Chapter 17 - THE NIGHT OF TWO TRAPS
Ortiz divided her teams.
Sarah would remain at the burned property under heavy protection.
Emily and I would move to a fortified federal building.
A convoy left the safe house after sunset.
Three identical vehicles took different routes.
Emily and I rode in the second SUV.
Halfway to the city, a delivery truck blocked the road.
Our driver reversed.
A van struck us from behind.
The collision spun the SUV toward a ditch.
Airbags exploded.
Emily screamed.
Two masked men emerged from the van.
Federal agents opened fire on the pavement near their feet.
One attacker fled.
The other was captured.
It was Eric Lane.
Jason was not with them.
The ambush was another diversion.
At Sarah’s house, the pool sensors activated.
A figure entered through the collapsed tunnel.
Ortiz’s team waited until he reached the steel door.
Then floodlights illuminated the chamber.
The man turned.
It was Paul Denton.
Jason had forced him to retrieve the original files.
A small device had been strapped beneath Paul’s shirt.
Paul believed it was an explosive.
Bomb technicians later discovered it contained no explosives at all.
Jason had controlled him with fear.
Ortiz arrested Paul and sealed the chamber again.
But Jason had anticipated every response.
While police focused on the convoy and the pool, he entered the city morgue using Eric Lane’s credentials.
He removed a sealed evidence bag recovered from Arthur Bell’s remains.
Bell had been exhumed after agents connected him to the adoption network.
Inside the bag was a brass ring engraved with the numbers 3179.
The ring contained a tiny mechanical key.
The steel door beneath the pool required both the code and the key.
Jason finally had everything he needed.
He sent Ortiz a photograph of the ring.
Then he called my phone.
“You keep placing Emily behind people with guns.”
“She was safest before you started asking questions.”
“She was in a cage.”
“She was alive.”
The coldness of those words burned through me.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
A horn sounded faintly behind his voice.
Then a train bell.
I looked through the cracked SUV window.
An old freight line ran parallel to the road.
In the distance, a crossing signal flashed.
Ortiz traced the call.
Jason was traveling toward Sarah’s house.
He had chosen the evidence after all.
Then Emily whispered from the back seat.
“No.”
She pointed toward the railway map on the driver’s dashboard.
“That track doesn’t go to Mommy’s house.”
The line ended near Eastwood Recreation Center.
The abandoned pool where Jason had tried to drown me.
May you like
“He isn’t going back for the evidence,” Emily said.
“He already moved it.”
