Chapter 7 - THE OLD WINERY
Rain swept across the abandoned winery as Lucas stepped from his car.
The building stood dark against the Spanish hills.
One light burned above the entrance.
Lucas touched the microphone beneath his shirt.
“I’m going in.”
Grant’s voice whispered through his earpiece.
“We have eyes on you.”
Lucas entered.
Vanessa waited beside a long wooden table.
She had changed out of her wedding dress and into black pants and a raincoat.
Captain Cole stood behind her with a gun.
“Where’s Lily?”
Vanessa pushed a stack of documents toward him.
“Sign first.”
“I see her first.”
Cole pressed the gun against Lucas’s ribs.
“You’re not negotiating.”
Lucas glanced around.
Four cameras.
Two exits.
A steel door near the back wall.
“Lily!” he shouted.
“Dad!”
Her voice came from behind the steel door.
Lucas moved toward it.
Cole struck him across the face with the gun.
He fell against the table.
Vanessa leaned over him.
“You could’ve had a beautiful life with me.”
“You murdered my wife.”
“Rachel chose the wrong side.”
“She trusted you.”
“That was her weakness.”
Lucas looked at her with disgust.
“What did you give her?”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“Something that made her medication lethal.”
The confession traveled through Lucas’s microphone.
But Grant did not give the signal.
They still needed Lily outside the chamber.
Lucas picked up the pen.
“If I sign, you release her?”
“Yes.”
“You leave with the money, and Lily comes home with me?”
Vanessa nodded.
Lucas signed the first page.
Then the second.
As he reached the last page, an alarm suddenly screamed through the building.
Lucas had entered 4-1-7 into a keypad beneath the table while pretending to retrieve the dropped pen.
Red emergency lights flashed.
The steel chamber door automatically unlocked.
Lucas charged toward it.
Cole grabbed him.
They crashed into a rack of empty bottles.
Lily pushed the steel door open from inside.
“Run!” Lucas shouted.
She sprinted toward the side exit.
Vanessa caught her by the arm.
Lily bit Vanessa’s hand.
Vanessa screamed and released her.
Grant’s team stormed through the front entrance.
“Police! Drop the weapon!”
Cole fired.
The bullet struck a wooden beam above Lucas.
Lucas tackled him.
Grant dragged Lily behind cover.
Vanessa fled up a staircase leading to the roof.
Cole broke free and followed her.
Lucas started after them.
Grant grabbed him.
“Your daughter is safe.”
Then they heard Vanessa shout from above.
A car engine roared outside.
Lucas looked through a broken window.
Vanessa and Cole escaped in an SUV.
Lily ran into her father’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Grant approached with the signed documents.
“She wanted your company badly enough to confess to murder.”
Lucas stared at the road disappearing into the hills.
“She isn’t finished.”
His phone buzzed.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed Maria unconscious in the back seat of Vanessa’s SUV.
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The message beneath it read:
BRING THE FLASH DRIVE, OR SHE DIES AT MIDNIGHT.
