Chapter 10 - The Tracker
“No, I’m not,” Jax said.
Miriam looked around the van. “Then something on us is broadcasting.”
Everyone checked pockets.
Phones went into a metal tool box. Watches came off. Vince removed a Bluetooth earpiece.
Nothing changed.
Miriam’s receiver continued to catch Cole’s voice.
“He’s on Route Nine,” Cole said. “Five miles out.”
Darla swore. “That’s us.”
Jax looked at Eli.
The boy went still.
“The picture,” he whispered.
Jax grabbed the faded photograph.
The cardboard backing felt thicker than it should.
He tore one corner.
Inside was a wafer-sized tracking chip.
Hannah hadn’t planted it.
Someone else had touched the photo before Eli reached the diner.
Jax crushed the chip beneath his boot.
“Take the next exit.”
Darla did.
They switched vehicles at an all-night farm supply store, abandoning the van behind a dumpster and borrowing Vince’s cousin’s old pickup from the lot.
For the first time in an hour, Cole’s voice lost certainty.
“We lost them.”
Jax smiled without humor.
“Good.”
Miriam spread a county map across the dashboard.
“We need leverage before we approach that building.”
“The locker,” Jax said.
“Exactly.”
They drove to an old private storage bank on the edge of the county. Miriam knew the branch manager from a prior investigation. After some shouting, credentials, and one threat to call a federal prosecutor, they got into the basement vault.
Box 417 waited behind steel bars.
The brass key fit.
But the biometric plate flashed red.
FINGERPRINT REQUIRED.
“Whose?” Darla asked.
Miriam checked the registration file.
Then she stared at Jax.
“No.”
“What?”
“The box was opened eight years ago and re-registered.”
“To whom?”
Miriam turned the screen.
HANNAH MERCER CARTER.
Eli’s mouth fell open.
“Mom can open it.”
Jax looked at the locked box.
Cole did not need Eli’s fingerprint.
He needed Eli because Eli had the key.
And he needed Hannah alive because Hannah had the biometric access.
Vince said, “So if Cole has Hannah, why hasn’t he opened it already?”
Jax looked at the empty keyhole.
“Because she sent the key away.”
Darla nodded. “To Eli.”
Miriam’s phone vibrated.
A new message arrived from an encrypted number.
It contained a live video.
Hannah sat in the warehouse chair.
Cole stepped into frame behind her.
He looked older than Jax remembered, but unmistakably alive.
He leaned toward the camera.
“Brother,” he said, smiling. “Bring me my nephew.”
May you like
Then Hannah screamed one word.
“DON’T!”
