Chapter 3 - The Ghost
I screamed for Detective Cole, pointing wildly at the black van parked right outside the hospital entrance.
Cole drew his weapon and sprinted out of the room, shouting into his radio for immediate backup.
By the time the police rushed out the front doors, the van had already sped away into the busy city traffic.
I collapsed onto the floor of my room, weeping as the reality of Chloe's kidnapping crushed my spirit.
Rebecca knelt beside me and gently helped me back into the hospital bed.
"We cannot trust the local police to handle a man like your father," Rebecca whispered firmly.
She opened her purse and pulled out a sleek, black encrypted cell phone.
I asked her who she really was, because no ordinary motel mistress carries military-grade communication gear.
Rebecca took a deep breath and confessed that she was actually a licensed private investigator.
She had been hired months ago to infiltrate my father's life and expose his massive criminal enterprise.
"Your father is not just a cheater; he is a professional money launderer for a violent crime syndicate," she explained.
The two million dollars in my secret account was syndicate money that my father had hidden under my name to avoid the IRS.
He beat me in the garage because he thought I had discovered the financial documents, not just the affair.
Now that his cover was blown, the syndicate was going to kill him, so he was desperate to get that money back to flee.
He kidnapped Chloe to force me to transfer the two million dollars back into his control.
I told Rebecca I would gladly give him the money if it meant saving my best friend's life.
Rebecca shook her head and warned me that my father would kill us both the second the transfer cleared.
"There is someone who knows exactly how your father operates, and she can help us trap him," Rebecca said.
She grabbed a wheelchair and insisted we had to leave the hospital immediately before his cartel friends showed up.
We snuck out through the basement loading dock and got into Rebecca's armored SUV.
She drove us to an abandoned industrial warehouse on the darkest edge of the city.
When we stepped inside, the large metal doors rolled shut behind us, echoing loudly in the empty space.
A woman was standing in the shadows near a table covered in tactical blueprints and weapons.
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She stepped forward into the dim overhead light, and I completely stopped breathing.
It was my older sister, Sarah, who had supposedly died in a tragic car accident five years ago.
