Chapter 13 - The Escape
Pike’s people did not attack the detention center.
They attacked its network.
Doors unlocked.
Cameras shut down.
Communications failed.
For ninety-seven seconds, the building became blind.
That was enough.
When the systems returned, Grant Carlisle was gone.
One deputy lay unconscious.
Another had disappeared.
Nolan slammed his fist against the operations table.
“He planned this.”
I shook my head.
“Maybe.”
“You heard him.”
“He was terrified.”
“Terrified people still lie.”
Santos entered holding a tablet.
“We have street footage.”
The recording showed Grant being pushed into a black SUV by two men.
He was not walking willingly.
Blood covered one side of his face.
Nolan watched twice.
“Pike took him.”
“Why keep him alive?”
I asked.
Santos answered.
“To recover something.”
I remembered the warehouse.
“The list.”
Nolan nodded.
“If Grant hid a copy, Pike needs it.”
My phone vibrated.
Another unknown message.
This time there was no photograph.
Only coordinates.
Commerce City.
The warehouse.
Below them were four words.
BRING WHAT HE STOLE.
Nolan looked at me.
“What did Grant steal?”
I thought about our house.
The safe.
The recorder.
Then I remembered Lily’s pink box.
“The recorder.”
Santos frowned.
“Why?”
“Maybe Grant recorded Pike.”
Nolan immediately contacted evidence storage.
Minutes later, the answer came back.
A concealed partition had been discovered inside the recorder.
There was a microSD card.
Encrypted.
We broke the first layer within an hour.
The files contained conversations between Grant and Pike.
Names.
Payments.
Orders.
And one recording made three days before my undercover team walked into the failed ambush.
Pike’s voice was unmistakable.
“If Evelyn survives, we go to the domestic contingency.”
Grant answered.
“What about Lily?”
Pike laughed.
“Children make excellent leverage.”
Grant’s voice became strained.
“She’s five.”
Pike replied with six words.
“Then she’ll be easy to move.”
I stared at the waveform on the screen.
The last file was different.
Recorded two nights ago.
Grant sounded desperate.
“I’m out.”
Pike laughed.
“You were never in.”
“You were useful.”
Then Grant said something that explained his panic when I returned.
“Evelyn comes home Friday.”
Pike answered.
“Then make sure she finds nothing worth coming home to.”
The recording ended.
I looked at Nolan.
“He ordered Grant to erase us.”
“Yes.”
“And Grant hesitated.”
“Yes.”
That did not make him innocent.
It made him weak.
Weak enough to betray us.
Weak enough to fear the consequences.
Weak enough, perhaps, to hide evidence.
Then Lily walked into the room holding Hannah’s hand.
She looked at the recorder.
May you like
And whispered.
“Daddy put another one in my bear.”
