Chapter 15 - The Bait
The attack changed the rules.
Eleanor was no longer only destroying evidence.
She was sending people after Sarah.
Ortiz wanted the family moved to an undisclosed federal safe location.
Sarah refused one thing.
“I’m not leaving Grace.”
The baby was still in the NICU, four days from possible discharge.
So police turned the hospital into a fortress.
Then Sarah offered an idea that made Daniel immediately say no.
“Use me as bait.”
“No.”
“Eleanor is obsessed with me because Grace changes the trust.”
“No.”
“She keeps coming toward me. Stop chasing her. Make her come where you want.”
Daniel stood. “Absolutely not.”
Sarah’s eyes flashed.
“You do not get to decide for me because you’re scared.”
“I watched you almost die.”
“And I lived.”
Arthur spoke from the doorway. “She is right.”
Daniel turned on him. “You are not helping.”
“No. I am telling you that Mrs. Vance has spent months being treated as something fragile. Eleanor counted on that.”
Sarah looked at Ortiz.
“What would bait look like?”
Ortiz thought carefully.
“A controlled leak. We announce you are signing a petition tomorrow morning that immediately removes Eleanor from every trust role and transfers disputed assets into court supervision.”
“That would terrify her,” Sarah said.
“Yes.”
Daniel hated every second of it.
But he agreed on one condition: Sarah would never be alone.
The leak went out through a reporter known to cover Vance Global.
By sunset, the story was everywhere.
Sarah Vance to seek emergency trust injunction at 9:00 a.m.
At 7:12 p.m., Eleanor’s satellite phone connected near the Hudson property.
At 7:19, it moved south.
At 8:05, police watched a gray sedan enter Manhattan.
At 8:41, the car stopped three blocks from the hospital.
Ortiz smiled.
“She took it.”
Sarah waited in a private consultation room on the hospital’s administrative floor, surrounded by plainclothes officers hidden behind adjacent doors.
Daniel sat beside her.
Arthur waited in the hall.
Nine o’clock came.
Nothing.
Nine-ten.
Nothing.
Nine-twenty.
Ortiz checked her phone.
“The sedan is still parked.”
Sarah’s pulse climbed.
Then Arthur entered.
His face was pale.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Arthur held up his phone.
He had received a photograph.
Baby Grace’s NICU crib.
Empty.
Sarah stood so quickly her chair crashed backward.
“No.”
May you like
A message appeared beneath the photo.
YOU GUARDED THE WRONG VANCE.
