He Bought 1,200 Acres With Water Rights — The City Had Been Using His Spring
Chapter 8
Luke spent that night reading everything he could find about Mercer Ridge Development.
The company had been formed twelve years earlier.
Its registered owner was a family trust.
Daniel Mercer had indeed been named as trustee.
Luke felt sick.
He called the attorney.
“Did my father own Mercer Ridge?”
The attorney paused.
“Technically, yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because the trust was private.”
“What did it do?”
“Land acquisitions.”
Luke looked at Ava.
“Which lands?”
The attorney listed dozens of parcels.
Most were dry ranches.
A few surrounded the eastern development corridor.
Luke suddenly understood.
His father had been buying land.
Quietly.
Not to build on it.
To block the development.
“But the water company—”
“Wait,” the attorney interrupted.
“Mercer Ridge never sold water.”
“Then who has?”
“I’m looking into that.”
Luke ended the call.
Ava stared at him.
“Your father may have been building a wall around the whole project.”
Luke shook his head.
“But why would he tell everyone he was investigating the city if he was buying land through a trust?”
“Because he needed the city to think he was failing.”
She walked to the window.
“Maybe your father wasn’t trying to expose them.”
Luke looked up.
“What?”
“Maybe he was trying to stop them without starting a war.”
That idea changed everything.
They searched the trust records.
Buried among the documents was a pattern.
Every land purchase had been made within two miles of the aquifer boundary.
Every parcel had a conservation restriction attached.
Luke whispered, “He was protecting it.”
Ava nodded.
“But why did he leave you the property now?”
Luke found the answer in a sealed letter.
His father’s handwriting again.
Luke,
I couldn’t stop them alone.
The only reason the land stayed safe was because I owned enough of it to slow them down.
But after I was diagnosed, I knew I wouldn’t have time to finish.
So I arranged for you to inherit the one parcel they couldn’t buy from anyone else.
The spring.
The old water right.
And the aquifer beneath it.
If you sell, they’ll win.
If you stay, they will come for you.
I am sorry.
Luke lowered the letter.
“My father knew he was dying.”
Ava’s eyes filled with tears.
“He was preparing you.”
Then another document slipped from the envelope.
It was a beneficiary certificate.
Luke stared at it.
The entire Mercer Ridge trust transferred to him upon acquisition of the 1,200-acre property.
That meant Luke now controlled the surrounding conservation parcels.
Not just the spring.
The development corridor.
Hale had offered him twenty million because he needed those parcels.
Luke looked at Ava.
“They’ve been trying to buy the land from my father for years.”
“And now you own it.”
A knock came at the door.
Sheriff Barrett entered.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“The shooting last week.”
They looked at him.
“We found a vehicle.”
“Who was driving?”
Barrett’s expression was grim.
“A private investigator hired by Richard Hale.”
Luke frowned.
“Did he admit anything?”
“No.”
“Then why is this a problem?”
Barrett handed Luke a photograph.
“The investigator isn’t the man who shot at you.”
Luke stared at it.
“Then who?”
Barrett shook his head.
“We don’t know.”
Ava went silent.
Luke looked back at his father’s letters.
Someone else was protecting the secret.
And they had been watching Hale too.
