Chapter 10 - THE FREIGHT TERMINAL|
The freight terminal had been closed for eleven years.
It stood beyond a line of abandoned warehouses, where weeds grew through cracked asphalt and rust stained the corrugated metal walls. Freight trains still passed nearby, but none stopped there. The place had become a convenient shadow on the edge of the city.
Police surrounded the area shortly before midnight.
Adrienne wanted to go with them.
The detective refused.
“You're a potential target,” she told him. “And if the man in that photograph is your brother, your presence could make this more dangerous.”
“Emilio is inside.”
“We don't know that.”
“I do.”
“You have a photograph and a threatening message.”
“I have enough.”
The detective held his gaze.
“If you interfere with the operation, you may compromise the rescue.”
Marisol stood behind him, her hands clasped so tightly that her fingers hurt.
“Please,” she said. “Let them do their jobs.”
Adrienne looked at her.
She knew what it cost him to remain behind. She also knew that charging into the terminal would not make Emilio safer.
He stepped away from the door.
“Fine.”
Grant brought up the terminal's layout on a portable monitor. There were three major buildings, two loading bays, and a narrow office block at the eastern end. Thermal imaging suggested several people inside the office block, but the readings were too indistinct to identify anyone.
Then the police received a call.
A local officer had spotted a second vehicle near the rear entrance. Its registration belonged to a company linked to Victor Sloane.
The team moved.
For eleven minutes, the command room heard nothing except radio static and clipped updates.
Then a voice came through.
“Possible contact in Building Two. Requesting medical support.”
Marisol grabbed the edge of the table.
“Is it Emilio?”
Nobody answered.
Another voice followed.
“Two suspects in custody. Searching the west corridor.”
Then a crash.
A burst of shouting.
The radio went silent.
Adrienne stepped toward the equipment.
“Get them back on the line.”
Grant tried every available channel.
No response.
Marisol felt the room closing around her.
She pictured Emilio as a little boy, asleep on the sofa with a textbook open across his chest. She remembered the day he received his university acceptance letter and how he had tried to hide his tears because he thought she might worry about the cost.
She had promised their parents that she would protect him.
She had promised herself.
Now she could do nothing but wait.
At last, a detective's voice came through the radio.
“Suspect located. One hostage recovered.”
Marisol stopped breathing.
“Name?” Grant demanded.
A pause.
“Emilio Vega. Alive. Requesting an ambulance.”
She collapsed into a chair.
Adrienne caught her shoulder before she slid to the floor.
“He's alive,” he said.
She covered her face and sobbed.
But the relief lasted less than a minute.
The detective continued.
“Victor Sloane is in custody. One additional suspect escaped through the north loading bay. We have not located the second hostage.”
“Second hostage?” Adrienne repeated.
Grant leaned toward the radio.
“Identify the missing person.”
The reply crackled through the room.
“Female. Unknown identity. Evidence suggests she was held in a separate office.”
Marisol lifted her head.
“Celeste?”
Adrienne looked at her.
Before anyone could answer, another message arrived from the terminal.
The missing woman had left behind a wedding veil.
Celeste's wedding veil.
Adrienne turned toward the door.
“She was there.”
The detective's voice returned.
“Mr. Hawthorne, there's something else. We found a file in the office. It contains photographs of you, your brother, and several people connected to your company. Some are dated more than ten years ago.”
“What does that mean?”
“We're still examining it.”
Adrienne's face hardened.
“Get every page photographed and send it to me.”
“Sir, this is evidence.”
“Then preserve the original and send me the images.”
The detective hesitated, then agreed to share the relevant material through official channels.
Minutes later, a series of photographs appeared on the screen.
The first showed Adrienne outside his father's hospital room.
The second showed Nathan standing beside a woman Marisol had never seen.
The third showed Celeste Vaughn, much younger, entering a building with a man whose face had been marked in red.
At the bottom of the photograph was a handwritten date.
Eight years earlier.
The year Nathan supposedly died.
Adrienne stared at it.
“Celeste knew him before she met me.”
Marisol felt the last pieces of the day begin to shift.
The wedding was not the beginning of the plan.
It was the final stage of something that had been growing for years.
May you like
And Celeste Vaughn was not simply trying to become a widow.
She was trying to finish a story that had begun long before Adrienne ever proposed.
