall loved me.

You could even call it spoiling, but he was just trying to use his affection to thaw the ice of the town's cruelty.

He worked insane hours, but the second he clocked out, all his time belonged to me.

He played with me, told me stories, and taught me how the world worked. "Dad, do you think I'll end up working in the mine too?" I asked him once. He didn't answer right away.

Instead, he threw the question back at me. "Do you like the mine?" "No." "Why not?" "It's dirty." He smiled, scraping at his fingernails.

There was always a thick layer of soot trapped beneath them that never washed out. "Liking things clean is a good trait.

If you think the mine is dirty, then you won't work there." "Then where else can I go?" I raised my deformed hands in front of my face. Disgust coiled in my stomach.

I just wanted a healthy body. I wanted to be like the other neighborhood kids. To sprint. To kick a ball. To actually chase them down after they shoved me into the dirt.

Instead, every time Marshall bought me a soccer ball, some kid would "borrow" it the next day, and I'd never see it again. "Jaxon, do you know how to tell the difference between coal and shale?" I shook my head. "They look exactly the same," Marshall explained, his voice low and steady. "But coal burns.

It gives people warmth. Shale doesn't." "If you want to know which is coal and which is just a worthless rock, you have to get your hands dirty. You have to touch them.

Break them apart." "Coal is brittle; crack it open, and it's still coal inside. Shale is rockhard.

And even if you manage to bust it open, it's just coarse stone underneath." "A lot of truths are buried under filth, Jaxon.

If you want to understand them, you have to crack them open yourself." I stared at him, completely lost.

He read the confusion on my face and broke it down further. "Your future has a million possibilities. Nobody knows exactly what it looks like yet.

But if you want to see it, you have to dig for it with your own two hands. You might become a businessman, a writer, or a scientist. But there will always be mud along the way.

If you're terrified of getting dirty, you're going to miss out on the most precious things." Ruth loved me too. But her love was different.

It was buried deep, locked away behind a stoic exterior. While Marshall was swallowing dust in the pits, it was just me and Ruth at home. She didn't coddle me.

She made me do basic chores. She dragged me up the back mountain, searching for patches of land shielded from the wind, where the soot wasn't as thick.

When she found a decent spot, she would grab my mudcaked hands and force me to dig into the earth. In her eyes, I wasn't some crippled burden.

I was a warrior built to survive in a wasteland. She blatantly refused to acknowledge my deformities. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide, but she rarely picked fights.

The only times I ever saw her unleash hell on the neighbors was when they looked at me with pity, treating me like a cripple. "You are normal," she would tell me, her voice sharp like broken glass. "Every hardship out there waiting for them is waiting for you too.

Every opportunity they get, you get. God isn't going to hand you a free pass just because your arms and legs don't work right.

The second you start treating yourself like a cripple, that's the second you actually become one." Chapter 6 As a kid, I didn't get it. I always leaned toward Marshall.

Looking back now, if Ruth hadn't relentlessly drilled that brutal survival mindset into my head, I'd be nothing.

I wouldn't have gone to college, wouldn't have a career, wouldn't be living a functional life. But Marshall and Ruth's marriage was a warzone. Ruth constantly pushed him to quit.

She wanted us out of that toxic town. If we had the cash, she wanted a small house in the city. If not, a quiet farm somewhere to start over. Growing crops to pay for my tuition.

But Marshall was obsessed with giving me a perfect future. He wanted to move us down South. Better economy, warmer weather.

He wanted to hoard enough cash so that when they were gone, my life wouldn't be a struggle. So every time Ruth begged him to quit, he fed her the same line. Just wait. Next year.

The year after that. Just a few more years. It dragged on forever. The cracks in their marriage shattered.

The silence between them turned toxic, and when they did speak, it instantly ignited into screaming matches.

Ruth would spit venom at him, cursing him for being just another corporate animal working for Preston Mining. But no matter how much she hated him… would Ruth actually kill him?

What really happened down in the dark during that cavein? The takeout arrived.

I clamped my two functional left fingers around a plastic spoon, awkwardly shoveling small bites into my mouth. "Need a hand?" Pierce watched me, a flicker of pity crossing his face.

I smiled and shook my head. "I haven't starved to death yet. I think I've got it covered." "Take your time," he muttered. The three of us ate in a suffocating, awkward silence.

Finally, I couldn't hold it back anymore. "Captain Pierce, why are you really here? Does Thorne's death have something to do with my mom?

If it's classified, skip it." He hesitated, shoving the last of his food into his mouth.

He wiped his jaw with a napkin and leaned forward. "I'll give you what I can." Thorne was a local. Born and raised in our town, which meant he worked in the Preston pits.

But right when the mine was pulling in record profits, he abruptly quit. Nobody knew why. He packed up and moved out of state. Nothing too crazy.

The day before yesterday, he traveled to New York. His itinerary and bags looked like a standard tourist trip. "But yesterday, he died.

Alone in a hotel room." Pierce's eyes locked onto mine. "Before he bled out, he used his own blood to write a name on the floor.

Ruth." They ran his background, connected the dots to our hometown, and landed on my mother. "Writing a name doesn't prove anything," I countered. "Maybe he was secretly obsessed with her." "Sure.

We considered that." Pierce's voice dropped dead flat. "Except we found your mother's hair and fresh fingerprints all over that hotel room." Impossible.

The word slammed into my brain. The suffocating silence of the apartment pressed down on my chest. A cold, clammy sweat instantly drenched my spine. My mangled fingers slipped.

Clatter. The plastic spoon hit the table. "That's impossible," I gasped, the air scraping my dry throat. "I buried her a month ago.

I personally watched her casket go into the dirt." Chapter 7 Pierce moved instantly to deescalate. "Easy, Jaxon. Relax. We’ve seen your mother’s death certificate.

We’re not saying she’s the killer." Right. I was spiraling. I needed to breathe. Hair and fingerprints could be faked. Information could be planted.

There was one undeniable, coldhard fact that no forensic lab could touch: Thorne died yesterday. My mother was reduced to ash and bone in a furnace a month ago.

She couldn't have hiked to a New York hotel to slit a man's throat. But how did the killer get her DNA? Why frame a dead woman? And what the hell was the end game?

Pierce didn't offer a theory.

He just sat there, his sharklike eyes tracking every flicker of emotion on my face. "Listen," he said, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly authority. "This notebook is now a critical piece of evidence in a serial homicide case.

It belongs to the police. You can see the logic here—there are too many holes in this story, and where there's smoke, there's a body.

We need to clear the air, and that starts with you." "Captain Pierce," I said, trying to steady my voice. "I want to ask about the past. About the explosion that killed Marshall.

You can shut me down if it's classified." He let out a dry huff and fished a cigarette from his pocket.

He clicked his lighter, then paused, the flame dancing in his eyes. "You mind?" "Go ahead." "Alright. What do you want to know?" He scanned the room for an ashtray.

I didn't smoke, and Ruth certainly hadn't.

With a weary sigh, he flipped open the empty plastic takeout container and used it as a makeshift bin. "I’ve gone through the old files," he continued, glancing at Tristan.

Tristan's pen was already hovering over his notepad. "But there isn't much I can legally disclose. Ask your questions.

I'll tell you what I can." "I want to know if Ruth went to the mine that day. The day of the blast." Pierce didn't blink.

He leaned back, the smoke curling around his head like a halo of grey silk. "Tell you what. Tell me what you remember about that day first.

Then I’ll give you my answer." I remembered it with terrifying clarity. It was midsummer. A brutal, suffocating heatwave had turned the town into a kiln.

By noon, the sky had bruised into a deep, sickly purple. A storm was clawing its way toward us, heavy and fast.

The clouds hung so low I felt like I could reach out and touch the thunder. Around three in the afternoon, Ruth came into my room. She told me she was taking lunch to Marshall.

She claimed that once the storm hit, the mine would be in chaos and he’d probably miss his dinner. But she had just gone the day before.

The guards had shoved her back, and she’d returned with a lunchbox full of cold, untouched food. "Mom, don't bother," I told her. "The guards won't let you through the gates." "I have to at least bring him a raincoat," she snapped. "Otherwise, he’ll catch his death in that downpour." It sounded reasonable enough.

Even if the guards blocked her, she could leave the coat at the security shack for him to grab after his shift. She left in a hurry. Too much of a hurry.

Looking back, it felt like she was running toward a destiny she already saw coming.

After the screen door slammed shut, I lay on my bed, wrestling with the Rubik’s cube Marshall had brought me from the city.

He said it would help with my dexterity—make my fingers work for me instead of against me. "How do you play this?" I had asked him. "Simple," he’d said with a grin. "Scramble the colors, then fight like hell until every side is whole again." Chapter 8 By 8 PM, Ruth still wasn't back.

Not a single drop of rain had fallen. Then, a massive shockwave rattled the windows. Boom. I jumped. I thought it was thunder—the loudest crack I had ever heard in my life.

I figured the storm had finally broken, bringing an end to the suffocating heat. But there was no rain. Just a heavy, dead silence. Then, the chaos erupted outside.

Frantic shouts tore through the heavy air, followed by the chaotic stampede of boots against the dirt. I grabbed my crutches and hauled myself onto the porch.

Shadows sprinted past our front gate, their flashlight beams slicing erratically through the dark. Everyone was running toward the mountain.

I managed to grab a passing neighbor by the sleeve. "Lester! What's happening?" "Explosion!" Lester gasped, his eyes wild and dilated. "The mine blew! Get back inside, Jaxon!

I gotta go pull people out!" Crack. A jagged bolt of lightning ripped the sky wide open.

It illuminated a towering pillar of raging fire and thick black smoke vomiting from the mountain. It looked like the end of the world.

Then, the sky shattered, and the rain came down in punishing sheets. I shoved my crutches into the toxic mud and dragged myself toward the mine. I fell. I crawled.

I hauled myself back up. Over and over again. My clothes were drenched in freezing rain and black sludge. A neighbor spotted me dragging my mangled body through the muck.

He tried to shove me back toward the house. I fought him. He scooped me up anyway, tossing me over his shoulder to haul me back.

I slammed my deformed fists into his spine. "Put me down! I need to get to the mine! I need Marshall!" "Stop fighting me, kid!

You need to be home with your mother!" "Ruth is at the mine!" I screamed, my throat tearing. "Bullshit!

Preston doesn't let women near the pits!" "She went to give Marshall his coat!" The man froze. He stood dead still in the pounding rain for three agonizing seconds.

Then, he whipped around and sprinted toward the blazing mountain with me clinging to his back. We hit the main gates. Total pandemonium.

Hundreds of people crushed against the chainlink fences. The wails of wives, mothers, and children bled together into a deafening, unified scream.

My own desperate shouts were instantly swallowed by the roaring chaos. Nobody heard me.

Preston Mining's security guards braced the gates, but the frantic crowd was tearing them apart. Then, a fleet of unmarked buses screeched up the access road.

Dozens of massive, heavily armed thugs poured out. They wielded iron pipes and pickaxe handles. Anyone who lunged for the gate got their skull cracked open.

Blood mixed with the muddy rain. The sheer, brutal violence finally beat the terrified crowd back into submission. The rain fell harder, stinging my eyes.

We stood there in the mud, shivering and helpless, penned in like cattle waiting for the slaughter. Hours bled away. And then, they started bringing out the bodies.

Charred, smoking husks on stretchers. One of those blackened husks was Marshall. The blast originated in the deepest shaft. The heat had melted flesh to bone.

Most faces were obliterated. If a body was somewhat intact, a family would swarm it, shrieking and clawing at the stretcher. Others were worse. Half a skull missing.

Limbs blown off.

One family would drop to their knees and sob over a charred stump, only for another family to spot a familiar watch or a belt buckle and shove them aside to physically fight over the corpse.

The ownership of the dead was decided by whoever screamed the loudest.

The people who realized they were crying over the wrong body wiped their sootstained faces, swallowed their grief, and stared blankly at the dark tunnel, waiting to do it all over again when the next stretcher rolled out.

I watched women mourn five different corpses in a row. When they finally broke, they cursed the mud. They cursed the mine. They cursed God.

But nobody—not a single soul—dared to curse Preston.

Chapter 9 "Lester, why does it feel like they aren't even that sad?" Lester lowered his voice, keeping his eyes on the chaos. "That guy has five sons.

The one working the pit today is the oldest. Boy ain't right in the head. If he got blown up, the company’s gonna pay out a massive settlement." The oldest was in his forties.

Developmentally disabled, his body likely hollowed out by the brutal labor, probably harboring a laundry list of underlying diseases.

If he died in the blast, the whole family would probably celebrate the windfall behind closed doors. The gaping maw of the mine gate was pitch black, a blownopen Pandora’s box.

For some, it violently spat out the icy corpses of their loved ones. For others, it vomited out a sudden, bloodsoaked fortune.

The sheer, grotesque reality of human nature was washed crystal clear in that torrential downpour. Marshall’s body was the last one wheeled out.

By then, the frantic crowd crushing against the gates had mostly dispersed. Two men fought through the driving rain, carrying a small stretcher.

Ruth walked beside it, her eyes locked onto Marshall. She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She just stared at him in a dead, suffocating silence.

It didn't hit me then, but looking back now—how the hell did she get inside? Preston strictly banned women from the property.

All the other families had to wait outside the gates to claim their dead. How did she bypass security to identify him before anyone else?

Identifying Marshall was both easy and impossible. Impossible, because his face was a mangled, bloody mass of charred flesh. Unrecognizable.

If Ruth hadn't been walking right beside him, another random family probably would have swarmed the stretcher to howl over him, desperate for a payout.

Easy, because Marshall was management. His melted plastic ID badge was still fused around his neck. DNA testing was basically nonexistent back then.

You claimed a body based on physical traits, clothes, height, weight, or birthmarks.

They said the corpse wore Marshall's badge around its neck and carried his driver's license in its charred pocket. It wore the distinct uniform of a mine supervisor.

Therefore, the blackened meat on the stretcher was Marshall. Over twenty men died in that blast. Fifty more were mangled.

The official report blamed the dark and the storm—a heavy truck allegedly crushed an exposed main water pipe on the surface.

The rain, combined with the reservoir water, flooded the shafts.

It submerged the electrical equipment, shortcircuited the wiring, threw a spark, and ignited the massive pocket of methane gas trapped in the pit.

Marshall had been inspecting the deepest excavation point when it happened. Just like that, he was gone. He didn't leave a single last word. Wait. No. He did leave one.

He had told me a new photography studio just opened in the city.

He promised he was taking Ruth and me to get our first family portrait the next day. "Who told you the surface pipe was crushed by a truck?" Pierce’s voice suddenly sliced through my memories.

I froze. "Ruth." Pierce leaned closer, his eyes turning to chips of ice. "The break point on that water pipe was unnaturally smooth—it was deliberately severed by heavy machinery.

It was a meticulously planned murder." Tristan practically choked, erupting into a violent fit of coughing. I tensed. My fingernails dug into my palms.

That sounded like classified case details. Something a civilian definitely shouldn't be hearing. "Got a problem with that?" Pierce shot a lethal glare at his rookie.

Tristan rubbed his neck, his coughs morphing into an awkward clearing of his throat. "No, sir.

Just swallowed a piece of salt wrong." "Drink some damn water then." Pierce instantly dropped the scowl.

He turned back to me, an unnerving, predatory smile stretching across his face. "Keep going." Chapter 10 Marshall’s death was sudden, but Ruth didn't shed a single tear.

It was almost as if she had been waiting for the axe to fall all along. But the second he was in the ground, a bizarre transformation washed over her.

She used to be this withered, bitter thing, but suddenly, it was like someone had flipped a switch inside her. A sick kind of vitality flooded back into her veins.

She buried her usual venom, pasting on polite smiles for the neighbors. She meticulously filed down her sharp edges, terrified of accidentally cutting anyone.

She even stopped spitting curses at Preston. On the day of Marshall’s funeral, Preston rolled up with the entire executive board of Preston Mining to pay his respects.

Before leaving, he grabbed Ruth’s hand. "Marshall was a rare talent," he said, plastering on a solemn expression. "Honestly, Preston Mining wouldn't be standing today without his sweat and blood." "If you and the boy ever hit a wall, you come straight to the company.

Whether you're short on cash or someone's giving you a hard time, I'll handle it personally." "With a disaster this massive, my hands are completely tied.

I wish I could stay and see Marshall off properly, but I have to get back to damage control." Ruth tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I understand, Mr. Preston.

Go tend to your business." He leaned in close, his mouth hovering right next to Ruth's ear.

I was standing close enough to catch the low whisper, completely shielded from the other mourners. "I capped the settlement at eighteen grand for the other families. This is fifty.

Keep it quiet." He whipped a bulging manila envelope out of his custom leather briefcase and tossed it onto the table, like he was tossing scraps to a stray dog. "I couldn't possibly accept this, Mr.

Preston," Ruth murmured. "Just take the damn money, Ruth. Consider it a personal favor on top of the corporate payout.

Raising a kid with Jaxon's… condition isn't going to be cheap." That shut down any further argument.

Ruth carefully slipped the envelope into her bag. "Alright, I'm heading out." He reached over and patted my head again, his touch making my skin crawl. "Study hard, kid.

Take care of your mother." My instincts flared, muscles tensing to violently swat his hand away.

But before I could twitch, Ruth clamped her arms around me from behind, pinning my mangled arms tight against my ribs. "Thank Mr. Preston, Jaxon," she commanded, her grip bruising.

I clamped my jaw shut and wrenched my head away. "He's just a kid. Doesn't know any better." Marshall used to run that exact script to protect me. Now, Ruth had taken over the role.

Preston just chuckled. "Still got that fire in him." He was halfway down the dirt road before he paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Don't you worry about a thing, Ruth!

As long as I'm breathing, I'll make sure Jaxon is taken care of." Ruth just nodded silently.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, buried whatever she was feeling, and turned back to play the grieving widow for the rest of the guests.

What the hell triggered that massive shift in her? Let's be brutally honest—did she jump into Preston's bed the second Marshall was out of the picture?

Ruth was beautiful, probably the bestlooking woman in that sootstained town. But she wasn't exactly young anymore.

A billionaire like Preston could have his pick of models; why would he look twice at a miner's widow? So what was it?

What could possibly make a woman who visibly despised Preston suddenly roll over and play nice? There was only one logical conclusion: leverage.

Either she had something on him, or he had her by the throat. Preston Mining enforced an ironclad rule: zero women on the property.

Even Preston’s own wife wasn't allowed past the gates. So how the hell did Ruth bypass the armed guards and identify Marshall’s body before anyone else even got inside?

And what exactly was Captain Pierce implying? The water pipe was sabotaged. Was it Ruth? Did she actually sever the line and send the man she married to an early grave?

What could have possibly pushed their toxic marriage over the edge into premeditated murder? No. My gut violently twisted, rejecting the thought entirely.

I refused to believe Ruth murdered Marshall.

Chapter 11 Seeing me go dead silent, Captain Pierce finally broke the heavy tension. "The old incident report includes a sworn statement from the gate guard.

Ruth was absolutely on the property right before the blast." "How did she get past the gate?" "Preston escorted her in himself." According to the guard, Ruth had shown up clutching that aluminum lunchbox and a raincoat, aggressively demanding to see Marshall.

The guards physically blocked her. She demanded they take the coat down to the pit. The sky was already bruising purple, and she insisted Marshall would get caught in the downpour.

The extraction pits were miles from the main gate, so the guards refused to make the trek. Ruth refused to leave.

Because Marshall was midmanagement, they couldn't exactly drag her off the property by her hair. So, they stood there, locked in a tense standoff.

Right then, Preston’s black luxury sedan rolled up to the gates. He rolled down his window, asked what the hell was going on, and then explicitly ordered Ruth into his car.

He drove her onto the site himself. The logic instantly fractured. Preston wouldn't even let his own wife past those chainlink fences.

Why the hell would he personally escort a miner's wife inside? What kind of sick secret were they keeping? Was there some twisted deal? Did they plan the explosion together?

If that was true, the bloody Kill List notebook suddenly made terrifying sense. But what was the motive?

If Ruth actually orchestrated the blast, she had to get deep inside the facility to rig it. That made Preston an active accomplice. She couldn't have pulled it off without him.

It was too damn convenient. Ruth gets stopped at the gate. Preston just happens to drive by, shatters his own ironclad superstition about women in the mines, and brings her inside.

And mere hours later, the mountain explodes. My brain was screaming. The pieces didn't fit. I refused to believe Ruth murdered Marshall.

I could feel the blood draining from my face. I wasn't an actor. My mangled body was already strung tight, betraying every ounce of panic flooding my veins.

I forced my eyes up to meet Pierce's. "I need the bathroom." "Sure," he said. "Need a hand?" "No." I wrestled my wheelchair around toward the narrow hallway.

I paused, glancing back over my shoulder. "Let me get one of those cigarettes." He blinked, clearly thrown off. "Oh.

Yeah, alright." He tapped a cigarette out of his pack, his eyes darting to my deformed, clawlike hands.

He hesitated, shifting his weight. "Uh… how do you want this?" "Just put it in my mouth." He struck his lighter and lit the end.

I clamped the filter between my teeth and wheeled myself into the tiny bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I dragged the harsh smoke deep into my lungs.

It instantly scorched my throat, making my eyes water and my chest heave in a violent coughing fit. But the sharp burn grounded me. It forced my spiraling heart rate to slow down.

I stared at myself in the mirror, dissecting every single detail from that day. Ruth was a high school dropout. She barely finished the ninth grade.

If she really wanted to rig a massive industrial explosion to bury her husband, did she actually possess the technical knowhow to pull it off? Yes. She did. She wasn't illiterate.

Marshall kept stacks of heavy mining engineering and safety manuals scattered all over the house. Even I used to flip through them out of sheer boredom.

If Ruth was obsessively studying those schematics while Marshall was at work, she would absolutely know exactly which vulnerabilities to exploit to trigger a fatal, untraceable disaster.

But why? What was the goddamn motive? Did Preston really have some devastating leverage over her? And why would Preston want his top engineer dead?

Did Marshall discover something down in the dark? Did Marshall have leverage on the billionaire? Marshall was a softspoken, agreeable guy.

He always played the neighborhood peacekeeper with a warm smile. But I knew him. Beneath that gentle exterior, his moral compass was made of steel.

If Marshall's principles collided headon with Preston's corporate greed… would the CEO actually authorize a hit to bury him? Chapter 12 And then there was the settlement.

Fifty grand. Back then, fifty grand was lifechanging money. Most people in that town wouldn't see that kind of cash in three lifetimes.

Why the hell did Preston authorize a payout that massive? Looking back, it wasn't a settlement. It was hush money. But… it still didn't make sense. What about Ruth's notebook?

That wasn't a coincidence. The dark red ink had accurately predicted Thorne's exact date of death. If she was the killer, sure, that tracked.

But the forensic evidence just blew that theory to hell. She was reduced to ash before Thorne's throat was even cut. So who killed him? Did Ruth have an accomplice?

And I was missing a massive, glaring red flag: the two badges currently sitting in my living room. NYPD Homicide. A precinct captain.

Did they really drive all the way out to this deadend county just because a dying man scrawled a name in his own blood? No way. These guys knew way too much.

They knew about Roland, the OBGYN who delivered me, and they probably knew exactly how he died. They knew the intricate, buried details of the Preston Mining disaster.

And they knew Thorne, a total stranger to me. Roland. Marshall. Thorne. Three men who had absolutely nothing in common on the surface.

What was the sick, invisible thread tying them all together?

The revelations from this interrogation wrapped around my throat like black razor wire, pulling tighter with every second. The metal bit into my flesh. It crushed my windpipe.

The foundation of my entire thirtysomething years of existence was violently fracturing under my feet.

The bloody, inescapable evidence was screaming a singular, horrific truth directly into my face. The person who loved me most had murdered the other person who loved me most.

Knock, knock, knock. "Jaxon? You good in there?" It was Tristan's voice through the door.

I violently shook my head, forcing the suffocating panic back down into my chest. "I'm fine," I called out. "Turns out being a cripple makes pissing complicated." "Need a hand?" "I've got it." I unlocked the door and wheeled myself back into the living room. "Need a break?" Pierce asked, his eyes tracking my movements. "No." "So we keep going?" He struck his lighter, igniting another cigarette. "Yeah." After Marshall’s funeral, Ruth packed up our lives and dragged me out of that sootstained town.

We used Preston’s hush money to buy a tiny, cramped apartment in the county seat. On the surface, everything felt normal again. But the walls were paperthin.

In the dead of night, I would lay awake listening to her muffle her violent sobs into Marshall's framed photograph.

I went to middle school in town, then shipped off to a boarding school in the city for high school. Living on campus meant I rarely saw her.

She opened a small convenience store—Ruth’s Mart. It barely pulled in a profit, but it kept the lights on and food in our stomachs.

I graduated high school and clawed my way into college. When I got my degree, I wanted to move back home. Ruth aggressively shut that down.

She insisted the county was a dead end, demanding I carve out a real life in the city. She played her ultimate trump card: If Marshall were still here, he’d want you in the city.

I couldn't argue with that. So, I stayed. I started out grinding out press releases for a local paper.

But my physical limitations meant I couldn't sprint to crime scenes or physically chase down leads like the other reporters.

I eventually quit and built my own freelance content business. It wasn't glamorous, but it paid the rent. Then, last year, Ruth got the diagnosis. Endstage liver cancer.

She died last month. Since the funeral, I've just been squatting here in this same tiny apartment she bought all those years ago.

Chapter 13 "Jaxon, your mother has been dead for exactly a month, right?" Pierce’s voice was dangerously calm. "Right." "So why haven't you left?

Who are you waiting for?" "I'm not… I'm not waiting for anyone.

Who would I be waiting for?" His gaze felt like a surgical needle, violently puncturing my skin and scraping against my ribs.

It felt like if I slipped up and fed him a single lie, he would instantly rip my throat out. "So why are you still squatting here?" I dragged my deformed wrist across my forehead, wiping away a cold sweat. "I'm a freelancer.

I can work from anywhere. Moving is a massive, exhausting hassle. Plus, I miss my mom. Is it a crime to want to stay close to her a little longer?" Pierce smiled.

It was a terrifying, predatory smile. "That's two questions in a row you've thrown back at me." "Is that not allowed?" "Three." I clenched my jaw and stared at him in dead silence. "Some people use counterquestions as a defensive mechanism when they're lying.

Just a basic interrogation tactic." Pierce casually crushed his cigarette into the plastic takeout lid. "Not saying I'm interrogating you, Jaxon.

Just sharing some trivia." I kept my mouth shut. "Oh, by the way," Pierce said, leaning back. "Where is Marshall buried? My guys have been digging through the records.

We can't find his grave." I slowly shook my head. "I don't know." Pierce's eyebrows shot up. "You're his only son, and you don't know where his grave is?" "I swear, I don't." That wasn't a lie.

The day of Marshall’s funeral, Ruth locked me inside the house. She took his ashes and buried them in some unmarked hole. Nobody but her knew where he was.

When she finally came back, I kept asking her where he was. She slapped me so hard I tasted blood. As I got older, I kept pushing for an answer, but she always shut down completely.

Now she was dead.

Marshall’s ashes were lost forever. "Alright, let's circle back," Pierce continued. "Ruth packed up and moved you into town, right?" "Yeah." "Did the convenience store make money?" "Barely." "Did she ever try to find a real job?" "I told you, jobs in this county were nonexistent.

And given the toxic smalltown mentality, nobody was eager to hire a woman." "That's the part I'm struggling with," Pierce said, leaning forward. "If she was already packing up her life, and she wasn't that old, why not move to the city?

Somewhere with actual jobs where they didn't treat women like secondclass citizens?" I shook my head. "I don't know." "Fifty grand doesn't stretch across a lifetime, Jaxon.

Especially not with a kid who needs constant medical care and physical therapy." "It didn't." "So let's theorize. Why did she refuse to leave this specific radius?

Maybe she was waiting for someone." A tremor ripped through my spine, but I didn't make a sound. "Maybe," Pierce whispered, "she was waiting for Marshall to come home." The silence in the room became absolutely deafening. "She refused to leave the county because she was terrified he wouldn't be able to find her.

She even named the store Ruth's Mart. A massive, neon beacon. Is that obvious enough for you?" My eyes burned raw. I locked onto his gaze, practically shaking. "Captain Pierce.

My father is dead." He didn't argue. He just held my stare for a long second before casually sliding another photograph from his manila folder.

He tossed it onto the coffee table. "Recognize him?" I stared at the picture. I knew the face. It was one of Marshall’s crew members.

He had come over for dinner a few times and even brought me toys. "Yeah. That's Cody." "Right.

Cody," Pierce said, tapping the photo. "He completely vanished the night of the Preston Mine explosion." I looked up, my stomach plummeting. "What are you implying?" "Cody's height and weight were a dead match for your father.

He vanished that night, and nobody has seen him since." Chapter 14 "Captain Pierce, I have no idea what you're talking about." He leaned back and stretched his stiff shoulders, his joints popping loudly in the quiet room. "You're a smart guy, Jaxon.

You know exactly what I'm getting at. Don't tell me you don't want the actual truth about what happened down in the dark." I kept my mouth shut.

My pulse was hammering against my eardrums.

He leaned forward, pressing his advantage to completely shatter my psychological defenses. "What if the blackened corpse they pulled out of that pit was Cody?

That means Marshall is still breathing. You're telling me you don't want to look your own father in the eye