Joy pushed herself up from the table, moving toward him. She needed to touch him, to reassure herself he was whole and safe. Andre met her halfway, his arms coming around her.
"What did you find?" she asked, stepping back.
Andre pulled out his phone with his free hand, thumb swiping to a photo. "This shipping label. Look at the reference number."
Joy leaned closer, squinting at the screen. "CMDev-MW-3847. What does that mean?"
"We don't know yet. Tyler's running searches on CMDev, but nothing obvious." Frustration bled through his professional tone. "Could be anything. Company abbreviation, project code, someone's initials."
Joy stared at the letters. CMDev. The combination meant nothing, but something nagged at her. Like a word sitting just beyond memory's reach. "CMD..."
Then it hit her. The community center meeting. Rollo's weathered hands spreading out old newspaper clippings. The grainy photo of Samuel Prescott with his rolled blueprints.
"Oh my god." She sat back at her computer. "Andre, at the community meeting. Remember when Rollo showed those articles about the developer from the seventies?"
"Samuel Prescott." Andre moved behind her chair, close enough that she felt his body heat. "The one who blamed demons for ruining his resort."
"His business was called Crown Mountain Development." Joy's fingers flew across the keys, muscle memory overriding the sting of healing burns. "What if CMD is something similar? Crown Mountain something?"
"That was fifty years ago, Joy."
"But someone's been using these shell companies. Someone who knows this mountain's history." She tried variations. Crown Mountain. CMD. Different combinations yielding different results. Pages of companies with CMD in their names filled the screen.
"Try Cascade," Andre suggested, his breath warm against her ear. "Cascade Mountain Development."
Joy typed. The search results shifted. And there it was.
"Cascade Mountain Development LLC." Her voice barely rose above a whisper. "Registered 2019."
She clicked through to the corporate filing. The page loaded with agonizing slowness. When the details appeared, her breath caught.
"CEO: Jason Mitchell."
"Mitchell?" Andre frowned. "Not Prescott?"
Another dead end. Joy slumped back in her chair, exhaustion pulling at her bones. Jason Mitchell meant nothing. Another stranger in a web of strangers. She minimized the window and returned to her Ryan Holbrook research, pulling up his LinkedIn profile she'd already scoured three times.
"Wait." Something she'd skimmed past before suddenly registered. "Look at his employment history."
Andre leaned closer, his chest brushing her shoulder. She pointed to the screen.
"Current position: Director of Acquisitions, Pacific Northwest Investments. But before that..." Her finger traced the timeline. "Business Development, CM Development. 2017 to 2019."
"CM Development?" Andre's voice sharpened. "Cascade Mountain?"
Joy's heart hammered against her ribs. She opened a new tab, typing quickly. "Ryan Holbrook, Jason Mitchell."
The search returned several results. She clicked on an alumni newsletter from University of Washington.
"'Business School Graduates Launch Joint Venture.'" She read the caption under a photo of two young men in suits, all confident smiles and firm handshakes. "'Ryan Holbrook and Jason Mitchell, class of 2015, celebrate the opening of their consulting firm.'"
"They know each other." Andre's hand found her shoulder, grounding her. "College friends."
"More than that. Business partners." Joy's mind raced, connecting dots that had seemed random before. "But who is Jason Mitchell?"
She refined her search. "Jason Mitchell" + "Prescott." Most results were noise, unrelated Mitchells and Prescotts. But halfway down the second page, a society blog post caught her eye.
"'Prescott Industries Annual Gala.'" The date was twelve years old. Joy clicked through to a page of photos from some long-ago charity event. Women in gowns, men in tuxedos, champagne flutes and forced smiles.
