Becca laughed. “You two are ridiculous.”
Violet stopped by twice—once with a plate of cross-your-heart cinnamon rolls she claimed were leftovers but had clearly just been made, and once to squeeze Becca’s shoulder again without a word, which made Becca’s eyes go glassy for a second before she blinked it away.
It felt like something had been restored. Like the circle we’d all been part of since we were kids—me and Jude, brothers by blood; Becca and Harper, best friends by choice—had finally clicked back into place after years of being slightly off-kilter. We’d drifted, pulled apart by life and hurt and distance, but never fully broken. And now, sitting here with Becca’s hand in mine and the smell of coffee and cinnamon in the air, it was right again.
Then Becca’s text notification went off.
She pulled it out, read the text, and showed it to me without a word.
Matt: I’ve got enough. Can you meet tonight? Bring Levi.
She read it, exhaled slowly, then looked up at me as she turned the phone in my direction so I could read the message.
“Tonight,” I said quietly.
Across the table, Harper was teasing Jude about Bella’s school play—” She’s a tree, Jude. A very expressive tree.”—and Jude was listening with his chin in his hand, morning light pouring through the windows, turning everything soft and warm. Becca’s fingers laced tighter with mine under the table.
Whatever was coming, we’d face it together from here.
Chapter 29
Levi
Matt’s house was a small craftsman on the east side of town. He had coffee made when we arrived and a stack of printed documents in the center of the table with the careful organization of a man who had been processing information all day and had decided the best way to present it was simply to put it in order, without editorializing.
Aggie had already arrived. She sat at the table with her hands around a mug, and Gerald tucked into her coat on her lap. She looked up when we came in, gave Becca a long, steady look, then gave me one too, and whatever she found seemed to satisfy her, because she nodded once and looked back at her coffee.
Becca sat across from her. I sat next to Becca. Matt took the end of the table, closest to the documents, and stood for a moment with his hands on the back of his chair.
“I’m going to tell you what I found,” he said. “All of it. And then we’ll talk about what comes next.”
Nobody argued with that. He sat down and started from the beginning.
Pacifica Valley Holdings, Matt explained, was not the top of the structure. It was a subsidiary—a clean, locally incorporated entity designed to be the visible face of something that didn’twant to be visible. The entity above it was a Portland-based development group called Carver Group. Carver Group was not a household name, which was deliberate. They operated through subsidiaries in multiple markets, acquired land through pressure rather than purchase where possible, and had a documented pattern across three Oregon valleys over the past two years.
The pattern was always the same. They identified river-corridor parcels with development potential—riverfront access, tourism infrastructure, scenic value. They commissioned studies through friendly planning contacts. They made quiet approaches to leaseholders and property owners—cash offers with short windows, compliance reviews triggered on technicalities, and gentle suggestions that things were going to get more complicated if the offer wasn’t accepted. They worked slowly. They worked quietly. They were just short of outright threats and intimidation. And in two of the three valleys Matt had identified, they had succeeded.
Sweetbriar was the third.
“It seems like they want Riverside Pines,” Matt said. “Along with a few other properties in town. Along the river, of course.”
Aggie didn’t react. She stroked Gerald with one hand and kept her eyes on Matt.
“Without that access to your property, Aggie,” he continued, “the corridor doesn’t connect. The parcels on either side of the campground have both had quiet approaches in the last eight months—one sold, one is under pressure. Riverside Pines is the linchpin. Without the river access your land provides, the whole development corridor falls apart.” He paused. “Which means you’re not incidental to this. You’re the reason this is happening.”
The table was quiet for a moment.
I watched Becca. She was very still, in the way she got when she was organizing something large and complicated in her mind. Her hands were flat on the table. Her eyes were moving over the documents Matt had slid toward her.
“Mayor Whitaker,” she said. “What about him?”
“His name appears in two planning commission documents in relation to the Carver Group. Not illegally so far. We can’t prove he’s doing anything wrong. But he was present in meetings that should have been flagged as a potential conflict of interest.” Matt’s jaw was set. “He knew about all of this. He’s known for a long time.”
“What about Travis?” Becca asked.
“Peripheral. He works for the mayor, and we can assume he’s involved that way. He was used as a messenger—the podcast link, showing up at your place. I don’t think he understands the full scope of what he’s involved in.” Matt looked at his sister steadily. “He’s not the threat. He’s, at best, a distraction.”
Becca nodded slowly. “Anyone else I should watch out for?”
