Chapter 7 - The Guard Who Changed Sides
Caleb stepped in front of Emma and Rosa.
“You put your hands on my mother.”
The guard’s name tag read DANIEL ROSS.
His face showed no threat now. Only exhaustion.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Caleb moved closer. “Wrong answer.”
Ross did not back away.
“The SUV was supposed to take her back to Cedar Ridge. Your father changed the route after you came downstairs.”
“Changed it to where?”
“I wasn’t told.”
Caleb’s fists clenched.
Ross looked at the leather pouch.
“I came here because Mr. Whitmore sent another team. They’re two minutes behind me.”
Emma whispered, “Why are you helping us?”
Ross stared at the floor.
“Because your mother looked at me in that garage and said, ‘You still have time to decide what kind of man you are.’”
Nobody spoke.
Then Ross pulled a key card from his pocket.
“There’s a maintenance exit behind the luggage wall. Go now.”
Caleb did not move.
“Where would they take her?”
Ross hesitated.
“Whitmore owns a private medical transport company through a shell corporation. There’s a dispatch facility in Yonkers.”
Rosa’s face tightened. “North Vale?”
Ross nodded.
Caleb slipped the recorder and flash drive inside his jacket.
The three of them followed Ross through a narrow maintenance corridor.
They heard the storage room door crash open behind them.
Men shouted.
Ross shoved a cart across the passage.
“Move!”
They ran.
At the end of the corridor, Caleb stopped long enough to grab Ross’s sleeve.
“You’re coming with us.”
Ross shook his head.
“They know my face. I can slow them down.”
“You’ll get fired.”
Ross gave a humorless smile. “Getting fired is the best thing that could happen tonight.”
Caleb, Emma, and Rosa disappeared through the exit.
Outside, the rain had softened.
Caleb’s phone buzzed.
A text from Sloane.
PLEASE COME BACK. I CAN FIX THIS.
Then another message arrived from an unknown number.
It was a photo.
Margaret sat in the back of a vehicle, wrists held together by a soft medical restraint, eyes open and furious.
May you like
Beneath the photo were seven words.
SIGN THE LICENSE, AND SHE COMES HOME.
