Book Two · Foundation arc · In production

Stolen Ground

Sapelo Sound. Six in the morning. Tide coming in. The deed in Grant's pocket is a hundred and fifty years old, and the court sale that's about to vacate it is in nine days.

A community on the Sea Islands hires Ground Truth because the same lawyers keep showing up at the same auctions. Grant looks at the legal filings and feels a chill: he has seen this paperwork before, in a folder on his desk in Asheville, six months ago.

The lawyer for the developers is named Nell Voss. She is brilliant. She is principled. She is not the bad guy. She is also unbeatable in a courtroom, and the firm she works for has the same parent company as Pinnacle. Sol Achebe sits across from her in a deposition and starts to remember why he left DOJ.

By Wednesday, Jess is making the same blue Toyota three times in a 24-hour window. By Thursday it's two cars and a boat. By Friday morning, the family they were hired to protect is being told to leave their own land for their own safety, and the only person on Sapelo Sound who's still asking the right questions is sitting on Grant's couch with the lights off.

"Two cases is a coincidence. The same paperwork in two cases is a system. The same parent company under the system is a problem."

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