Chapter 16 - The Fire
Smoke poured beneath the archival room door.
The federal agent grabbed the banker’s box.
“Move!”
Mark pulled Elena toward the emergency stairwell.
An alarm screamed overhead.
Sprinklers activated.
Water hammered down.
Rachel coughed behind them.
“Where’s the evidence?”
“With Agent Cole!”
They reached the corridor.
A man in a maintenance uniform stepped from the smoke.
For one second, Mark assumed he was helping.
Then the man struck Agent Cole with a fire extinguisher.
The banker’s box fell.
Papers scattered.
“RUN!”
Mark lunged.
The attacker swung.
The extinguisher caught Mark across the shoulder and sent him into the wall.
Elena grabbed the box.
The attacker seized her coat.
She twisted free.
Rachel kicked the extinguisher from his hand.
Agent Cole recovered and tackled him.
Mark gathered papers from the wet floor.
Flames were spreading from a records room nearby.
The building’s suppression system should have contained them.
It did not.
Sabotage.
Police later identified the attacker as a Sable Ridge contractor.
His phone contained a message received forty minutes earlier.
DESTROY EVELYN BOX.
Payment authorization came through an account linked to Grant.
The evidence survived.
Barely.
But the fire changed everything.
The conspiracy was no longer only financial.
Federal prosecutors obtained arrest warrants for Grant Mercer and Helen Cross.
Helen was arrested leaving her Manhattan apartment.
Grant remained missing.
Victoria remained missing.
And then Mark suffered the worst setback yet.
The family court issued an emergency order temporarily restricting his unsupervised access to Lily.
He stared at Rachel.
“What?”
“The guardian ad litem raised concerns.”
“Based on what?”
“Your federal investigation. The violence around the case. The threats.”
“I’m the one being threatened!”
“I know.”
“She is my daughter.”
“I know.”
Mark slammed his hand onto the desk.
Rachel’s voice sharpened.
“This is exactly what Victoria’s attorneys want on camera.”
He froze.
Of course.
He stepped backward.
“Where does Lily go?”
“For now, she remains with Elena under court-approved protection.”
Mark stared.
“Elena?”
“She has been Lily’s primary caregiver and is a witness protected by police.”
Mark laughed bitterly.
“So my wife tries to murder my daughter and I lose custody.”
“Temporarily.”
He turned away.
This was the consequence he had not expected.
Not money.
Not company control.
Lily.
That evening he visited under supervision.
Elena opened the door.
Mark saw Lily on a blanket in the living room.
She smiled when she saw him.
The sound that came out of Mark was almost a laugh and almost a sob.
He sat on the floor.
Lily reached for his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Elena looked away to give him privacy.
Mark lifted his daughter.
For months he had spent meetings discussing legacy.
Shares.
Control.
Succession.
Now all of it seemed obscene.
“I thought I was protecting your future,” he whispered to Lily.
“I should have been protecting your present.”
Elena sat across from him.
“Mark.”
He looked up.
“You’re going to get her back.”
“I don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because this is temporary.”
“So was my father’s life.”
Elena said nothing.
Mark looked down at Lily.
“I missed things.”
“Yes.”
“I missed Victoria’s lies.”
“Yes.”
“I missed Grant’s fraud.”
“Yes.”
“I missed what happened to your sister.”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
“You never make this easier.”
“No.”
“Good.”
His phone rang.
Walsh.
“We found Grant.”
Mark stood.
“Where?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“We traced his burner to the old Ellison River Plant.”
Mark knew it.
A decommissioned research facility forty miles away.
“Is he there?”
“We think so.”
“What about Victoria?”
“Her burner pinged the same tower.”
Mark’s blood went cold.
Together.
Or hunting each other.
Walsh continued.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“We intercepted a message from Grant to Victoria.”
She read it.
MIDNIGHT. BRING THE ORIGINAL TRUST WAIVER. YOU WANT OUT, THIS IS THE PRICE.
Mark looked at the clock.
10:18 p.m.
Walsh said, “This may be our chance to take both of them.”
Mark understood something else.
“The original waiver.”
“Yes.”
“If Victoria has it, she kept evidence.”
“Possibly.”
“Evidence that Grant ordered Jonathan’s kidnapping.”
“Possibly.”
Mark looked toward Lily.
The final confrontation was no longer avoidable.
Grant needed the document.
Victoria needed leverage.
Federal agents needed both.
Mark asked the question Walsh expected.
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing.”
He almost laughed.
“That won’t happen.”
“Mark—”
“Grant will expect me.”
Silence.
Walsh knew he was right.
Grant’s obsession had always been personal.
Control Mark.
Replace Mark.
Destroy Mark.
Walsh finally said, “You follow every instruction I give you.”
Mark looked at Elena.
She already knew he was going.
“No heroics,” Walsh said.
Mark touched Lily’s white blanket.
The same one she had been wrapped in when she fell.
“I’ve had enough of those.”
At 11:42 p.m., Mark entered the abandoned Ellison River Plant wearing a concealed transmitter.
May you like
Somewhere inside the darkness, Grant Mercer was waiting.
And so was Victoria.
