Chapter 6 - The Decoy
I pressed the gun harder against the back of Arthur's seat.
I demanded to know why Brooke would go to the house if Vance already had the key.
Arthur swallowed hard and kept his eyes on the road.
He explained that the key Vance received was a sophisticated fake.
Arthur had hired a hacker to create a dummy drive that would erase Vance's servers when activated.
He was trying to buy time to get his wife and daughter out of the country.
But Brooke didn't want to run away.
She wanted to find the real key and sell it back to the cartel for millions.
I looked at my mother, who was sitting silently with her eyes closed.
She looked so frail, yet she was holding a secret that could collapse a criminal empire.
I asked Mom exactly where she buried the real key.
She opened her eyes and said she never buried anything in the garden.
She told Arthur that story just in case he was wearing a wire for Brooke.
The real key was hidden inside the silver locket she always wore around her neck.
I reached out and touched the necklace she was wearing.
It was empty.
Mom smiled a grim, terrifying smile.
She told me she slipped the microchip into Captain Landry’s pocket when he arrested her.
Landry was carrying the only piece of evidence that could destroy him, and he didn't even know it.
Suddenly, blinding headlights appeared in the rearview mirror.
A massive black SUV rammed into our back bumper, sending our car spinning across the wet asphalt.
The car crashed into a wooden fence and came to a violent stop in a ditch.
I kicked my door open and dragged my mother out into the freezing rain.
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I looked up at the road as the SUV doors opened.
Director Vance stepped out into the storm, holding a heavy assault rifle.
