Chapter 4 - The Inside Woman
I slammed my foot onto the accelerator, pushing the massive SUV past ninety miles an hour.
“Amanda, listen to me very carefully,” I commanded over the speaker.
I needed someone on the inside of Daniel’s house if I was going to survive this nightmare.
“Are you willing to help me save my son?”
Amanda sobbed loudly into the receiver.
“Yes, he lied to me about everything, and I am so scared he is going to kill me next.”
I told her to find Daniel’s hidden wall safe behind the painting in his home office.
I had lived in that house briefly before the deployment that ruined my legs, and I knew its secrets.
“The combination is his mother’s birthday,” I told her.
I heard the sound of a heavy painting shifting over the phone line.
A moment later, the electronic keypad beeped, and the heavy metal door clicked open.
“What am I looking for?” Amanda asked nervously.
“There should be a thick black ledger and a set of architectural blueprints.”
She shuffled through the papers and confirmed she had found them both.
The blueprints belonged to the industrial warehouse where they were keeping Noah.
“Take pictures of every page of those blueprints and text them to this number immediately.”
My phone buzzed ten seconds later with highly detailed images of the warehouse layout.
I studied the floor plans while weaving recklessly through heavy interstate traffic.
The warehouse had a central security hub, heavily reinforced steel doors, and only one blind spot in the ventilation system.
“Emma, I hear footsteps on the stairs,” Amanda panicked.
“Hide the ledger and put the painting back right now.”
I heard a loud crash through the phone, followed by Daniel’s furious screaming.
He had broken down the bedroom door and found Amanda holding her cell phone.
“Who are you talking to?” Daniel roared in the background.
The phone shattered against the wall, cutting the line completely dead.
I arrived in the industrial district of Charlotte just as the sun began to set, casting long, dark shadows over the brick buildings.
I parked the SUV three blocks away and approached the warehouse on foot.
My bad leg throbbed with agonizing pain, but I forced the weakness out of my mind.
I climbed the rusted fire escape on the side of the building, reaching the roof undetected.
I pried open the heavy metal grate covering the ventilation shaft and lowered myself into the suffocating darkness.
I crawled slowly over the massive steel beams until I was directly above the main warehouse floor.
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I peered through the dusty vents and saw Noah tied to a wooden chair in the center of the room.
But Daniel was also there, standing next to a man I never thought I would see again.
