Chapter 8
"All right," Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible over the grandfather clock ticking in the corner. "All right, Evan. You're right. I lost my mind. The pressure... the election... I couldn't breathe."
"Go upstairs," Evan commanded, his voice softening slightly as he sensed the crisis subsiding. "Take two valium. Lie down for five hours. Seth and I are going to recon the rail access road to make sure the silo hasn't been rigged with early surveillance. We come back to escort you at ten tonight. Understood?"
Marcus nodded slowly, his eyes still glued to the rug. "Understood."
"Don't touch that burner," Evan warned, pointing at the glowing screen on the table. "Don't send a single reply. Let them think you're still scrambling for the cash."
Evan zipped the duffel bag shut, leaving it resting in the center of the mahogany table, then turned and walked out toward the marble foyer, Seth trailing close behind him like a frightened shadow.
The heavy front door clicked shut with a solid, definitive thud.
***
Outside, the cold mist had thickened into a low-hanging autumn ground-fog that obscured the river valley below.
Evan climbed back behind the wheel of the Mercedes, his mind clicking through tactical requirements with cold, mechanical precision. He needed his suppressed rifle from the floor-safe in his study. He needed the thermal monocular he used during winter boar hunts in Pennsylvania.
"We need to stop at my house first," Seth muttered from the passenger seat, his arms wrapped tightly around his ribs as if trying to hold his organs in place. "I have two heavy tow straps and heavy-duty zip ties in my garage. If we’re going to tie someone up and throw them in the trunk, we need—"
"Be quiet," Evan snapped, pulling out his personal phone to check the remote security cameras on his Blackwood Hill estate.
The perimeter feeds were clear. The tall hemlocks stood motionless against the grey sky, the heated cobblestones wet and empty.
"Evan," Seth said suddenly, his voice rising in pitch. "Look at the wing mirror."
Evan shifted his eyes to the driver-side mirror.
Behind them, emerging from the screened carriage house at the rear of Marcus’s estate, was Marcus’s dark blue Lincoln Town Car.
The heavy sedan didn't have its headlights on. It was creeping across the wet lawn, skirting the circular turnaround entirely, cutting across the manicured grass toward the narrow, unpaved delivery lane that led directly to Route 9.
"What is he doing?" Seth screamed, twisting around in his seat, his seatbelt locking against his chest. "He said he’d wait! He promised he’d go upstairs!"
"He lied," Evan snarled, a wave of pure, murderous adrenaline surging through his chest.
Through the tinted rear glass of the Town Car, illuminated by the faint glow of the dashboard clock, Evan saw the passenger seat.
The oversized leather duffel bag was strapped securely into the seat with the three-point shoulder belt.
Marcus hadn't gone upstairs. The moment the front door closed, he had slipped down the kitchen service stairs, grabbed the cash, and bolted for the rail depot ten hours before the deadline.
"He's going to the silos right now," Seth wept, pounding his fist against the dashboard. "He thinks if he drops the cash before noon, they won't release the video to the DA! He’s cutting a deal for himself and selling us out!"
"He won't make it to the trestle," Evan said through gritted teeth.
He slammed the gearshift into reverse, floored the accelerator, and spun the heavy SUV around in a brutal, grass-tearing slide. Mud and torn sod sprayed against the white estate fencing as the Mercedes hooked traction, its massive tires digging into the turf before rocketing down the access lane after the fleeing sedan.
"Evan, call him!" Seth shrieked, his fingers clawing at his phone screen. "Call his personal line!"
"He threw his phone out the window, you imbecile!" Evan roared, his speedometer climbing past seventy on the slick residential asphalt. "He thinks he's saving his career! The idiot is driving straight into the meat grinder!"
Ahead, the blue Town Car blew through the stop sign at the intersection, its heavy rear end fishtailing wildly across the center line before biting into the asphalt and rocketing north—straight toward the rotting concrete towers of the abandoned railway silos.
The wipers on the Mercedes slammed back and forth across the glass, tearing through the grey curtain of rain, but the red tail lamps of Marcus Kane’s Town Car were already bleeding into the mist half a mile ahead.
"He’s not checking his mirrors," Seth breathed, his boots braced hard against the floorboards as Evan took the switchback at fifty. "He’s driving blind. Evan, if he rolls that boat into the ditch, the money goes everywhere. The first state trooper on scene opens that duffel—"
"He’s not crashing," Evan said between clenched teeth. His fingers bit into the leather rim of the steering wheel until his tendons hummed. "Marcus knows this blacktop like his own driveway. He’s running on pure adrenaline. He thinks ten minutes of speed buys him a clean slate."
The road dropped toward the river bottoms, the valley floor tightening into a gorge where hemlocks leaned over the asphalt like blackened ribs. The pavement deteriorated rapidly, broken frost heaves rattling the suspension.
This was the old freight corridor. Thirty years ago, heavy Norfolk Southern diesels had hauled coal and grain through here twenty-four hours a day. Now, there was only the dead spur, rusted rails choked by dogwood and sumac, and the monolithic grey shapes of the concrete transfer silos looming through the fog like burial mounds.
Ahead, the Town Car’s brake lights flared suddenly, swerving off Route 9 onto the gravel wash of the access depot. The heavy sedan bounced across the disused railbed, sparks kicking up from its tailpipe as the undercarriage scraped iron, before disappearing behind the high corrugated fence of the loading yard.
Evan cut the Mercedes's headlamps two hundred yards out.
He killed the running lights, letting the SUV roll on the slick mud of the shoulder until the front bumper touched the rusted chain-link gate. The rain fell in heavy, deliberate sheets, beating against the aluminum hood with the sound of thrown gravel.
"Leave the doors cracked," Evan whispered, slipping his Glock from its holster and racking the slide with a muted, oiled click. "No slamming latches."
Seth reached into his fleece jacket, pulling out a heavy steel mechanic's flashlight. His face was slick with sweat, the skin around his eyes pulled taut. "What if the blackmailer is already inside?"
"Then he’s holding half a million dollars of Marcus’s graft," Evan said, stepping out into the cold downpour. "And we make sure neither of them leaves."
The depot was a wasteland of rotted timber ties, mounds of crushed limestone aggregate, and three four-story concrete silos connected by an overhead conveyor gallery. The galvanized sheet metal of the conveyor chute rattled in the gusting wind, screeching like dry bone on iron.
Marcus’s Town Car sat twenty yards ahead, parked crookedly beneath the primary loading hopper. The driver's door was flung wide open. The interior dome light burned, illuminating an empty leather seat and the floor mat smeared with wet, yellow mud.
