Chapter 7 - No Good Choices
Leon tried to run to his truck. Tobias stopped him at the door.
“Listen to me. If they want the folder, they'll trade.”
“You don't know these people.”
“I know exactly who they are.”
The caller demanded the documents be delivered to a closed gas station by noon. No police. No copies. Rosalind took the phone from Leon's trembling hand.
“You have proof she's alive?”
A muffled cry came through the line. “Dad?”
Leon crumpled against the workbench.
At the gas station, Rosalind wore a baseball cap and kept her face behind the van's tinted glass. Tobias crossed the asphalt with the folder while Leon waited two blocks away. A black sedan rolled into view. Vance stepped out and smiled like they were meeting for lunch.
“Look at you, Tobias,” he said. “Standing tall.”
“Where's the girl?”
Vance held up his phone. Video showed Leon's daughter tied to a chair in a room lined with yellow insulation.
“Folder first.”
Tobias dropped it on the pavement. Vance bent to retrieve it. Rosalind hit the van's horn and Leon swung his tow truck across the station entrance. Tobias slammed Vance into the sedan door, snatched his phone, and ran.
They escaped with the video and without the folder. But when Rosalind examined a reflection in the recording, she saw a familiar red-and-white lighthouse painted on the wall of the room.
“The old marina warehouse,” she said. “Dad used to keep boats there.”
Tobias gave her a sharp look. “How do you know?”
“Because Penelope hid there when she wanted to make me search for her.”
They called Leon and drove toward the marina. At the last intersection, traffic halted behind a line of emergency vehicles.
May you like
A warehouse burned against the gray sky.
On the nearest police cruiser, Rosalind recognized Sheriff Halden's badge.
