THE SOUND OF SHATTERING GLASS

My mind shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

I fell to my knees on the wet asphalt, staring at the man standing in the fog. My father. The man whose cold, lifeless hand I had held in the hospital. The man whose casket I had watched sink into the earth.

He was standing ten feet away, breathing, real, and holding a Winchester rifle.

"You're dead," I gasped, unable to process the image in front of me. "I buried you."

My father limped forward, leaning heavily on the rifle as a makeshift cane. The left side of his face was scarred, a brutal burn mark trailing from his jaw down to his collar. "You buried a man who looked very much like me, Ellie. A John Doe from the county morgue. It cost me every favor I had left in this world to make that happen."

Harper grabbed my arm, pulling me up. "Eleanor, we have to move. David won't be alone out here. His fixers will be tracking this truck."

David was writhing on the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder, cursing in agony.

Martin hurried over, kicking David's legs out and zip-tying his wrists with a practiced speed that shocked me. He hauled David to his feet. "Get in the truck," Martin growled, shoving his former boss toward the black vehicle.

"Dad, I don't understand," I cried, clinging to my father's heavy wool coat as he reached us. He smelled like pine needles and stale coffee. He was real. "Why did you leave me? Why did you let me think you were dead?"

My father cupped my face, his rough thumb wiping a tear from my cheek. His eyes were filled with a profound, crushing sorrow. "Because David threatened to kill you, sweetheart. He told me if I went to the FBI, he would have you killed in your bed. I had to disappear to find the proof to dismantle his network. I had to make him think he won."

"So you let Sterling torture me?" I yelled, hitting his chest with my fists. "You let me marry a monster?"

"Sterling was a fool," my father said softly, catching my hands. "But he was a public fool. As long as David thought Sterling was running the company into the ground, he felt safe. He didn't know I was dismantling his shipping routes one by one."

"We don't have time for a family reunion," Harper snapped, tossing Martin the keys she had pulled from David's pocket. "Get David in the back. Eleanor, Richard, get in. Now."

We piled into the massive black truck. Martin took the wheel, peeling out onto the highway, leaving our wrecked SUV behind.

I sat in the backseat next to my father, my hands still shaking. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy brass key.

"The microfiche in the watch is only half the proof," my father said, handing me the key. "That film proves the shipping routes were altered. But it doesn't prove David was trafficking people."

"What proves it?" I asked, looking at the intricate key.

"The ledger," my father said. "The real one. Not the fake one Harper found in Sterling's golf bag."

Harper glanced back from the passenger seat. "The one Sterling had was a decoy?"

"I planted it," my father admitted. "I needed Sterling to panic tonight. I needed him to implode in front of the board, so David would have to step out of the shadows to clean up the mess. It was the only way to draw him out."

"You used me as bait," I realized, the betrayal stinging deeper than the shock. "You let me stand there tonight, thinking my husband killed you, just to flush David out."

My father looked away, shame coloring his scarred cheeks. "I had to protect the children, Ellie."

I froze. "What children?"

David, bleeding and tied up in the third row of seats, let out a wet, rattling laugh. "Tell her, Richard. Tell your perfect daughter what we were moving."

My father closed his eyes. "David wasn't trafficking adults. He was moving orphans. Undocumented children from border towns. He was selling them to overseas buyers."

The air in the truck vanished. I felt like I was suffocating.

"And the ledger?" I choked out. "Where is it?"

"It's in the only place David couldn't legally search," my father said. "Your mother’s crypt."

I stared at him in horror.

"We have to go to the cemetery," Martin said, accelerating into the night.

But as we sped toward the city, my phone, buried in my coat pocket, began to vibrate. I pulled it out.

The caller ID made my blood run cold.

It was Sterling.

I answered it, putting it on speaker.

"Hello, Eleanor," Sterling's voice echoed through the truck, sickly sweet and terrifyingly calm. "I hope you survived the crash. Because if you didn't, this little girl in my lap is going to have a very bad night."

A child's voice, small and terrified, whimpered in the background. "I want my mommy."