Chapter 6 - The Rain and the Wire
The summer rain fell in torrential sheets, turning the sloped garden path into a slick, muddy slide.
Claire ran through the dark woods, holding Noah close against her side, her silk wedding shoes discarded in the mud as her bare feet dug into the wet pine needles and gravel. She kept her weapon raised, her eyes scanning the dark shadows of the trees behind them.
Behind them, high-powered flashlight beams cut through the rain, swaying wildly through the thick foliage.
"They're coming, Claire!" Noah sobbed, gasping for air as his small legs struggled to keep pace.
"Keep moving, Noah! Don't stop!" Claire urged, pulling him behind a massive oak trunk.
She crouched down in the mud, holding her breath, listening past the sound of falling rain.
Thirty yards away, the surviving gunman was moving through the brush, cursing under his breath, his silenced weapon raised.
"I know you're out here, lady!" the man shouted into the dark forest. "Give up the kid and the key! You're out of your depth!"
Claire checked her weapon. Three rounds left in the magazine.
She reached down, grabbed a heavy wet rock from the mud, and threw it hard into a thick patch of berry bushes twenty feet to her right.
CRASH.
The gunman instantly spun toward the noise, raising his weapon and firing three silent shots into the bushes.
The moment his back was turned, Claire stepped out from behind the oak tree, raised her pistol with both hands, aligned the iron sights with his lower back, and pulled the trigger twice.
BANG! BANG!
Both rounds hit the target. The man dropped to his knees with a heavy groan, his weapon falling into the wet mud before he collapsed face-down into the underbrush, unmoving.
Claire stood over him for three seconds, ensuring he was neutralized. She knelt, retrieved his fallen tactical flashlight and his silenced weapon, and checked his pockets.
Inside his leather jacket pocket was a encrypted satellite phone.
The screen was lit up, showing an active call on speaker.
"Harlan? Did you secure the child?" a woman’s cold, crisp voice demanded over the small speaker.
Vanessa.
Claire picked up the phone, bringing it to her mouth, her voice completely steady, cold, and devoid of fear.
"Harlan is dead, Vanessa," Claire said into the phone.
A heavy, suffocating pause hung over the line.
"Claire..." Vanessa’s voice dropped into a dark, venomous rasp. "You are proving to be a remarkably resilient little schoolteacher."
"I have the key, Vanessa," Claire said, looking down at Noah, who was standing safely behind her under the oak tree. "And tomorrow morning, every federal prosecutor in the state is going to read your black book."
Vanessa let out a low, terrifying laugh over the phone.
"You think this ends with a ledger, Claire?" Vanessa whispered. "You have no idea how deep Bennett Enterprises runs. If I go down, Daniel goes down with me. His signatures are on half those shell accounts."
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"Lie all you want, Vanessa," Claire replied flatly. "See you in court."
Claire smashed the phone against a rock, shattering it into pieces, grabbed Noah’s hand, and walked out of the forest toward the main road where the sirens of approaching police cars finally illuminated the night sky.
