Chapter 6
Nathan ran from the church before Marcus could stop him.
Samuel Lowe lay dying behind the pew.
Ruiz called an ambulance while Marcus forced Nathan into an armored vehicle.
“Who took Lily?” Nathan demanded.
“We don’t know.”
“Call Rosa.”
Rosa answered on video.
Blood covered one side of her face.
Priya was treating a cut above her eye.
Maya stood near the broken rear door.
“Three men entered wearing federal uniforms,” Maya said. “They had valid credentials.”
“Where is Lily?”
“They put her in a black van.”
Nathan could hardly hear over the roaring in his head.
“I promised her.”
“Nathan,” Ruiz said sharply, “listen to me. We will find her.”
His phone rang.
Vanessa.
He answered.
Lily appeared on-screen.
She was in the back seat of a car.
Her wrists were tied.
“Dad.”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You did nothing wrong.”
Vanessa turned the camera toward herself.
“You should have brought the files to the mansion.”
“If you hurt her—”
“You still think threats matter?”
“What do you want?”
“The complete digital archive and Claire’s final recording.”
“Samuel gave it to me.”
“I know. Richard had him followed.”
“Where are you taking Lily?”
“Somewhere your money cannot reach.”
Lily cried out as the car turned sharply.
For a second, the camera pointed through the window.
Nathan saw a blue highway sign.
Route 2 West.
Marcus captured the image.
Vanessa continued.
“You have three hours. Send the files to the address I text you. If you contact the police, Lily disappears.”
The call ended.
Marcus traced the signal, but the phone had bounced through several towers.
Route 2 gave them direction, not a destination.
Then Nathan remembered Lily’s drawing of the cottage near the old paper mill.
That location was east, not west.
Vanessa wanted them looking toward the highway.
Ruiz examined the short video frame by frame.
A reflection in the window showed a yellow tower.
Marcus recognized it as a water tower near a private airfield owned by the Vale Foundation.
Katherine was moving Lily by plane.
Nathan called the airport authority.
A chartered jet had filed a flight plan to Montreal.
Departure was in forty minutes.
Ruiz contacted federal aviation officials.
Captain Briggs anticipated them.
He sent an order claiming Lily was traveling under judicial protection with her legal guardian, Vanessa Cole.
Judge Pike’s emergency order had been granted.
On paper, Vanessa now had custody.
Nathan raced to the airfield with Marcus and Ruiz.
Security vehicles blocked the entrance.
Briggs stood in front of them.
He wore his police uniform.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
Ruiz stepped out with her weapon lowered.
“You kidnapped a child.”
“I’m enforcing a court order.”
“The guardian is wanted for assault, kidnapping, and attempted murder.”
“Those warrants were improperly issued.”
Nathan saw the jet moving toward the runway.
He stepped from the vehicle.
Briggs aimed his gun.
“Get back inside.”
“My daughter is on that plane.”
“You should have thought about her before abandoning her for three months.”
Nathan moved forward.
Briggs fired into the ground.
Marcus drew his weapon.
Security officers surrounded them.
Then sirens approached from behind.
Not local police.
State troopers.
Ruiz had contacted the governor’s security office and shared the evidence against Briggs.
The captain looked around.
His men began lowering their weapons.
Briggs ran toward his car.
Ruiz tackled him before he reached it.
The jet accelerated.
Nathan watched helplessly as it lifted from the runway.
“They have her,” he whispered.
Marcus grabbed his shoulder.
“Not yet.”
Federal controllers ordered the pilot to return.
The pilot ignored them.
Two military aircraft were dispatched to intercept.
The charter crossed into Canadian airspace, then suddenly changed course.
Its transponder disappeared.
For twenty agonizing minutes, no one knew where it was.
Then authorities located it at a private landing strip in northern Vermont.
The cabin was empty.
Vanessa had switched vehicles again.
Inside the plane, investigators found Lily’s bracelet.
Nathan had given it to her on her seventh birthday.
Beneath it was a tiny piece of paper.
Lily had written three words in purple marker.
WHITE HOUSE. BELLS. WATER.
“She left us a clue,” Marcus said.
Nathan remembered a place from Vanessa’s childhood photographs.
A white lakeside estate with a bell tower.
It belonged to Katherine Vale.
The estate stood on an island in Lake Champlain.
Police surrounded the shoreline, but a storm prevented helicopters from flying.
Nathan, Marcus, and a federal rescue team crossed by boat.
Waves slammed the hull.
Lightning split the sky.
Nathan pictured Lily alone with Vanessa.
He remembered her question.
Will you be weak?
“No,” he whispered.
The island’s main dock was empty.
The team entered through a boathouse.
Security cameras tracked them immediately.
An alarm rang through the estate.
Vanessa’s voice came over the speakers.
“Leave, Nathan.”
“Give me Lily.”
“You took my father from me.”
“Richard had Samuel shot.”
“You forced him into that church.”
Nathan moved through the dark hallway.
“Katherine ordered Claire’s death. Richard killed her. They used you.”
“Stop lying.”
“Samuel confessed.”
A sob broke through the speaker.
Then Vanessa’s voice hardened.
“Put Claire’s recording in the library and walk away.”
Nathan signaled Marcus toward the stairs.
He entered the library alone.
A monitor showed Lily tied to a chair in the bell tower.
Vanessa stood beside her.
A rope hung from the ceiling.
Below the chair was an open shaft.
Nathan’s heart stopped.
“If anyone enters this tower,” Vanessa said, “I cut the rope holding her platform.”
“Let Lily go. Take me.”
“I don’t want you.”
“You wanted my company.”
“I wanted what should have been mine.”
Nathan understood.
“Katherine promised it to you.”
“She said my father and I would finally be respected. Then you came home early and destroyed everything.”
“Katherine never planned to give you anything.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know people like her. She made Richard do the killing, Samuel move the money, and you hurt Lily. What risk did Katherine take?”
Vanessa said nothing.
Nathan placed the recorder on the table.
“Katherine let your father die.”
“He’s alive.”
“No.”
Vanessa stared at him through the camera.
“He was shot at the church.”
Her face collapsed.
Nathan played the final seconds from Marcus’s body camera.
Samuel lay bleeding.
His last word was Vanessa’s name.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
For one moment, she looked human.
Then another voice sounded behind Lily.
“Enough.”
Katherine Vale stepped into view.
She was seventy-one, elegant, and perfectly calm.
She held a pistol.
“You always were too emotional, Vanessa.”
Vanessa turned.
“You said my father was safe.”
“He became inconvenient.”
“You killed him?”
“I corrected his failure.”
Vanessa backed away from Lily.
Katherine aimed the gun at her.
Nathan shouted into the monitor.
“Vanessa, get Lily out!”
Katherine fired.
Vanessa fell against the railing.
The rope slipped from her hand.
Lily’s platform dropped several feet and stopped.
The chair tilted over the open shaft.
Lily screamed.
Marcus and the team stormed the tower.
Katherine fired through the door.
An agent went down.
Nathan ignored orders and charged up the stairs.
He found Vanessa bleeding near the wall.
Katherine stood beside the rope mechanism.
“If you move,” she said, “Lily falls.”
Nathan stopped.
Lily’s chair balanced on the edge of the broken platform.
“Dad,” she cried.
Katherine smiled.
“Claire gave me the same look when she realized no one was coming to save her.”
Nathan forced himself to remain still.
“What do you want?”
“The archive.”
“It has already been released.”
“Not all of it.”
“Enough to end Project Haven.”
“You think this is about one failed drug? Governments, hospitals, and investors built fortunes through my network. If everything becomes public, markets collapse.”
“Children died.”
“Children die every day.”
Vanessa groaned from the floor.
Katherine glanced toward her.
That was enough.
Nathan lunged.
Katherine pulled the release.
The platform dropped.
Nathan hit Katherine as Marcus dove toward the shaft.
The rope burned through Marcus’s gloves.
Lily fell.
Nathan heard her scream fade into darkness.
Then the safety line snapped tight.
Marcus had caught it around his arm.
Nathan crawled to the edge.
Lily hung twenty feet below.
“Hold on!” he shouted.
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. Look at me.”
Her bound hands slipped against the chair.
Nathan lowered himself onto the broken platform.
Marcus secured the rope.
Together, they pulled Lily upward.
Katherine crawled toward her gun.
Vanessa reached it first.
She aimed at Katherine.
“You killed my father.”
Katherine laughed.
“You never had one.”
Vanessa fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside Katherine’s head.
“I missed on purpose,” Vanessa whispered.
Federal agents rushed in and arrested them both.
Nathan pulled Lily into his arms.
She clung to him, sobbing.
“I knew you’d come.”
He buried his face in her hair.
“I will always come.”
But outside, across the dark lake, a second boat sped away from the island.
Marcus saw it through the tower window.
May you like
Someone had escaped with Katherine’s computer.
And according to the recovered security logs, the person driving the boat was Richard Mercer.
