Chapter 6 - Blood and Debt
""How could they find the car?"" Marcus demanded, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. ""I turned off the navigation! I crushed the phone!""
""Modern cars have onboard telematics, you idiot,"" Frank snapped, swiftly sweeping the supplies into a duffel bag. ""Helen doesn't need your phone. She pays the leasing company’s board of directors. The moment you parked out back, the satellite flagged the coordinate.""
The sirens were getting louder, multiplying as they echoed off the industrial buildings. Two, maybe three vehicles, moving fast along Route 9.
""Up,"" Marcus ordered gently, lifting Leo back into his arms. Emily scrambled off the stool, her little fingers instantly finding the hem of Marcus’s jacket.
""Back door,"" Frank directed, kicking open a rusted exit obscured by a heavy rubber curtain. ""Through the drainage canal. It leads to the railyard. I have an old pickup parked near the freight depot.""
They spilled out into the frigid night air. The smell of sulfur and rain hung heavy in the atmosphere. Marcus ran half-crouched, shielding Leo from the wind, while Frank kept pace, his older frame moving with surprising agility born of decades in the field. Emily ran beside them, her little sneakers splashing through shallow puddles of stagnant water. She didn't cry; the terror of the past few weeks had apparently hollowed out her tears, leaving behind a horrifying, mechanical obedience.
Behind them, headlights swept across the auto shop's corrugated walls. Tires squealed on gravel, followed by the aggressive slam of car doors.
""Vance!"" a voice boomed through an electronic bullhorn. ""This is the Sheriff's Department! Exit the structure with your hands up!""
They plunged down a steep, muddy embankment into the dry concrete bed of a drainage ditch. Frank grabbed Marcus by the shoulder, shoving him into the deep shadow beneath a concrete culvert.
""Listen to me,"" Frank wheezed, breathing hard. ""You can't keep running with two babies on foot. It’s thirty degrees tonight. Leo won't last until morning in the damp.""
""I am not letting her put them back in that kennel, Frank! I’ll die first!""
""Nobody’s dying, you stubborn fool,"" Frank growled, his eyes gleaming in the dark. ""Kenneth’s clinic is forty miles north, across the county line. The original psych evaluations Helen used to frame you are stored in his private safe. If we get those hard files, we prove fraud. We prove Helen orchestrated the abduction narrative. It’s the only leverage that will force the state attorney to pull Barnes off your back.""
""Kenneth will never hand them over,"" Marcus said bitterly. ""He’s terrified of Helen’s family.""
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""He doesn't have to hand them over,"" Frank said, patting the cold iron of his revolver. ""He’s just gotta be persuaded. Now move. The railyard is two hundred yards out.""
As they emerged from the culvert into the sprawling expanse of the train depot, a harsh spotlight suddenly swung from the tower above, slicing through the mist and locking directly onto Marcus’s back.
