Chapter 12 - This Is the Wrong Stop)
Alison tore her hand away from Gregory.
The weak emergency lamp flickered on, casting long amber shadows across the closing room. Above them, Abigail knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice. The guard had taken her back toward the stair, exactly where Mara wanted him to go.
Gregory shoved the pen into Alison’s hand again. “Sign.”
Victor watched the clock. “We have eleven minutes before the lender closes the portal.”
Alison lowered the pen to the paper and wrote beneath the signature line.
HE HAS MY CHILD.
Gregory grabbed her wrist.
The fire alarms erupted. This time they did not stop. Mara had opened a sprinkler valve in the rear corridor, and water burst from the ceiling. Red emergency lights strobed through the room.
Victor shouted for the guard. Celia dropped behind a cabinet and swept the marked originals off the table with her. Gregory pulled Alison backward, but she drove her shoulder into his chest.
The deed and his phone flew from his hands.
The phone stopped beside Alison’s shoe. The emergency call had been connected for more than seven minutes.
“Alison,” the dispatcher said through the speaker. “Officers are entering the building.”
Gregory stared at the screen, then smiled with a calm that chilled her.
“You still don’t understand,” he said. “The deed was never the only thing I came for.”
He reached inside his jacket and removed a small remote control.
Celia saw it first. “The server room.”
Gregory pressed the button.
A muffled explosion shook the ceiling. It was not large enough to destroy the building, but smoke rolled from the upper corridor. He had planted an incendiary device to erase the digital records if police entered.
Victor looked at his son with fury. “You destroyed the financing files.”
“I destroyed the evidence,” Gregory replied. “We can rebuild the deal.”
“You acted without my permission.”
For one revealing second, father and son forgot Alison entirely. Victor had believed Gregory obedient. Gregory had planned for a future in which his father became disposable.
Alison kicked the remote into the water and shouted the distress phrase toward the transmitter hidden in her dress.
“This is the wrong stop!”
The rear door crashed open.
Detective Vega and two tactical officers entered, ordering everyone to the ground. Mara immediately raised her hands. Celia remained behind the cabinet, protecting the original papers beneath her coat.
Victor ran for the freight elevator.
Gregory ran toward the stairs.
Alison ran after Gregory because Abigail was above him.
Smoke thickened on the mezzanine. The sprinkler system had slowed the fire, but burning plastic filled the air with bitter fumes. Gregory reached the hidden stair and slammed the panel behind him. Alison followed the sound of Abigail coughing.
She found the guard on the landing, one hand around Abigail’s arm. He saw Alison and reached toward his belt.
Naomi struck him from behind with a fire extinguisher. He fell to his knees, stunned, and released Abigail. Naomi kicked his belt away and pulled the child toward Alison.
Alison wrapped both arms around her daughter.
“I knew you would find the safe stop,” she said.
Abigail clung to her neck. “Gregory went up.”
The roof access door stood open. Rain blew into the stairwell.
Vega arrived and ordered Alison, Abigail, and Naomi downstairs while officers continued the pursuit. This time Alison obeyed. She had spent two days being pulled toward Gregory’s choices. Getting her daughter out was the choice that belonged to her.
On the ground floor, Victor had reached the elevator, but the power failure trapped it between levels. He forced open the inner doors and tried to climb down. A firefighter descending the shaft ladder met him halfway. Victor returned to the closing room soaked, furious, and under arrest.
Celia emerged with the forged documents. The camera had stored its recording locally, including Victor’s statement about editing the evidence and using Naomi’s credentials. Mara gave Vega the badge, wig, and a list of every identity she had been ordered to copy.
“Gregory forced me,” she said. “But I still did it. I’ll testify.”
The fire department contained the server-room blaze before it reached the archive. Digital investigators recovered several damaged drives. More importantly, the cloned flash drive in Gregory’s pocket continued transmitting after he fled to the roof.
Officers found the jacket near a ventilation unit.
They did not find Gregory.
The roof ended at a thirty-foot drop to the riverwalk. A maintenance cable hung over the edge, swaying in the rain. Blood marked one sharp corner of the parapet, but the river below was black and fast. Divers entered the water. Patrols searched both banks.
Victor refused to speak without a lawyer. The guard surrendered. Mara and Celia entered protective custody.
At two in the morning, Vega joined Alison at the hospital where doctors had examined Abigail and Naomi. Abigail had bruises on one wrist and smoke irritation, but no serious injury. Naomi needed three stitches and was already demanding her laptop.
“Tell me you found him,” Alison said.
Vega sat beside her. “We found the cable tied to a lower platform. From there, someone could enter a storm tunnel. Gregory may have reached it before officers sealed the exits.”
“So he escaped.”
“For now.”
Abigail woke on the hospital bed. “He didn’t take the real drive, did he?”
“No,” Vega said. “You gave us the real one.”
The child considered this, then closed her eyes again. “Then he lost.”
She was right. Gregory remained dangerous, but the forged closing had failed. Victor was in custody. The original deed was recovered. The altered notary stamp connected the entire paper trail. The bank had frozen Harbor Line financing after receiving Alison’s recorded distress phrase.
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At sunrise, divers found Gregory’s shoe caught beneath a dock.
Three miles away, a camera at the intercity station recorded a barefoot man in hospital scrubs boarding a bus to Chicago.
