Chapter 3 - The Ambush at the Empty House
I held up a finger, signaling for silence, and tapped the speakerphone button.
"Hello, Daniel."
"Michael! Where the hell are you?" Daniel’s voice exploded through the speaker, breathless, erratic, and edged with sharp irritation. In the background, I could hear the faint murmur of Melissa’s voice and the rustle of papers. "We’ve been sitting in Dad’s driveway for over an hour! The discharge nurse at St. Joseph said you checked him out at twelve-fifteen! It’s nearly two o'clock! Did you get into an accident?"
I glanced at Robert. The old man sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the illuminated screen, listening to his son's frantic deception.
"We ran into heavy construction on the northbound loop," I lied smoothly, keeping my voice utterly level. "Then Robert started feeling faint and nauseous. His blood pressure spiked. I had to pull over at an urgent care center near Mission to let the nurses monitor him."
A sharp intake of breath hissed through the line. "An urgent care? Why didn't you bring him straight home? We have a private nurse coming here! Bring him to the Liberty house right now, Michael! Immediately!"
"He’s in no condition to be moved quickly, Daniel," I replied calmly. "The doctor here wants him lying flat for at least another two hours. What's the massive rush? He just needs rest."
"The rush is that we have important family business to settle before the holiday weekend!" Daniel barked, losing his composure. "Melissa took time off work, and we have legal documents regarding the logistics company’s emergency operating reserves that require his physical signature today! Turn the car around and bring him here!"
"I'll see how he feels in an hour," I said. "I'll keep you posted."
"Michael, don't you dare—"
I ended the call.
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
"He didn't ask once how I was feeling," Robert said, his voice barely a whisper. "Not a single question about my heart. Not one word about my pain."
"He doesn't care about your heart, Robert," Franklin said gently, placing a hand on his old friend's shoulder. "He cares about the corporate accounts. And within the next thirty minutes, he is going to realize that his access has been obliterated."
Right on cue, David Keller’s laptop pinged with an urgent automated alert.
"It's starting," Keller said, turning the screen toward us. "At 2:04 PM, an attempted automated wire transfer of $150,000 from the Harrison Industrial primary operating account to Apex Horizon Consulting LLC was initiated from an IP address registered to Robert’s Liberty residence."
"Status?" Franklin asked sharply.
"REJECTED / SYSTEM FREEZE," Keller read aloud with a cold smile. "The fraud protocols kicked in. The transaction was killed, the account is locked, and a direct alert was dispatched to the account manager."
My phone immediately lit up again.
Daniel (Incoming Call)
Melissa (Incoming Call)
Daniel (Incoming Call)
Text messages began flooding in like a machine gun barrage:
Daniel: "WHAT DID YOU DO? WHY IS THE COMMERCE PORTAL LOCKED?"
Melissa: "Michael, where is Dad? Answer your phone right now! This is illegal!"
Daniel: "IF YOU INTERFERE WITH MY POWER OF ATTORNEY I WILL HAVE YOU ARRESTED FOR KIDNAPPING!"
Robert let out a short, dry, chilling laugh. He reached across the table, picked up my phone, and turned it completely off.
May you like
"Let them sweat," Robert said, his face hardening into an expression of absolute, unyielding authority. "Let them sit in that empty house and realize the well has run dry. Michael, let's go to the lake."
We left Franklin’s office through the private executive rear elevator, completely bypassing the public lobby. As we drove north toward the secluded wilderness of Clinton County, the storm clouds on the horizon began to gather—dark, heavy, and pregnant with lightning.
