Chapter 8 - The Trade
I ran.
The man was twenty yards ahead.
Black jacket.
Baseball cap.
He cut through the afternoon crowd.
“Stop!”
He didn’t.
I shoved past commuters.
He reached the stairs.
Laura shouted behind me.
“Daniel!”
The man jumped three steps at a time.
I followed.
Outside, he turned into the taxi lane.
A motorcycle waited.
He climbed on.
The bike shot into traffic.
Gone.
I stood in the street, breathing hard.
The bag was gone.
But Laura ran up holding two flash drives.
“I took them out.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“When you were reading Sofia’s letter.”
Thank God for smart people.
The thief had the paper ledger and DNA report.
Not the digital evidence.
My phone rang again.
Vivienne.
“You disappoint me.”
“You kidnapped a child.”
“I protected a child.”
“From what?”
“Your family.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You’re standing beside my brother.”
“Michael is useful. Don’t confuse that with family.”
I heard him shout in the background.
“Vivienne, enough!”
She ignored him.
“Come to the old Harrington property.”
I knew it.
An unfinished hotel project forty minutes outside the city.
Construction had stopped after financing collapsed.
“Bring the drives.”
“No.”
“Then Lily stays with me.”
“You hurt her and I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
Vivienne’s voice sharpened.
“Call Hayes?”
I went silent.
“Call the police?”
Another pause.
“You don’t know who’s clean anymore.”
She was right.
That was what terrified me.
Laura held out her hand.
“Keep her talking.”
I put the phone on speaker.
“What happened to Sofia?”
Vivienne said nothing.
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“Did Hayes?”
“No.”
“Michael?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“You still think this is about one villain.”
Her laugh was quiet.
“Grow up, Daniel.”
I clenched my jaw.
“Tell me.”
“Sofia made one mistake.”
“What?”
“She believed evidence mattered more than leverage.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she walked into a room with documents and threats.”
Vivienne paused.
“And the people she threatened had more to lose than she understood.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out.”
The call ended.
Laura looked at me.
“We need outside help.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Federal.”
I shook my head.
“No time.”
“Daniel, you walk into that hotel alone and they control everything.”
“They have a six-year-old girl.”
“Who may be your daughter.”
I looked at her.
“She is.”
“You believe the DNA?”
“I believe Sofia.”
That was the first time I had said it.
Really said it.
I believed Sofia.
Too late.
But I did.
Laura closed the laptop.
“Then we don’t walk in blind.”
Twenty minutes later, she made a call to an FBI agent she had worked with on a fraud investigation.
Special Agent Marcus Reed.
He listened to everything.
Then he said,
“Do not go to the property.”
I looked at the photo of Lily.
“I’m going.”
“If you go, you could compromise the investigation.”
“She’s six.”
A pause.
Reed sighed.
“Then at least wear a wire.”
I looked at Laura.
“We don’t have time.”
Reed said,
“You do if you want that little girl to leave alive.”
Then my phone buzzed again.
A live video opened.
Lily was sitting inside a dark room.
Vivienne stood behind her.
And beside Vivienne—
was Detective Hayes.
May you like
He smiled at the camera.
“Twenty minutes, Daniel.”
