Chapter 7 - The Retrieval
The ice beneath Elliot’s boots groaned and popped with every step, sending sharp spiderwebs of cracks radiating out into the dark water. The wind screamed off the open lake, threatening to knock him off his feet.
Thirty yards out, Daniel lay on his stomach on the ice, his dark parka soaked through with freezing water. He was shivering so violently he couldn't push himself up. His face was gray, blue tinting his lips.
Beside him, lying on a slab of floating ice three feet away, was a waterproof black briefcase—the drive containing the master ledgers and the offshore access keys.
Elliot reached him, dropping to his knees to distribute his weight.
"Daniel," Elliot called out, grabbing his brother’s soaked collar.
Daniel looked up, his eyes glassy, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "El... Elliot..." he stammered, his body shutting down from severe hypothermia. "It’s... it’s cold..."
"Give me your hand," Elliot commanded, pulling his brother toward the stable section of the shelf.
Daniel’s frozen fingers reached out, not for Elliot’s hand, but toward the briefcase floating on the drifting ice block. "The... the money..."
"Forget the money!" Elliot roared over the gale. He grabbed Daniel under his arms and hauled his limp body onto the main ice sheet.
"The drive..." Daniel choked out, his vision fading. "It’s... everything..."
Elliot looked at the black briefcase. It was drifting rapidly away toward the open water, where the current would sweep it under the vast, impenetrable ice pack forever.
For a split second, Elliot thought about reaching for it. But the ice beneath the case suddenly shattered, and the heavy leather box sank into the black, icy depths of Lake Erie, swallowed in an instant.
Elliot didn't watch it go.
He hoisted his brother onto his shoulders, turned back toward the shore, and called out to Marcus.
"Pull!"
Marcus hauled on the nylon rope, dragging Elliot and Daniel step by agonizing step across the treacherous ice until their boots touched the solid gravel of the beach.
Anna stood by the SUV, holding a heavy blanket. When she saw Elliot carrying the half-frozen man who had terrorized her family for a decade, she didn't step back in fear. She stepped forward, throwing the blanket over Daniel’s shivering shoulders as Marcus laid him on the snow.
"Is he alive?" she asked.
"He’s alive," Elliot panted, resting his hands on his knees, his own breath billowing in thick white clouds. "And he’s going to stay alive long enough to stand in a court of law."
From inside the vehicle, the small face of Maddie appeared pressed against the rear window. She watched her uncle—the man who had threatened her sister, who had stolen her mother, who had seemed like an unstoppable ghost in the dark.
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He wasn't a ghost anymore. He was just a shivering, defeated man lying in the snow.
Maddie pulled Rosie closer, wrapped her sister’s cream blanket securely around her shoulders, and for the first time in three days, closed her eyes and let out a long, peaceful breath.
