Chapter 26 - The Visit That Never Happened
The supervised visit was canceled before Mercer reached the building.
At least we hoped it was before.
Federal agents surrounded Family Court Services.
Employees evacuated.
The city sedan Mercer stole was discovered in the underground garage.
Empty.
Inside the building, nothing appeared disturbed.
Then an employee noticed one missing visitor badge.
Another missing uniform.
Mercer had entered disguised as maintenance staff.
Security footage showed him walking directly into the records room.
He remained there four minutes.
Then left through a loading entrance wearing a jacket and baseball cap.
“What did he access?” Sarah asked.
The records clerk checked the computer logs.
Owen Vance.
Lucas Vance.
Melissa Bennett.
Evan Vance.
All four files.
My current home address was redacted.
Protected.
But one document contained an old emergency contact.
Carol Patterson.
My neighbor.
The woman who had watched the boys the night this nightmare began.
I called her.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Police reached her house in six minutes.
Front door open.
Carol’s husband unconscious in the kitchen.
Alive.
Carol missing.
I nearly broke the phone in my hand.
Mercer had finally taken someone.
Not one of my sons.
Someone connected to them.
A sixty-eight-year-old woman who baked cookies for Lucas and corrected Owen whenever he forgot to say thank you.
Miller mobilized everything.
Amber-style alerts were not appropriate, but law enforcement bulletins spread statewide.
Carol’s vehicle remained in her driveway.
Mercer used another car.
Neighbors reported seeing a dark blue pickup.
No plate.
At 11:00 AM, Carol’s phone turned on.
One text reached mine.
BRING GRANT’S ORIGINAL LEDGER.
I called Miller.
“He knows there is no original ledger.”
“Maybe he thinks you kept a copy.”
“He knows federal agents have the archive.”
“Then he wants something else.”
A second text came.
NO POLICE OR SHE DIES.
Attached was a photograph.
Carol sitting in a chair.
Hands bound.
Angry, not terrified.
That looked like Carol.
I zoomed in.
Behind her, concrete wall.
Yellow stripe.
Metal railing.
Industrial.
Sarah studied it.
“Can we identify the location?”
Technicians analyzed everything.
Paint.
Concrete.
Lighting.
Nothing distinctive.
Then Owen looked at the image.
“That railing.”
I turned.
“What?”
“It looks like the one at Grant’s building.”
“Whitmore Tower?”
“No. The construction place.”
The riverfront site.
The abandoned warehouse district where Grant crashed the Mercedes.
Of course.
The beginning.
Mercer was taking us back to the beginning.
Federal teams surrounded the riverfront quietly.
Thermal drones detected two people inside an old concrete pumping station.
One seated.
One moving.
Miller showed me the tactical plan.
“You are not going.”
“He asked for me.”
“He asked for leverage.”
“If he sees agents first—”
“He will see nobody.”
They prepared a decoy.
I recorded a phone message saying I was coming alone.
Mercer responded with instructions.
Warehouse 6.
South entrance.
Carry the drive.
Agents created a replica.
At 3:00 PM, an undercover officer dressed like me drove my pickup toward the warehouse.
That part bothered me more than I expected.
Watching someone else wear my jacket.
Drive my truck.
Walk toward a man who wanted to kill me.
Mercer must have sensed something.
He never appeared.
Instead, Carol stumbled from a side door.
Hands free.
Agents rushed toward her.
She was alive.
Mercer had left.
Again.
But Carol carried a message.
“He said to tell you he was tired of games.”
I crouched beside her.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Her eyes hardened.
“He talked too much.”
That was classic Carol.
“What did he talk about?”
“How stupid everyone was. How Grant stole credit. How you ruined everything.”
“Anything about where he was going?”
She thought.
“He said he had one final appointment.”
“With who?”
“He didn’t say.”
Then she grabbed my wrist.
“He kept checking his watch.”
“What time?”
“Four thirty.”
It was 3:42.
Forty-eight minutes.
Miller asked, “Anything else?”
Carol nodded.
“He had a photograph.”
“Of who?”
She looked toward Melissa.
“Her.”
Melissa went pale.
“Me?”
Carol shook her head.
“Not you.”
She pointed at the secure video feed where Grant was visible from detention.
“Him.”
Grant.
At 4:30, Mercer planned to reach Grant somehow.
But Grant was in a classified federal facility.
Only a handful of people knew where.
Miller called the detention center.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then his radio erupted.
Alarm.
Security incident.
One of the transport officers assigned to Grant had been found unconscious at his home.
Uniform missing.
Credentials missing.
Mercer wasn’t trying to break into the facility.
He had stolen the identity of someone authorized to enter.
Miller looked at the clock.
4:02.
May you like
Twenty-eight minutes.
“Lock down the detention center now.”
