When Her Boss Torched Her Ancestral 80-Acre Louisiana Homestead to Steal a $400 Million Mineral Reserve, Caretaker Corinne Exposed a 10-Year Corporate Crime Trail and Unleashed the Bayou’s Supernat...
The old flip phone Marcus Landry answered on the third ring sounded tinny, like an antique relic compared to Richard Montgomery’s sleek devices. I’d found his number buried deep in an old Rolodex in Richard’s office, a contact meant for “emergency geological assessments,” long forgotten.
“Hello?” Marcus’s voice was cautious, tired.
“Marcus, it’s Corinne Dupré,” I said, my voice barely a whisper against the crackle of the connection. I stood in the burned shell of my kitchen, the charred floorboards groaning softly under my weight. “I need to ask you about something confidential. Very confidential.”
A beat of silence. I imagined him looking over his shoulder, even though I knew he was hundreds of miles away, safe in his Houston apartment.
“Corinne?” His voice dropped, losing its professional edge. “Are you… are you okay? I heard about the fire.” There was a genuine note of concern, a stark contrast to the usual corporate detachment.
I cut to the chase, describing the 2014 geological report I’d found, the forum posts, the specific coordinates on my land. “Did Montgomery Energy ever find anything on my family’s land back then? Anything significant?”
Another long pause, heavier this time. I heard him take a deep, shaky breath. “Corinne, you shouldn’t be asking about that. It’s… buried.”
“Buried like my house, Marcus?” I pressed, the anger finally breaking through my carefully constructed calm. “Or buried like a corporate secret?”
He sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of a decade’s worth of complicity. “Okay, look. Not over the phone. But yes. There was a discovery. A big one. Rare-earth minerals. Very high concentrations. A vein unlike anything seen in the Gulf Coast.”
My stomach clenched. “How much, Marcus?”
“Internal estimates… Richard wanted to suppress the data until he could acquire the land discreetly. We’re talking upwards of 400 million US dollars, Corinne. Minimum. Probably more now.”
Four hundred million. Jackson’s fifty thousand dollars was a pittance, a blood offering in comparison. Richard Montgomery had been playing a long, cold game, waiting for my family to die out, for the land to become vulnerable. He was trying to buy the future for pennies on the dollar.
A cold shiver ran down my spine, unrelated to the evening chill creeping through the gaps in the wall. From beneath the floorboards, a low, guttural murmur began to echo. It wasn’t the creaking of old wood, nor the settling of embers. It was deeper, a resonant hum that vibrated up through the soles of my feet.
“Marcus, are you sure about the numbers?” I asked, my voice wavering, trying to focus on the conversation.
“Positive. I saw the original reports. Signed off on some of the sample logs myself before they were filed away, deep in the inactive archives. Richard locked it all down, said it was ‘proprietary research.’ He swore everyone involved to silence.”
The humming intensified, morphing into something more distinct, like whispers carried on a deep, subterranean breeze. It sounded like ancient words, unintelligible yet oddly rhythmic, as if the very mud beneath my feet was speaking.
“Marcus,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper now. “Something’s happening here. Something… else.”
He didn’t seem to hear me, or chose to ignore it. “I’ll send you some old internal file numbers, Corinne. Coordinates, cross-references. They might help you trace the digital breadcrumbs.”
“Thank you, Marcus,” I managed, the words almost lost in the rising chorus of subterranean whispers. The mud wasn’t just humming. It was singing. A low, mournful song that seemed to come from the deepest heart of the bayou, directly beneath the house. It was ancient, and it was demanding attention. The connection crackled, and then Marcus was gone. I was left alone with the echoes, and the strange, unsettling sounds of the earth awakening.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours