Chapter 6 - Shadows on the Pavement
The rain had turned into a sleet storm by the time their black suburban pulled up three blocks away from the Fourth Street Clinic. The neighborhood was an older industrial pocket of Manhattan, filled with red-brick tenements, auto repair shops, and iron fire escapes dripping with gray slush.
"Stay in the car with the security detail," Gabriel told Iris, his hand resting on the door handle.
"No," Iris said firmly. Her voice left no room for debate. "Miles Corrigan doesn't fear you the way he should, Gabriel. He thinks of you as a corporate hurricane—something impersonal that he can outmaneuver with an offshore lawyer. But he knows I’m the one who audited his accounts. If he sees me, he’ll hesitate. That gives your security time to secure the perimeter."
Gabriel looked at her for three long seconds, seeing the same unyielding strength that had made him fall in love with her in a drafty community center nine years ago. "Two minutes," he said. "If he moves his hands, you drop behind me."
They walked up the slush-covered steps of the clinic. The front glass door had been pried open with a crowbar, the lock hanging by a few stripped screws. Inside, the hallway was dark except for the erratic beam of a flashlight sweeping across the filing cabinets in the back administrative office.
Miles Corrigan was on his knees among scattered folders, tearing open paper boxes with frantic, jerky motions. His expensive cashmere coat was torn at the shoulder, soaked with sleet, and his face was streaked with sweat and soot.
"Looking for something, Miles?" Iris’s voice cut through the damp darkness of the basement.
Miles spun around, knocking over an iron floor lamp with a loud crash. In his right hand, he held a heavy steel crowbar, his knuckles pale and slick with rain. "Get back!" he shouted, his voice cracking like dry wood. "Don't come near me! Where are the digital keys? The server racks are empty!"
"The servers were backed up to a cloud system in Iceland three hours after you ripped my dress," Iris said, stepping into the dim light of the doorway with Gabriel half a step behind her. "There are no physical records here, Miles. There haven't been for five years. We keep this office open to provide dental care to schoolteachers."
Miles stared at her, the reality of his total, comprehensive failure finally penetrating his panic. "You... you baited me here."
"You baited yourself," Gabriel said, stepping out from the shadow. He was twice Miles's size, moving with the heavy, unhurried balance of a man who had worked timber mills before he ever bought a share of stock. "You thought you could hold sick children hostage to save your company."
"You took everything from me!" Miles screamed, lunging forward with the crowbar raised. "I built that firm! I spent fifteen years kissing the rings of every governor on the East Coast! You can't just take it because of some stupid waitress!"
He never completed the swing.
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Gabriel moved with terrifying efficiency. He caught Miles’s wrist mid-air, twisting the joint until the crowbar clattered harmlessly to the linoleum, and drove his shoulder into Miles’s chest, pinning the broken executive against the brick wall with the force of an avalanche.
"Don't ever," Gabriel whispered directly into Miles’s ear, his voice so quiet it sounded like grinding stones, "call my wife a waitress again. She is the only reason you're leaving this building in an ambulance instead of a hearse."
