Chapter 7 - An Unexpected Alliance
By evening, the tension inside the Rallo mansion in Riverdale had reached a boiling point.
Evander sat behind his massive mahogany desk in the first-floor office.
Sabine Lockidge stood across from him, holding a encrypted tablet.
"She got into the Brooklyn annex," Sabine said, his voice tight with controlled fury.
"She found the car."
Evander did not look up from the document he was reading.
"Did she take anything?"
"She retrieved the tracker from the chassis."
Evander slowly lowered the papers.
His eyes were dark, cold pools of calculation.
"A girl with no training slipped past our security, navigated the Brooklyn garage, and found the one vehicle we kept locked away," Evander said softly.
"She's not just a nurse, Sabine."
"She's Abel Hollis's daughter," Sabine reminded him.
"Abel was a driver. He wasn't a tactician."
"Maybe not," Evander stood up, walking slowly toward the tall, rain-streaked window overlooking the Hudson.
"But someone is helping her. People like that don't move without backing."
"Shall I increase surveillance?"
"No," Evander said after a long pause. "Bring her to me."
"Alive?"
"I want her brought to this room. Untouched. Do you understand?"
Sabine hesitated, then nodded. "Understood."
Meanwhile, miles away in Manhattan, Tamson sat in the basement archives of the city municipal library.
She had spent the afternoon plugging the serial numbers from the GPS tracker into public transit and municipal utility databases.
The results were shocking.
The tracker wasn't installed by the police.
The serial number belonged to a private security firm registered under a shell corporation.
And the parent company of that corporation was owned directly by Sabine Lockidge.
The puzzle pieces were clicking into place with terrifying speed.
It wasn't just a cover-up of an accident.
It was a premeditated operation.
Her father hadn't just crashed in a storm.
He had been tracked.
He had been hunted down on that parkway four years ago.
Before Tamson could dig deeper, her phone buzzed violently against the wooden table.
An unknown number.
She stared at the screen.
She swiped to answer.
"Miss Hollis," a deep, distorted voice spoke through the receiver.
"Who is this?" Tamson demanded.
"If you want to know why your father's car was forced off the road," the voice said calmly,
"meet me at the fountain in Central Park in twenty minutes. Come alone."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
Tamson’s heart hammered against her ribs.
It was a trap.
It had to be a trap.
May you like
Yet it was also the only chance she had to get the final answer.
She stood up, zipped her black wool coat, and walked out into the gathering dusk of New York City.
