With a plastic head stamped:
NPS FIRE ACCESS
EAST RIDGE
Lily looked at the grate.
A padlock hung on the outside, fed through a hasp.
She could reach it with two fingers.
Barely.
Mercer was closer now.
“Listen to me,” he said, climbing with steady, practiced movements. “You walk out with that evidence, you won’t make it to the highway.”
Lily stretched her arm through the grate.
Her fingertips brushed the lock.
The key slipped once.
Twice.
Mercer was twenty feet below.
“I buried your mother because Buck lost control,”
