Its label read:
HAWTHORNE RIDGE — RIGHTS, RESTRICTIONS, AND ACCESS
There were surveys, maps, legal correspondence, and an aerial photograph marked with red and yellow lines.
A heavy black line crossed a narrow section of the southern ridge.
Beside it, Thomas had written:
Their only practical entrance.
Underneath:
Do not surrender this strip.
I sat down slowly.
This wasn’t an ordinary inheritance.
My husband had left me standing directly in the path of something powerful.
And he had apparently spent the last years of his life preparing for a battle I knew nothing about.
Chapter Four: The Gate
Vanessa arrived thirteen days after I moved into Hawthorne Ridge.
It was just after eleven on a cold Saturday morning.
I was peeling apples for a pie when the security monitor beside the refrigerator chimed.
A black SUV rolled through the open entrance.
I hadn’t activated the automatic closure schedule yet.
