Chapter 9 - The Hunt Through the Kingston Woods
The abandoned dairy farm on the outskirts of Kingston sat at the end of a long, unpaved gravel road overgrown with weeds and choked with rotting brush. The main farmhouse was a decrepit, two-story Victorian structure with peeling white paint, boarded-up first-floor windows, and a collapsed front porch.
Three tactical Suburbans tore through the rusted gate, their high-intensity searchlights cutting through the driving sleet, illuminating the desolate property.
Lorenzo kicked his door open before the vehicle had fully stopped, his boots hitting the frozen mud. He racked the slide of his suppressed Glock, his eyes sweeping the perimeter with lethal efficiency.
"Perimeter clear," Mason called out through his tactical headset. "No heat signatures inside the primary structure. The site has been abandoned for at least two weeks."
Lorenzo marched up the creaking wooden steps of the farmhouse, kicking the splintered front door off its rusted hinges.
The interior smelled of damp mold, stale cigarette smoke, and dried urine. The floor was littered with empty ration cans, discarded duct tape, and broken beer bottles.
Lorenzo took the stairs three at a time, heading straight for the second-floor bathroom.
The door had been kicked off its frame.
Inside the small, windowless room, Lorenzo saw the reality of his wife’s nightmare. Bolted into the rotting floorboards was a single iron eyelet with a severed pair of heavy-duty steel handcuffs attached to a rusty radiator pipe. Scattered across the linoleum were drops of dried, oxidized blood.
Lorenzo walked to the shattered window frame.
The glass had been violently smashed outward. Jagged, bloodstained shards still clung to the lower sash where Isabella had dragged her body through the opening. Looking down, Lorenzo saw the eighteen-foot drop onto the rocky ground below, where a decaying pile of snow and rotting timber lay beneath the eaves.
"She took that fall in the dark," Mason murmured, standing behind Lorenzo with his flashlight beam pointed down at the ground. "She must have fractured her ribs on impact."
"And she still walked to the barn," Lorenzo said, his voice tight with awe and agony.
They descended the stairs and crossed the muddy yard toward the decaying red timber barn.
Inside the central stable aisle, a heavy industrial chain hung from an oak support post. The steel links had been pried apart using a heavy iron crowbar that still lay on the dirt floor. Beside the post was a worn, familiar object: an empty plastic water bowl with the word BRUNO painted in faded white letters.
"She freed him," Lorenzo whispered, his hand touching the cold iron chain. "And he guided her through the mountains."
"Lorenzo," Mason called out from the doorway, holding his tablet high to catch a satellite downlink. "We just intercepted a high-priority alert from the NYPD 10th Precinct in Manhattan."
Lorenzo spun around. "What is it?"
"A local volunteer at St. Jude’s Community Shelter on 10th Avenue just contacted the tip line," Mason said, reading the dispatch text with widening eyes. "A woman matching Isabella’s description, accompanied by a large black Cane Corso with an injured paw, just entered the shelter’s medical clinic seeking treatment for hypothermia and an infected laceration."
"Is she secured?"
"The shelter director placed her in a private administrative office on the second floor while waiting for municipal emergency services," Mason said. "But the dispatch was broadcast over an open tactical channel. If any of Vincent’s remaining mercenary contacts are monitoring the NYPD feed, they have her exact location."
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Lorenzo didn't hesitate for a single microsecond.
"Get the helicopter in the air," Lorenzo roared, sprinting toward the clearing behind the barn where their twin-engine Sikorsky S-76 was already spooling its rotors. "If anyone touches a single hair on my wife’s head before I get there, I will burn this city to the ground."
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