Chapter 15 - The Hangar
Emma did not remember screaming.
She remembered Michael grabbing her before her knees hit the floor.
She remembered the empty nursery at the secure apartment.
She remembered the nanny’s phone on the carpet and the balcony door unlocked.
Later, police would determine the nanny had been threatened with her brother’s deportation if she refused to cooperate.
None of that mattered while Lily was gone.
“Where is the plane?” Michael demanded.
“Still at the field,” Morales said. “Diane moved before tactical units arrived.”
“Moved where?”
“We’re tracking a vehicle.”
Emma grabbed Morales’s arm. “You find my daughter.”
“We will.”
“No. You find her now.”
The vehicle left the airfield and headed north.
Michael recognized the route.
“The old Bennett glassworks.”
Rachel frowned. “That place has been closed for twenty years.”
“My grandfather owned it.”
Police established a perimeter before dark.
Diane called Michael directly.
He answered on speaker.
“Put Lily on.”
“No.”
“Mother.”
“You will sign the trust waiver.”
Emma stepped closer to the phone. “Let me hear my daughter.”
Diane ignored her.
“Michael, you can end this. Withdraw the audit. Sign the waiver. Tell prosecutors the balcony was an accident.”
“You threw my child.”
“I was angry.”
“You let go.”
Silence.
Then Lily cried faintly in the background.
Emma covered her mouth.
Diane said, “You have one hour.”
Michael’s voice went flat. “If you hurt her—”
“You still don’t understand. I am trying to save what your father built.”
“No. You’re trying to save yourself.”
Diane hung up.
Morales looked at the tactical commander.
“We go.”
Michael stopped her. “There’s another entrance.”
Everyone turned.
“When I was a kid, Richard showed me an old maintenance tunnel under the river side.”
The commander studied the plans.
“If it still exists, we can get a team within thirty yards.”
Emma grabbed Michael’s sleeve.
“You’re not going in.”
He looked at her.
“She has Lily.”
“So do not make me lose both of you.”
Michael touched Emma’s face.
Then the tactical commander’s radio crackled.
“Movement inside. We have visual.”
May you like
A pause.
Then: “Subject is holding the child near the furnace platform.”
