Part 12
Marianne was always the clever one,
the architect who stayed in the shadows,
while Victor carried out the clumsy work.
She would have seen the security feeds go dark,
she would have known the moment I breached the estate,
and she would have initiated her escape plan.
But she made one critical error,
the same error that every criminal makes,
when cornered by their own greed.
She assumed I would focus entirely on Victor,
leaving her a window to disappear with the remaining liquid assets,
stored in her private account.
I walked into the marina office,
the warmth of the indoor heating,
instantly melting the chill from my bones.
Lily was sitting on a small couch,
wrapped in a thick blanket,
drinking a cup of hot coffee provided by the staff.
I knelt down beside her,
taking her hands in mine,
wanting to assure her before I finished the final task.
"I need to take care of one last thing,
Lily,"
I said softly,
looking into her tired eyes.
"Is it Marianne?"
she asked,
her voice holding no anger,
only a deep,
profound sadness for the woman who had pretended to be her family.
"She needs to face justice,
sweetheart,"
I replied,
"For what she did to you,
and for what she tried to do to our family."
"Be careful,
Dad,"
she whispered,
leaning forward to kiss my cheek,
"Don't let her trick you again."
"She won't,"
I promised,
standing up and turning to Marcus,
who was monitoring a laptop on the main desk.
"Track her personal cell phone,"
I ordered,
my voice shifting back to the sharp command of an agent.
"She turned it off an hour ago,"
Marcus sighed,
shaking his head,
"The last ping was near the private airfield,
just north of the county line."
"She has a charter plane registered under a false name,"
I reasoned,
my mind calculating the travel time,
"She’s trying to catch a flight to a non-extradition country."
"We won't get federal units there in time to stop the takeoff,"
Marcus warned,
looking at the clock on the wall,
"It’s a forty-minute drive,
and the local police are jammed with the accident on the river."
"Then I'll go alone,"
I said,
grabbing my car keys from the desk,
"I started this tonight,
and I’m going to finish it."
I ran out of the office,
ignoring Marcus’s shouts behind me,
and jumped back into my gray sedan.
The engine fired up with a powerful roar,
the dashboard lights glowing like a weapon ready for deployment.
I threw the car into drive,
the tires spinning against the wet asphalt of the marina,
as I sped onto the empty highway.
The rain had stopped completely now,
leaving the roads dark and gleaming like obsidian,
under the pale morning sky.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor,
the needle climbing past eighty,
then ninety,
as the landscape blurred past my windows.
Marianne thought she had won her freedom,
May you like
but she had forgotten that the oldest hound,
always knows how to catch the scent.
