Chapter 9 - THE CLOSING NET BACK HOME
Back in Westover, the sun had risen over the Atlantic, casting pale, cold light across the glass towers of Vance Pharmaceuticals. Inside her private study, Clara Vance slammed her hand down on the mahogany desk, shattering a crystal paperweight.
“What do you mean she evaded the Syracuse team?!” Clara screamed at the speakerphone on her desk.
Viktor Thorne’s voice came through, tight and defensive. “She triggered the terminal emergency exit before our team could corner her in the concourse, Mrs. Vance. She vanished into the industrial sector. Her digital footprint went dark the second she ditched her bus ticket.”
“She’s seventy-two years old!” Clara hissed, her face contorting with rage. “She shouldn't even be able to run a block, let alone outsmart professional operatives!”
“She had help,” Viktor admitted carefully. “Our surveillance analysts pulled traffic cam footage from the perimeter of the Syracuse terminal. A local unregistered vehicle—an old green Ford pickup—was spotted picking up an elderly female matching her description near the municipal park twenty minutes after the pursuit.”
Clara closed her eyes, inhaling a slow, controlled breath to steady her temper. Rage was a waste of energy; calculation was her true weapon.
“Trace the vehicle registration,” Clara instructed coldly.
“We tried, ma’am. The plates were stolen off a rusted farm truck in northern Vermont three days ago.”
“Vermont,” Clara repeated, tasting the word like poison on her tongue. Her father, Julian Vance, walked into her study at that exact moment, leaning heavily on his silver-headed cane, his sharp eyes filled with predatory calculation.
“Vermont timberland,” Julian noted quietly, walking over to the window. “Arthur—her late husband—had old union associates up in the Green Mountains. Men who knew how to disappear when the federal racketeering indictments came down in the nineties.”
Clara looked up at her father. “You think she’s running to an old associate?”
“I know she is,” Julian smiled grimly. “And if she reaches them, she might find the original paper trail connecting our pharmaceutical land acquisitions to the old dock embezzlement schemes. We cannot allow her to reach the Vermont border.”
May you like
Julian turned to Viktor over the open speakerphone.
“Mobilize the northern extraction unit. Double the bounty. And bring me the old woman and the mining shares—alive if possible, but make sure the paperwork is signed before she takes her last breath.”
