The surveyor’s words gnawed at me. Apex Capital. A mortgage. It spun in my head, a jarring dissonance against the hymns and scripture I’d heard preached for months.
I spent the next few days in a haze, dragging logs, chopping firewood, and keeping to myself. The shunning was complete; no one spoke to me, and even Hannah, Seth’s younger sister, avoided my gaze, though I sometimes caught her watching me from a distance, a small, troubled frown on her face.
One afternoon, I was pulling a cart of freshly split cedar along the creek bed, careful to keep an eye out for thin ice. A flicker of movement at the edge of the woods caught my attention.
It wasn’t one of the commune members. This person was dressed in practical, dark outdoor gear, a camera bag slung over one shoulder, moving with an almost predatory quietness.
She emerged from behind a stand of aspens, a woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and a determined set to her jaw.
“Caleb Finch, I presume?” she said, her voice low and direct, cutting through the frosty air.
I stopped pulling the cart. “Who are you?”
“Sarah Jenkins. Investigative journalist.” She pulled a laminated press badge from her jacket and held it up briefly. “I’m not here for your commune’s internal drama, but your name keeps popping up in my research.”
My grip tightened on the cart handle. “Research for what?”
“Apex Capital Holdings,” she stated, as if reading my thoughts. “They’re a shell company, a front for a regional laundering operation. I’ve been tracking their land-grabbing schemes across Utah for months.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. Marcus hadn’t been lying.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
Sarah stepped closer, her gaze intense. “My records show Apex recently tried to pressure the Sanctuary Valley Fellowship into selling off more parcels. And their local enforcers, well, they’ve been busy.”
She pulled out a small, rugged tablet, quickly swiping through screens.
“Specifically,” she continued, her finger tapping a highlighted line, “they’ve been putting pressure on the family of a certain Luke Albright. Does that name ring a bell?”
My breath hitched. Luke Albright. Seth’s older brother. The one no one ever spoke about.
“Luke,” I managed, feeling a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather.
“Ran up a substantial gambling debt with Apex’s associates a couple of years back,” Sarah explained, her eyes fixed on the screen. “$450,000, to be exact. He fled Utah to avoid collection, leaving his family on the hook.”
She looked up, her gaze piercing. “My sources indicate Apex enforcers have been visiting the valley. Not for land sales. For collection.”
The pieces crashed into place with sickening clarity. Seth’s rigid protectiveness. His sudden fury. The desperate look in his eyes when he’d accused me.
It wasn’t about religious purity. It wasn’t about my past.
It was about his brother. It was about $450,000. It was about a debt so massive it could crush an entire family, an entire community.
“Seth,” I whispered, the name tasting like ashes in my mouth. “He’s terrified.”
Sarah nodded slowly, sliding her tablet back into her bag. “More than terrified, Caleb. He’s trapped.”
She gave me one last, piercing look. “These people don’t play by the rules of any church. If you want to clear your name, you need to understand who you’re really up against.”
With that, she slipped back into the woods as silently as she’d appeared, leaving me alone with the cart, the cold, and the horrifying truth of Seth Albright’s desperation.
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