Chapter 12 - THE INSIDE MAN
Mark called Grace.
No answer.
He called the security officer assigned to the property.
No answer.
His pulse exploded.
Ruiz was beside him within seconds.
“Address.”
Mark gave it.
Police converged on the safe house.
Mark was ordered to remain behind.
He ignored the first order.
Ruiz physically blocked his car.
“If Adrian is there, you driving in gives him another hostage.”
“My daughter is inside.”
“And I intend to get her out.”
Three minutes felt like thirty.
Then Ruiz’s radio crackled.
Officers entered the property.
The front door was open.
One guard was unconscious in the kitchen.
The second was found outside near the generator.
Grace was in an upstairs bathroom.
Locked inside.
Alive.
Lily was gone.
Mark stopped hearing the world.
Ruiz grabbed his shoulders.
“Mark.”
He looked at her.
“We are going to find her.”
He could not speak.
Security footage from the property showed a familiar vehicle arriving forty minutes earlier.
A Whitmore corporate SUV.
The driver wore an employee badge.
The gate guard let him through.
He knew Lily.
Lily knew him.
He was Mark’s executive assistant.
Daniel Pierce.
Daniel had worked for Mark for seven years.
He scheduled flights.
Managed family appointments.
Knew school calendars.
Had access to Mark’s office.
And had been present every time Victoria “accidentally” appeared at an event Mark attended before they began dating.
Owen found financial transfers to Daniel.
The money came from a company connected to Adrian.
The inside man had been beside Mark the entire time.
Grace described what happened.
Daniel arrived saying Mark needed Lily moved immediately because reporters had found the safe house.
He showed a message that appeared to come from Mark.
Grace became suspicious.
Daniel attacked one guard with a stun device.
The second was drugged.
Grace ran upstairs with Lily.
Daniel forced the door.
Grace fought him.
He locked her in the bathroom.
Then he told Lily.
“Your daddy sent me.”
Lily believed him.
Mark collapsed into a chair.
He remembered Lily asking again and again whether he would send her away.
Now a man had used Mark’s name to take her.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Ruiz signaled everyone silent.
Mark answered.
“Daddy?”
Lily’s voice.
Mark nearly broke.
“Lily.”
“I’m here.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
A man took the phone.
Adrian.
“Hello, Mark.”
Mark’s body went rigid.
“You touch her and I will—”
“You will do exactly what I say.”
“Put her back on.”
“No.”
“I want to hear her.”
“You already did.”
Adrian’s voice was calm.
“Now listen.”
“You will open the emergency trust portal.”
“You will authorize transfer of the offshore reserve.”
“I don’t control it.”
“You control one authorization layer.”
“Richard controls another.”
“Richard is in custody.”
“Which is why you will arrange his cooperation.”
Mark looked at Ruiz.
She wrote on a pad.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
“Why would Richard help you?”
“Because Richard understands prison.”
“And he understands what happens to his family if everything becomes public.”
“It’s already public.”
Adrian laughed.
“You think forty million dollars is the secret?”
Mark frowned.
“What is?”
“You’ll find out.”
The call ended.
Location trace failed.
But Lily had given them something.
In the background, analysts heard a train horn.
Two long blasts.
One short.
Then church bells.
Owen mapped railway crossings near properties connected to Adrian.
Twenty-seven locations.
Too many.
Then Mark remembered something.
Lake Briar.
Caroline had met Adrian there.
An abandoned freight spur ran behind the old maintenance district.
A church stood less than half a mile away.
Police moved.
They found the building empty.
But Lily had been there.
Her stuffed rabbit lay on the floor.
Beside it was a note written in crayon.
DADDY I DID NOT GO WITH HIM BECAUSE I WANTED TO.
Mark picked it up with shaking hands.
On the back, Lily had drawn three shapes.
A bridge.
A star.
And a horse.
Ruiz frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Mark stared.
Then he understood.
The horse.
Caroline had taken Lily to one place constantly as a toddler.
Whitmore Ridge Stables.
The old family horse property had been closed after Caroline died.
A railroad bridge passed behind it.
And the north barn carried an iron star over the entrance.
May you like
Mark looked at Ruiz.
“She’s telling us where they moved her.”
