PART 5 – Shadows from the Past
The bright white light of the helicopter blinded us. The powerful rotor blades whipped snow off the branches above our heads, creating an icy mist of ice crystals all around us. The sound was deafening.
"Cover!" Daniel yelled, pulling me flat against the ice-cold ground, beneath the trunk of the fallen fir tree.
The spotlight swept back and forth across the forest floor, barely a few feet away from us. The wind from the helicopter made the trees creak. I clung to Daniel, my hands stiff with cold and fear. The words on the back of the photo haunted my mind. She was never just a bus driver. And you were never just a random boy. What did Thomas mean by that? Was my whole life, my thirty years behind the wheel of that school bus, based on a lie?
After a few nerve-wracking minutes, the helicopter sound slowly moved northward, toward the highway. The spotlight faded in the distance.
We lay motionless for a moment until the silence of the forest returned. Daniel carefully got up and helped me up. I was trembling so badly my teeth chattered.
"We need to find shelter," Daniel said, looking at my face with concern. "You'll get hypothermia if we stay here."
"There is... there is an old hunting cabin," I stammered out. "Two kilometers further... near the old railway crossing. Thomas and I used to go there sometimes."
Daniel nodded resolutely. He put his arm around my waist to support me, and together we set course through the deep snow. Every step felt like a battle against gravity and the elements. My feet felt numb from the icy stream water, but the urge to survive and find answers kept me going.
After half an hour of intense walking, the wooden outline of the cabin emerged among the pine trees. The building looked abandoned; the roof was half-covered in snow and the windows were boarded up with wooden shutters.
Daniel checked the surroundings carefully before trying the rusted door handle. The door was locked, but with a powerful shove from his shoulder, the weathered lock broke. We quickly stepped inside, and Daniel shut the door behind us.
It was dark and musty inside, but at least dry and sheltered from the wind. Daniel found an old oil lamp on a wooden table and lit it with a box of matches he found on a shelf. The warm, yellow light filled the small room. In the corner stood a cast-iron wood stove.
Daniel quickly gathered some dry wood stacked next to the stove, and within minutes, a crackling fire was burning. Warmth slowly began to spread.
He had me sit on an old wooden bench by the fire and pulled off my wet shoes and socks. He wrapped his own dry scarf around my feet.
"There," he said softly. "That's better."
I looked at him. The oil lamp cast deep shadows across his sharp face. "Daniel... the photo. What exactly did it say?"
Daniel pulled the notebook from his inner pocket and retrieved the photo again. He stared at it for a long time before handing it to me.
I looked at Thomas's handwriting once more. My fingers trembled over the familiar ink of my late husband.
"Arthur," Daniel said in a raspy voice. "Did you know who my father was? I told you before that he just left..."
"Yes," I answered. "You said he abandoned you when you were little."
Daniel shook his head. "That's what my mother always told me to protect me. But when I grew older and joined detective work, I discovered the truth. My father didn't leave voluntarily. He was a witness in a major corruption case where billions in government money vanished. He was kidnapped... and never found again."
My breath caught. "And Thomas?"
"Thomas wasn't a regular accountant back then," Daniel continued, his voice growing louder with emotion. "He worked for the government agency tasked with protecting witnesses. But there was a leak. My father was betrayed. And from Thomas's notebook, it turns out... Thomas was the one managing the documents."
I placed my hands over my mouth. "No... Thomas would never do such a thing! He was an honest man!"
"I thought so too," Daniel said. "But listen further. Thomas discovered the leak too late. He couldn't save my father anymore. But he swore he would protect the witness's family—my mother, my sisters, and me. He arranged for us to move to the small town, right along your bus route."
He looked me straight in the eye. "Thomas had you drive that bus route, Arthur. He knew you were the most caring person on earth. He entrusted me to your care without you even knowing it. You were my unwitting guardian angel."
Tears welled up in my eyes. The whole picture was beginning to fall into place, but the puzzle was far from complete.
"But why was he approached again these past few months?" I asked. "Why now, after thirty years?"
Daniel opened the notebook to a page filled with recent notes. "Because the man behind my father's disappearance thirty years ago is now running for the highest political office in the country. And Thomas held the only evidence that could link him to that crime."
Suddenly, a loud crack sounded outside the cabin. Wood snapping under a heavy footprint.
Daniel blew out the oil lamp in one breath. The cabin was plunged into a dark, suffocating silence.
Through the slits in the wooden shutters, we saw a red laser dot slowly move across the wall of the cabin.
