Chapter 9 - The Chase on the Highway
I bolted from the entryway into the living room, snatched my phone off the coffee table, and swiped the screen to answer the call.
“Vance,” I barked into the speaker, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Mr. Vance, this is Detective Miller with the Greenwich Police Department,” a tense, hurried voice came through the line. “We tracked the license plate of the vehicle your son was driving when he left your residence last night. He didn't check into a hotel, and he didn't go to campus.”
“Where is he?” I demanded, my grip tightening around the phone until my knuckles turned white.
“We caught a traffic camera ping on Route 15 heading north toward the industrial rail yards about twenty minutes ago,” Detective Miller said rapidly. “Our cruisers tried to intercept him for questioning regarding the domestic assault warrant, but he refused to pull over. He’s currently driving at high speeds, and from what we can gather from his digital footprint, he’s heading straight for a storage facility linked to the corporate entities we’ve been tracking.”
Arthur Pendelton had followed me into the living room, his sharp eyes reading the expression on my face instantly. He held out his hand, gesturing for the phone on speaker. I tapped the speaker button so Dad, who had followed closely behind, could hear every word.
“Tell the department to back off the pursuit!” Arthur interjected sharply, leaning toward the phone. “If they push him into a corner without a secure perimeter, he’ll dump the hard drives or burn the physical servers before the warrant can be executed! He’s carrying the entire ledger!”
“Who the hell is this?” Detective Miller’s voice crackled through the speaker, laced with immediate authority.
“Arthur Pendelton, federal financial crimes division,” Arthur lied smoothly, flashing an authoritative tone that brook zero argument. “Listen to me, Detective. The kid isn't just a domestic abuser; he’s the linchpin in an international money-laundering conduit. If you corner him on the highway, he will destroy the evidence. You need to lock down the perimeter of the storage facility on 4th Street immediately, but do not engage him until I get there!”
“I have an active felony warrant for assault, Mr. Pendelton,” the detective shot back, his frustration palpable over the line. “I can’t just let a suspect run wild because of some federal shadow game!”
“You can if you want to catch the people pulling his strings!” Arthur countered fiercely. “Give us ten minutes. If you rush in now, you get a runaway kid with a destroyed hard drive and zero answers. Let him walk into the trap, and we get the whole network.”
A heavy silence hung on the line for three agonizing seconds.
“Ten minutes, Pendelton,” Detective Miller snapped. “After that, my cruisers go in doors-first. Don't make me regret this.”
The line went dead with a sharp click.
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I dropped the phone onto the coffee table, turning to face Arthur and Dad. The domestic nightmare of our kitchen table had suddenly exploded into a high-stakes manhunt, and my brother—the boy who had spent years hiding his cruelty behind blue ice packs—was sitting at the center of a web far larger and darker than any of us could have ever imagined.
“Let’s move,” Dad said, his voice dropping an octave into a cold, hard register. All the grief he had felt a moment ago was gone, replaced by the grim, terrifying determination of a father who realized his son was entirely lost to something monstrous. “We’re going to the storage facility.”
