Chapter 6 - THE CHILD’S DRAWING
The pier spun around me. The roaring in my ears drowned out the sound of the ocean.
They have the children.
I gripped the hood of Patrick’s car so hard the metal dented.
“What is it?” Patrick demanded.
“She took them,” I snarled, pulling my gun from my waistband to check the magazine. “Camille realized I didn’t sign the real documents. She intercepted my housekeeper. She has Jack and Rosie.”
Patrick’s face turned violently red. “Taking children? That breaks every rule of the families.”
“She doesn’t care about the rules anymore!” I shouted. I opened my car door. “I’m going to tear the city apart.”
“Wait,” Patrick grabbed my shoulder. His grip was like a vice. “If she knows you’re onto her, she’s taking them to the cartel exchange point. They’re planning to flee the country.”
“Where?”
Patrick pulled a burner phone from his coat. “Arthur bought an abandoned airstrip in the Nevada desert last year. It’s off the books. But Camille wouldn’t take them straight to a plane. She needs a staging ground.”
I frantically scrolled through the photos on my phone, looking for anything I might have missed in Arthur’s briefcase.
Then I stopped.
I zoomed in on the background of a photo I had taken of the desk. Sitting next to the briefcase was one of Rosie’s ruined crayon drawings. The one Camille had poured juice over.
But looking closely at the photograph, the juice had washed away the top layer of crayon, revealing heavy, black ink pressed into the paper beneath it.
Camille had used the drawing as scrap paper while she was on the phone.
I zoomed in further. The ink read: Warehouse 7. South Port. 3 PM.
It was 2:15 PM.
“South Port,” I said, looking at Patrick. “Warehouse 7.”
“My men are ten minutes away,” Patrick said, drawing his own weapon. “Let’s go.”
We drove like madmen, weaving through traffic, ignoring red lights.
When we pulled into the gravel lot of South Port, Warehouse 7 stood massive and silent against the gray sky. Two black SUVs were parked out front.
I didn’t wait for Patrick’s backup. I kicked the side door open and slipped into the shadows of the warehouse.
The air smelled of old wood and gasoline.
In the center of the massive room, Arthur Velez stood beside a metal table, packing stacks of cash and passports into duffel bags.
Camille paced nervously, her perfect hair messy, holding a silenced pistol.
Sitting on the floor, tied back-to-back against a concrete pillar, were Jack and Rosie. Naomi was bleeding from a cut on her forehead, tied to a chair a few feet away.
“The jet leaves in an hour, Arthur!” Camille snapped. “He knows. I know he knows. He played me this morning.”
“Calm down,” Arthur said smoothly. “We have the kids. He won’t do anything as long as we have them. We board the plane, we make the transfer, and we toss the brats out over the ocean.”
Jack pressed his face against his little sister’s shoulder, trying to muffle her crying.
I raised my gun, aiming directly at the back of Arthur’s head.
But before I could pull the trigger, Camille suddenly stopped pacing. She looked at Rosie, her face contorting with a sudden, vicious rage.
She walked over and yanked Rosie up by her hair.
“Stop crying!” Camille screamed.
“Let her go,” a cold voice echoed through the warehouse.
May you like
It wasn’t me.
Patrick Sloane stepped out from the shadows on the opposite side of the room, his gun leveled at his own daughter.
