The signal stopped moving about three miles away, right near a bend in the road known for accidents. I grabbed my heavy-duty flashlight and my hiking boots, feeling a knot of dread tighten in my stomach. The night air was thick and silent as I began the long walk across the fields.
Following the GPS coordinates on my phone, I finally reached the edge of the highway. The concrete mouth of a drainage culvert loomed out of the darkness, half-hidden by overgrown weeds and rusted scrap metal. I could hear a faint scratching sound coming from deep inside the pipe.
“Max?” I whispered, my voice sounding thin against the occasional roar of a passing semi-truck. The scratching stopped, followed by a soft meow that echoed through the concrete tunnel. I knelt down on the damp earth, the smell of chemicals suddenly becoming overpowering.
I clicked on my flashlight and swept the beam into the pitch-black opening of the culvert. The light reflected off two yellow eyes first, and then something much larger and darker. Max was pawing frantically at a heavy, black industrial-strength plastic bag wedged deep in the pipe.
The bag had been ripped open, likely by Max’s claws, and a stack of bills was protruding from the tear. But it wasn’t just the money that made my blood run cold. Protruding from the edge of the bag was something metallic and black—the unmistakable barrel of a suppressed handgun.
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