Chapter 12 - THE LAST TRAP
Police reached Bennett Technologies before Daniel made it upstairs.
But Daniel was not there to meet Ethan.
He wanted access to the company’s private servers.
He entered using forged credentials and disappeared into a restricted maintenance corridor.
The building went into lockdown.
Employees were evacuated floor by floor.
Ethan watched from across the street.
Rachel stood beside him.
“Why come here?”
“He’s desperate.”
“For money?”
“Or leverage.”
Daniel knew his network was collapsing.
Accounts had been frozen.
Properties seized.
His photograph was everywhere.
If he could steal enough corporate data, he might still bargain his way out.
Then the building’s fire alarm activated.
Employees poured through the exits.
Rachel immediately understood.
“He wants confusion.”
A security camera captured Daniel leaving through a loading dock wearing a maintenance jacket.
Police missed him by less than a minute.
But he left something behind.
A phone.
One message was displayed on the screen.
LUCY FOR THE LEDGER.
Ethan turned toward Rachel.
“Where is Lucy?”
Rachel called the protective detail.
No answer.
A second call.
Nothing.
Then dispatch confirmed the worst.
The vehicle transporting Lucy had been found abandoned.
One officer was injured but alive.
Lucy was gone.
Daniel had taken her again.
This time, however, Lucy was no longer seventeen.
And she had spent seven years imagining what she would do if Daniel ever found her.
Inside the abandoned vehicle, police discovered a tiny scrap of paper.
Three numbers were written on it.
Lucy had torn it from Daniel’s vehicle registration while being forced into his car.
The partial number narrowed the search.
Traffic cameras found the vehicle heading south.
Rachel received another message from Daniel.
He wanted Michael’s original ledger delivered to an abandoned marina warehouse before sunset.
No police.
No tracking devices.
Ethan would bring it personally.
Rachel had no intention of following Daniel’s rules.
A duplicate ledger was prepared.
Tracking equipment was hidden inside the binding.
Ethan wore a concealed transmitter.
At 6:32 p.m., he entered the warehouse.
Daniel stood near the water.
Lucy sat several yards away.
Her hands were tied.
But she was conscious.
Daniel smiled.
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble.”
Ethan held up the ledger.
“Let her go.”
“First the book.”
“First Lucy.”
Daniel laughed.
“You negotiate like Michael.”
Ethan kept walking.
“What happened to him?”
“You already know.”
“I know Vanessa’s version.”
Daniel’s smile faded.
“She always was weak.”
“You killed him.”
“He made a bad decision.”
“He trusted you.”
“That was his bad decision.”
Lucy looked at Ethan.
Her eyes moved toward the floor.
Then toward Daniel.
Ethan understood she was trying to show him something.
A piece of broken metal lay near her foot.
She had almost cut through the rope.
Daniel extended his hand.
“The ledger.”
Ethan moved closer.
Lucy suddenly pulled free.
She grabbed the metal bar and swung it into Daniel’s knee.
He collapsed.
Ethan rushed forward.
Daniel reached inside his jacket.
Police stormed the warehouse.
“Hands!”
Daniel ignored them.
He lunged toward Lucy.
Ethan tackled him.
They hit the floor.
Daniel struck Ethan across the face.
Lucy scrambled backward.
Rachel reached them first.
Daniel was pinned.
Handcuffs snapped around his wrists.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Lucy stood over him.
Daniel looked up.
“You should have stayed hidden.”
Lucy’s hands trembled.
But her voice did not.
“I was seventeen.”
Daniel smiled bitterly.
“And?”
“You spent seven years making me afraid.”
She looked toward the police surrounding him.
“I’m done.”
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
Outside, the sun was setting over the Pacific.
For the first time since Michael Grant died, Lucy watched Daniel Mercer being taken away in handcuffs.
But the story was not finished.
Because when investigators opened the fake ledger Ethan had carried inside, they discovered Daniel had slipped something into it during the struggle.
A tiny memory card.
May you like
And written across it was one name.
EMILY.
