Page 33 of Beneath the Surface

Quinn couldn’t sleep.

She lay in Dax’s bed—his actual bed that he’d given up for her—and stared at the ceiling. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her car. Saw herself getting in, turning the key. Saw the explosion that would have torn through the driver’s seat, through her body, ending everything in a split second of fire and pain.

Her father had died that way. Maybe not a bomb, but a car. A crash. Terror and pain and the knowledge in those final moments that he was going to die.

Had he thought of her? Of her grandmother? Had he been scared, or had it happened too fast?

Quinn rolled over, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. The cabin was quiet, except for the occasional creak of settling wood and the distant hoot of an owl. Through the closed bedroom door, she could hear Dax moving around—probably checking windows, checking locks, doing whatever protective things ex-soldiers did when they couldn’t sleep either.

She looked at her phone—dead, battery still removed and sitting in Dax’s truck. Cut off from the world. No email, no social media, no way to check if her article was making waves or if Wheeler had responded publicly.

It was driving her crazy.

Quinn threw off the blanket and padded to the door in her pajamas—flannel pants and an old college T-shirt. She opened it quietly.

Dax sat at the kitchen table, his laptop open, a mug of coffee beside him. He looked up when she emerged from the bedroom, his dark eyes taking in her rumpled clothes, the pillow crease on her cheek.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“How did you know?” Quinn padded across the floor in her socks, arms wrapped around herself against the cabin’s chill.

“Because I can’t either. And because you’ve been tossing and turning for the past hour. Thin walls.” He gestured at the chair next to him with his coffee mug. “Might as well join me if you’re awake.”

Quinn grabbed a throw blanket from the back of the couch and sat down, folding her legs like a pretzel on the hard surface, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. “What are you working on?”

“Background on Wheeler. Financial records. Property transactions. Building the case.” Dax turned the laptop so she could see, the screen’s blue light harsh in the dim cabin. “Your father was thorough, but he didn’t have everything. I’m filling in the gaps.”

Quinn leaned closer, the blanket slipping from one shoulder, her journalist instincts immediately engaged. The screen showed a spreadsheet with dates, amounts, property addresses. Color-coded cells indicating suspicious transactions, meticulous and organized.

“That’s a lot of money,” she said, pointing to a column, her finger hovering over the screen.

“Seven million over three years. That we can prove. Probably more that’s hidden better.” Dax took a sip of coffee, his nose wrinkling slightly. “Wheeler’s been busy.”

“How are you accessing all this? Don’t you need warrants?”

“For some of it, yes. For public records? No. Property sales are public information. Business registrations. Tax filings.” He set the mug down with a soft clink. “It’s amazing what you can find if you know where to look.”

Quinn studied the spreadsheet, her mind automatically organizing the information, that familiar buzz of a story coming together. Patterns emerged. Clusters of sales around certain dates. Specific shell companies appearing repeatedly.

“These three companies here,” she said, pointing, leaning closer until her shoulder nearly touched his. “They’re all buying properties from Wheeler, right?”

“Right.”

“Have you checked who owns them?”

“Dead ends. Shell corporations registered in Delaware with no actual people listed. Wheeler’s covered his tracks.” Frustration edged his voice.

Quinn chewed her lip, thinking, her teeth worrying at the same spot. This was what she did. This was her job—finding connections, following paper trails, exposing what people wanted hidden.

“Can I borrow your laptop for a minute?”

Dax hesitated, his fingers tapping once against the edge of the table, then slid it toward her. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m an investigative journalist. This is literally what I do for a living.” Quinn’s fingers flew over the keyboard, the clicking filling the quiet cabin as she pulled up databases she subscribed to through theTribune. “Shell companies have to file paperwork. Annual reports. Tax documents. And even when they try to hide ownership, there are usually clues. Lawyers who file the paperwork. Accountants who prepare the returns. Someone has to sign the documents.”

She dug through filing after filing, cross-referencing names, looking for patterns. Her eyes narrowed with concentration. Dax watched over her shoulder, silent but attentive, his breathing steady behind her.

After twenty minutes, Quinn found something. Her posture straightened, her fingers freezing on the keyboard.