Chapter 15 - Back to the Freezer
Lucy read the message twice.
“He thinks I have another copy.”
“Do you?” Mark asked.
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
Ruiz turned sharply.
“Where?”
Lucy reached beneath the collar of the coat police had given her.
She pulled out a tiny metal pendant.
Inside was a microSD card.
Mark stared.
“You had that in the freezer?”
“I had it for seven months.”
“How?”
“Keller gave it to me before he died. I hid it inside the seam of my coat. St. Alder let me keep the coat because Diane told them I was going to be transferred.”
Ruiz held out her hand.
Lucy shook her head.
“Copy it first.”
They did.
Three encrypted backups went to state and federal investigators.
Then Lucy took the original card.
Mark said, “You’re not going alone.”
“The message says you.”
“He expects me.”
“He expects you to bring something you don’t have.”
Mark looked at Ruiz.
“What’s the plan?”
Ruiz’s expression was hard.
“We control the restaurant perimeter. We keep him talking. We get Jack out.”
“No heroics,” Lucy said.
Mark almost smiled.
“From the woman who hit a detective with a sheet pan?”
“That was survival.”
“So is this.”
At 3:20 p.m., Mark entered Diane’s restaurant alone.
The front door was unlocked.
Tables still sat exactly where customers had left them before the kitchen chaos.
A wine glass remained on one table.
A child’s crayon lay on another.
The place looked abandoned in the middle of a sentence.
Mark walked toward the kitchen.
“Pike?”
No answer.
Then a voice came through the restaurant speakers.
“Put the ledger on the bar.”
Mark recognized Pike.
“I want to see Jack.”
“You don’t negotiate.”
“I’m a contractor. That’s most of what I do.”
Silence.
Then the freezer door opened.
Jack stumbled out.
His hands were tied.
Tape covered his mouth.
Mark moved forward.
Pike stepped from behind the door with a gun against Jack’s back.
“Stop.”
Mark stopped.
Jack’s eyes locked on his father.
Pike looked exhausted.
Pale.
Bandage visible beneath his jacket.
“You brought it?”
Mark held up a small envelope.
“Yes.”
Pike smiled.
“Good.”
Lucy’s voice came from behind him.
“Not good enough.”
Pike spun.
Lucy stood inside the freezer.
She had entered through the loading dock and the service passage Keller’s notes revealed.
Pike’s gun shifted toward her.
Jack dropped.
Mark charged.
The gun fired.
— — —
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