Chapter 6 - MIDNIGHT AT THE FREIGHT YARDThe cabinet door swung wider.
Riley raised the confiscated weapon, but the person crawling out was not an attacker.
Judge Pike dropped to the floor, breathing hard.
“Don’t shoot.”
Ortiz pulled him upright. “You ran while gunmen entered your courtroom.”
“They were not supposed to use live ammunition.”
Vanessa stared at him. “You knew there would be an attack?”
“It was meant to frighten Riley into accepting protection.”
“Whose protection?” Riley asked.
Pike looked toward the locked door.
“Grant Vale’s.”
Riley pressed him against the cabinet.
“Where is my father?”
“I don’t know.”
She tightened her grip.
Pike’s fear became real. “Daniel contacted me after the crash. He said he had evidence against Vale, but he would not reveal where he was. Grant believes the keys lead to a master archive.”
“What does it contain?”
“Every payment. Every staged accident. Every official he owns.”
Ortiz handcuffed the judge to a pipe and sent his location to federal authorities through an encrypted message.
They had less than three hours before the exchange.
Riley created a false bag using court files, old cables, and metal weights. Vanessa kept the real keys hidden beneath the lining of her coat. Ortiz wanted to position officers nearby, but the compromised courthouse proved Grant could monitor normal channels.
They went alone.
The west freight yard stretched across several miles of dark tracks and storage buildings. Engines idled in the distance. Rows of empty boxcars created narrow steel corridors.
At midnight, Riley walked into the yard carrying the false bag.
Vanessa and Ortiz moved along separate routes. Each wore an earpiece connected only to the others. No police frequencies. No tracking applications.
A floodlight switched on.
Trent sat bound to a chair on a loading platform between two freight cars.
Three armed men surrounded him.
Grant stood above them in a dark overcoat.
“You continue to surprise me,” he said.
“Release him.”
“Bring the bag.”
Riley approached slowly.
Trent’s left eye was swollen, but he was conscious.
“Riley,” he said, “this is a terrible plan.”
“You say that about all my plans.”
“I’ve only seen three. They were all terrible.”
Grant gestured toward the platform.
Riley climbed the steps and set the bag down.
One man searched her.
The second opened the bag.
His expression changed when he saw the court files.
“Fake.”
Grant smiled without humor. “Daniel taught you to gamble.”
“No. Vanessa did.”
A freight engine roared behind them.
Vanessa drove an empty cargo tractor through a chain-link gate. The vehicle struck a stack of plastic barriers, sending them tumbling across the platform.
The gunmen turned.
Ortiz fired from the top of a boxcar, forcing them behind cover.
Riley charged Grant.
He caught her shoulder and threw her against the chair. Trent tipped sideways, landing with a shout.
Riley kicked the chair toward the edge of the platform, away from the gunfire. Grant grabbed her hair, but she turned into him and drove an elbow against his chest.
He was stronger than she expected.
He had been trained.
Grant locked his arm around Riley’s neck and dragged her backward.
“Your father believed you were his weakness,” he said. “He was right.”
Riley stamped his foot, lowered her center of gravity, and threw him over her hip. Grant hit the platform but rolled quickly to his knees.
One gunman rushed Ortiz’s ladder.
Vanessa struck him from behind with a loose coupling hose. He spun and shoved her against the side of a freight car.
Trent, still tied to the chair, kicked both feet against the attacker’s knees. The man fell forward. Vanessa pulled his weapon away and slid it beneath the train.
Riley reached Trent and tore at the rope.
“Behind you!” he yelled.
Grant tackled her.
They rolled across the platform, each fighting for the false bag. Riley slammed into a steel support. Grant pinned her wrist and reached inside his coat.
Trent rocked the chair onto its side and threw himself into Grant’s legs.
All three crashed near the platform edge.
A freight car began moving on the adjacent track.
Grant lost his grip.
Riley caught the railing with one hand. Trent’s chair slid toward the gap between the platform and the train.
Riley released the bag and grabbed him.
The chair struck the edge.
For several seconds, Riley held Trent’s full weight while the moving train thundered inches below him.
“Let go of the chair,” she shouted.
“My hands are tied to it!”
Vanessa ran toward them, but a gunman blocked her path. She drove her shoulder into him. They slammed against a cargo crate and wrestled for balance.
Ortiz jumped down from the boxcar and joined her.
Together they forced the man to the ground.
Riley’s fingers began slipping.
Trent looked up at her. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“Stop talking.”
“You’ll fall too.”
“You’re my brother.”
It was the first time she had ever called him that.
Trent’s expression changed.
Vanessa reached them and grabbed Riley’s belt. Ortiz seized Trent’s chair. Working together, they pulled him back onto the platform.
An SUV raced between the tracks.
Grant climbed inside.
Riley ran after him.
The SUV accelerated toward a closed steel gate. A yard truck entered from the opposite direction. The two vehicles collided near the exit. The SUV spun, struck a signal post, and stopped.
Riley reached it.
The driver’s door stood open.
Grant had escaped into the maze of freight cars.
The false bag was gone.
Ortiz searched the vehicle and found no phone, documents, or identifying material.
“He knew it was a copy,” Vanessa said.
“He wanted something else,” Riley replied.
They freed Trent.
He rubbed his wrists. “He kept asking where I sent the duplicate.”
Riley looked at him. “Duplicate of what?”
“The memory card.”
Everyone became silent.
“You copied it?” Ortiz asked.
“After the gala. I didn’t trust any of you.”
“Where did you send it?”
“To the address Dad wrote in the back of my childhood passport.”
Vanessa’s face lost its color.
Riley noticed.
“Whose address?”
Trent looked at her. “A woman named June Carter.”
The name meant nothing to Riley.
Vanessa sat down on the platform as though her legs had failed.
“Mom?” Trent said.
Vanessa looked at Riley.
“June Carter was not your father’s informant.”
“Then who was she?”
Vanessa’s voice broke.
“She was Riley’s mother.”
Riley stared at her.
“My mother died when I was a baby.”
“No,” Vanessa said. “That is what Daniel told you.”
A train horn sounded beyond the yard.
Then Riley’s phone received a photograph.
A woman stood outside the ranger station holding Trent’s mailed package.
She had Riley’s eyes.
May you like
Beneath the photograph was one sentence:
Tell my daughter I’m ready to explain why Daniel stole her from me.
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