Chapter 17 - The Shot Through the WindowThe first bullet struck the coffee mug in front of Caroline.
Ceramic burst across the table.
Detective Monroe tackled Nathan to the floor as a second shot punched through the kitchen wall.
“Down!” she shouted.
Caroline did not scream. She crawled with the practiced speed of someone who had survived violence before.
Outside, Lily ran toward the trees.
Not away from danger.
Toward the shooter.
Nathan lunged for the door.
Monroe grabbed him. “No!”
“She’s going to get herself killed.”
Another shot cracked.
This one struck the porch railing.
State police returned fire from behind their vehicle. The shooter disappeared deeper into the woods.
Nathan broke free and ran after Lily.
Branches tore at his jacket. Mud swallowed his shoes. He heard Monroe cursing behind him, following.
“Lily!” he shouted.
The girl turned once, face white with terror.
“He has my brother!” she screamed.
Nathan froze.
Brother?
Of course.
There was always another secret.
Lily stumbled, and Nathan caught up to her near a fallen pine.
“Who has your brother?”
She shoved him. “Let go!”
“Lily, listen to me.”
“No! Marissa said if I didn’t lead you here, he’d kill Jamie.”
Nathan’s chest tightened. “Who is Jamie?”
“My little brother. He’s nine.”
Nathan looked back toward the farmhouse, where police were spreading into the woods.
“Who has him?”
Lily sobbed. “Caleb’s friend. Marissa called him Uncle Roy. He was watching us after Caleb got arrested.”
Nathan turned to Monroe as she reached them.
“There’s a child hostage.”
Monroe’s face hardened. “Address?”
Lily shook her head frantically. “I don’t know. They moved him. But Marissa called from jail and told me what to do.”
Monroe’s eyes narrowed. “Marissa shouldn’t be able to call anyone.”
“She didn’t use her name,” Lily said. “She used her lawyer’s phone.”
Victor Hales.
Nathan had known the man was dirty.
Now he had proof.
The shooter was found twenty minutes later, bleeding from the shoulder but alive. His name was Roy Maddox, a former security contractor connected to Richard’s shell companies.
He refused to say where Jamie was.
Until Caroline walked up to him.
The old woman knelt in the mud, looked him in the eye, and said, “Roy, you were always weak around men with money. But you were never stupid enough to die for them.”
Roy laughed through bloody teeth. “You don’t scare me anymore.”
Caroline smiled coldly.
“No,” she said. “But Eleanor Vale does.”
Roy’s face changed.
Caroline leaned closer. “She has the ledger. All of it. Including the payments to you.”
Roy swallowed.
By sunset, police raided a hunting cabin forty miles south.
They found Jamie Bell locked in a storage room, hungry and terrified but alive.
Lily collapsed when she saw him.
Nathan watched the siblings cling to each other and felt something in him break open.
Marissa had not only weaponized adults.
She had built shields out of children.
That night, Victor Hales was arrested for facilitating illegal communication and witness intimidation.
Marissa’s last polished protector was gone.
But when Monroe entered Marissa’s cell with the news, Marissa only smiled.
“Good,” she said.
Monroe frowned. “Good?”
May you like
Marissa leaned back on the cot.
“Now Nathan will come see me again.”
