Chapter 14 - The Meeting at the Docks
The digital threat forced us into action. We couldn't wait for the authorities to wade through bureaucratic red tape. Marcus used his private intelligence network to track the IP address of the red-screen override, tracing it to an abandoned shipping warehouse down at the municipal docks.
Against Adam’s protests, I insisted on coming. If this was about me, if Evelyn and her accomplices were targeting my child, I needed to see the battlefield with my own eyes. We left Ruth safely with a trusted, armed security detail at a secure safehouse, and drove down to the docks under the cover of a heavy, rolling sea fog.
The warehouse loomed out of the gray mist like a rusted leviathan, its corrugated metal siding groaning in the ocean wind.
Marcus parked the car a hundred yards away in the shadow of a towering crane. He handed Adam and me each a heavy, ruggedized satellite radio. "Keep these on. If anything goes sideways, or if I don't check in within thirty minutes, you call the federal marshals directly. Do not hesitate."
"Be careful, Marcus," I said, touching his sleeve.
He gave us a grim, confident nod. "I’ve survived worse than Evelyn’s errand boys, Nora. Stay in the car."
We watched as Marcus slipped into a side door of the warehouse, swallowed up by the absolute darkness within.
Ten minutes ticked by. The silence inside the car was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic crashing of distant waves against the concrete pylons. Twenty minutes passed. My palms were slick with nervous sweat.
"Adam," I whispered, grabbing his arm. "It’s been over twenty minutes. We need to check the radio."
Adam lifted his radio, pressing the transmit button. "Marcus, do you copy? Marcus, report."
Static hissed through the speaker. Then, a low, distorted voice came through—not Marcus’s baritone, but a cold, unfamiliar rasp.
*“The old man is indisposed. If you want to know who’s really pulling the strings, come inside, little girl. Bring the husband.”*
Adam’s face went pale with absolute rage. Without a word, he opened his car door. I moved to follow him, but he looked back fiercely. "Nora, stay here—"
"No," I interrupted, my voice trembling but absolute. "She threw me down those stairs, Adam. She ruined our lives, and now she’s threatening our daughter. I am not sitting in a car while you walk into a trap alone."
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Adam looked into my eyes, saw the fierce, unyielding resolve there, and nodded once. We stepped out into the freezing fog together, walking hand-in-hand toward the yawning dark of the warehouse door.
***
