Chapter 5
I stared at the empty bed behind Victoria.
“Where is Lily?”
“Safe for the moment.”
Grace grabbed the phone.
“If you touch her—”
“I don’t need to touch her,” Victoria replied. “I only need Nathan to choose.”
Federal agents called the guards stationed at my house.
One had been found unconscious near the rear gate.
The other was missing.
Mrs. Alvarez had seen a black van leave minutes earlier.
Lily and my mother were gone.
Victoria ended the call after sending an address.
An abandoned Cole Industries warehouse stood near Boston Harbor.
She ordered me to bring the ledger alone by two in the morning.
Dana took my phone.
“You are not going alone.”
“If she sees agents, she’ll hurt them.”
“She plans to hurt them anyway.”
Grace’s face had gone still.
I had seen that expression once before, when Victoria raised the hockey stick.
It was not weakness.
It was a mother turning fear into something sharper.
“We give her what she expects,” Grace said. “Then we use what she forgot.”
“What did she forget?”
“I worked in that house for three months. I know what she took.”
Grace explained that Captain, Lily’s stuffed rabbit, contained a small GPS tag.
After Lily wandered away at a park the previous year, Grace had sewn it beneath one ear.
Dana contacted her technical team.
The signal was not at the warehouse.
It was moving north on Interstate 93.
“The warehouse is a trap,” Dana said.
A second signal appeared from my mother’s medical alert bracelet.
It was heading south toward the harbor.
They had separated them.
Grace gripped the table.
“I’m going after Lily.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. Victoria wants you. If she realizes you aren’t going to the warehouse, she may change everything.”
Dana divided her agents.
Marcus would take a copy of the ledger to the warehouse with me. Grace would travel with a federal team following Lily’s tracker. Another unit would pursue my mother.
Before Grace left, she caught my hand.
“Bring yourself back to her.”
“To Lily?”
Her eyes held mine.
“To both of us.”
At one thirty, Marcus and I entered the warehouse.
The original ledger was already in federal custody. The case in my hand contained a duplicate with a tracker hidden in its spine.
Victoria waited beneath a hanging light.
Detective Mercer stood beside her holding a gun.
Owen Price guarded my mother, who was tied to a chair.
The signal from her bracelet had been attached to a truck as a diversion.
My mother’s lip was bleeding, but she lifted her chin when she saw me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t give them anything,” she answered.
Mercer pressed the gun against her temple.
Victoria extended her hand.
“The ledger.”
I held up the case.
“Where’s Lily?”
Victoria smiled.
“Grace is chasing a stuffed rabbit attached to an empty van.”
My stomach dropped.
She knew about the tracker.
“Where is my daughter?”
“Conrad has her.”
Even Mercer looked surprised.
“You said the kid would be here.”
Victoria glanced at him.
“You’re paid to follow instructions.”
I placed the case on the floor.
“Release my mother.”
“Kick it over.”
I did.
Owen opened it and checked the ledger.
Victoria’s face softened with satisfaction.
“You could have had everything, Nathan. All you had to do was marry me and let Grace disappear again.”
“You knew we shared a father.”
“For ten years.”
“And you still planned to marry me?”
“The ceremony would never have been legally completed. You were supposed to suffer a tragic accident during our honeymoon.”
My mother made a broken sound.
Victoria crouched in front of me.
“Then Lily appeared, and suddenly your shares had another potential heir.”
“She is four years old.”
“She is a signature waiting to grow up.”
Mercer shifted uneasily.
“You never said murder.”
Victoria stood.
“Don’t become moral now, Paul.”
I noticed a red light blinking inside Marcus’s jacket.
He was transmitting everything to Dana.
Victoria noticed it too.
She seized Mercer’s gun and fired.
Marcus fell.
I charged her before she could fire again.
The bullet had struck Marcus high in the arm.
Owen grabbed me from behind, but my mother drove both feet into his knee.
He lost his balance.
I broke free and knocked the gun from Victoria’s hand.
Federal agents stormed through every entrance.
Mercer dropped to his knees.
Owen tried to run and was tackled.
Victoria reached a side door before an agent caught her.
She laughed while they handcuffed her.
“You still don’t know where Lily is.”
Dana entered with Grace behind her.
Grace looked around frantically.
“The van was empty.”
I turned to Victoria.
“Where did Conrad take her?”
She smiled.
“He wants the ledger and the recording. If he learns they’re copies, you’ll never see her again.”
Dana’s phone rang.
Her team had intercepted a call from Conrad’s private plane.
The aircraft was waiting at a small airfield outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with a flight plan to Canada.
Grace swayed.
“How long do we have?”
“Less than an hour.”
Victoria leaned against the wall.
“You can’t reach them in time.”
My mother spoke from behind me.
“Conrad won’t leave without his emergency accounts.”
Victoria’s smile vanished.
My mother looked at Dana.
“The access codes are hidden in the same place he kept his most valuable insurance policy.”
“Where?”
My mother turned toward Victoria.
“In the locket around his daughter’s neck.”
An agent removed Victoria’s diamond necklace.
Inside the locket was a memory card.
Dana inserted it into a secured laptop.
Files appeared across the screen, including account numbers, passport scans, and live coordinates from Conrad’s phone.
He was not at the Portsmouth airfield.
He was fifteen minutes away at the private helipad on Bennett Tower.
Then a live audio file opened.
Lily was crying in the background.
May you like
Conrad’s voice spoke over the sound.
“If Nathan comes near this building, throw the child from the roof.”
