The dog wouldn't leave the little girl's hospital bed even after security dragged him toward the door. Then the nurse realized nobody else had visited the child in eleven days.

The high-beam headlights flared through the rain before the engine noise even reached their ears.

As Sterling, Erin, and the three troopers cleared the porch steps, a heavy red Dodge Ram 3500 dually truck slammed through the thin wooden perimeter gate at the bottom of the driveway, its steel brush-guard splintering the fence posts like toothpicks.

The truck skidded to a halt sideways across the narrow gravel lane, blocking both State Police Explorers and the Lincoln Navigator.

The driver's side door clicked open.

A man stepped out into the mud and rain.

He was tall, over six feet two, wearing an expensive canvas hunting coat that looked entirely out of place against his hollow, gaunt cheeks and unkempt, greasy grey hair. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and rimmed with a manic, feverish intensity.

In his right hand, he held a heavy, blued-steel revolver pointed down toward the mud.

"Daniel," the man called out, his voice raspy, ruined by years of prison tobacco and cheap spirits. "I thought you'd send a junior associate."

Sterling stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, holding the black steel box against his ribs with his left arm. He did not step behind the troopers. He stood straight, his charcoal suit soaking in the rain, his dark eyes locked onto the man with the revolver.

"Hello, Victor," Sterling said, his voice flat, completely devoid of fear. "You look terrible."

Victor Vance let out a sharp, bark-like laugh that turned into a wet cough. "Eight years in Devens will do that to a man, Daniel. Especially when his legal counsel spends those eight years burning his assets and hiding his family."

"You burned your own assets, Victor," Sterling replied, taking one slow, deliberate step forward onto the gravel. "When you forged Sarah’s signature on the Brookline quitclaim deed seven years ago. You were a thief then, and you’re a thief now."

"Where is my daughter?" Victor demanded, raising the revolver two inches higher, its barrel pointing directly at Sterling’s chest. "Where is Nicole?"

Behind the Navigator’s tinted glass, Erin could see Nicole sitting upright in her seat, her small face pressed against the window, her hand gripping Buddy’s collar.

The dog was losing his mind inside the vehicle—slamming his broad chest against the door glass, his dark growls audible even over the sound of the rain and the truck’s idling diesel engine.

"Nicole is far away from here, Victor," Sterling said smoothly. "Under the direct protection of the Massachusetts Probate Court."

"She’s in that truck!" Victor screamed, his face contorting into a mask of pure rage as he took three steps toward the Lincoln. "I know she’s in that truck! Give me the box, Daniel! Give me the box and the girl, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through every windshield on this driveway!"

"State Police! Drop the weapon!" the trooper shouted, stepping out from behind the porch pillar with his Glock raised in a two-handed tactical grip.

Victor didn't even look at the trooper. His eyes were fixed entirely on Daniel Sterling and the black steel box in his arms.