The afternoon air was cold and thick with mist.

I stayed low, keeping the overgrown boxwood hedges between myself and the kitchen windows.

I made my way down the gravel path, keeping my footsteps light.

My old SUV was parked half a mile down the dirt road, hidden behind a bend in the tree line.

I walked quickly, the wet gravel crunching under my boots.

Once inside the car, my hands shook as I turned the key in the ignition.

I pulled the sun visor down and took out the old photograph I had found in my grandmother’s jewelry box.

It was a Polaroid from the late nineties.

My grandmother, Eleanor, stood next to a tall, thin man in front of the county courthouse.

She was holding a thick green folder.

The man wore a county employee badge that read *Arthur Vance, Clerk of Records*.

On the back of the photo, Eleanor had written: *Arthur knows the truth about the ridge. June 12.*

I needed to find Arthur Vance before Graham found whatever else Eleanor had left behind.

I opened my phone and searched the county directory.