Chapter 14: Troy's Price

I revoked the remote from my phone before the helicopter was out of sight.

It was a ten-second job. The outer gate would never answer that fob again.

"He can't use it," I told Nolan.

"No." Nolan was looking at the grin on the monitor. "So why show it to you?"

I did not have an answer. I felt it in my stomach all afternoon.

The helicopter stayed in the Dillard field with its lights on.

Beverly and Troy sat on the shoulder of the road until dark.

At two in the morning the scale house alarm chirped, and I was on my feet before I was awake.

The outer gate camera showed a long grey rectangle of road.

The gate stood open a yard wide.

Someone had pulled the manual release pin under the motor housing and rolled the slide back by hand.

I had shown Troy that pin in June. I had thought it was a sign I trusted him.

"Nolan."

"I see it."

A man stood in the lane between my two fences. He was bent over the keypad that sat on a post at the foot of the inner gate.

It was Troy.

Two men in grey gear waited behind him on the road, just outside the camera light.

"He's selling them the inner code," Nolan said.

"He doesn't have it. I changed it Monday."

"Then he doesn't know that."

I watched him type six numbers.

The keypad gave one long, flat beep.

He typed again. It beeped again. The backlight on the post glowed a warm orange.