Chapter 13 - The Man Outside The School
For three weeks, the twins had armed protection.
They hated it.
Noah named one guard Mr. Refrigerator because of his shoulders. Mia asked another whether he had failed police school because he blinked too much.
Julian did not appear.
That was worse.
Damian moved into the guest room of my house at the request of federal agents. The first night, I found him asleep in a chair outside the twins’ door.
“You have a bed,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then use it.”
He looked toward the door. “I will.”
He did not.
Julian contacted us through an encrypted video two days later.
He stood in a dark room beside the missing prison guard, who was alive and terrified.
“I want the offshore drive,” Julian said.
The drive contained records that could recover nearly four billion dollars stolen from Sterling pension funds. Damian had turned it over to prosecutors.
“I don’t have it,” Damian said.
“Then get it.”
Julian lifted a photograph of Mia on the playground.
The image had been taken that morning.
Federal agents traced the signal to three different countries.
Mia was moved to a secure location with Ms. Patel. Noah refused to go without me. We split the twins for the first time since finding them.
Both cried silently.
I hated the decision, but keeping them together created one target.
That night, Noah asked, “Did you send Mia away because she was bad?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m trying to keep both of you safe.”
“That sounds like Grandma.”
The words struck deep.
Regina had also claimed safety while separating children.
The next morning I reversed the plan.
Agents objected. Damian objected. I listened, then brought Mia home under a tighter perimeter.
“We don’t protect them by teaching them family disappears when danger comes,” I said.
Damian nodded first.
Julian’s mistake came from arrogance. He tried to recruit Claire, assuming guilt would make her loyal.
Claire immediately contacted police.
She agreed to wear a wire and meet him in an underground parking garage.
The plan failed in four minutes.
Julian recognized the surveillance van, fired at the lights, and escaped through a maintenance tunnel.
Damian and I were waiting in a command vehicle nearby when the shots began.
I ran toward the garage.
He caught me around the waist.
“Let go!”
“You have two children at home.”
“Claire is in there because of us.”
“And running into gunfire helps her how?”
I hit his chest once in frustration.
He released me but stood in my path.
I stopped.
He was right.
I hated that too.
Claire survived with a wound to her shoulder. From her hospital bed, she gave us one useful detail.
Julian had a key card bearing the logo of a Sterling-owned storage facility on the Hudson.
The facility had been sold years earlier, but one warehouse remained under a shell company Charles controlled.
Federal agents raided it at dawn.
Inside they found the missing guard, weapons, cash, and walls covered in photographs of our family.
Julian was gone.
On a desk sat a child’s red backpack.
Mia’s backpack.
I called the house.
No answer.
I called the lead guard.
His phone rang from inside the warehouse.
Damian and I looked at each other.
The raid had been a trap.
We raced home.
The front door stood open.
Mr. Refrigerator lay unconscious in the hall.
Upstairs, the twins’ room was empty.
On the bed, Julian had left a note.
May you like
BRING MY MONEY TO THE PLACE WHERE YOUR FAMILY BEGAN.
