Chapter 9 - The Silver Sedan
The flash of the camera lens caught the afternoon sun for a fraction of a second, reflecting a sharp, brilliant beam right into my eyes as the guards shoved me toward the intake doors.
My pulse spiked. Someone was watching the MDC intake bay.
Was it Marcus’s private investigator? Or was it someone working for Claire—a final sentinel sent to confirm that Julian Carter was safely locked away behind federal wire?
“Move it, Carter! Stop rubbernecking!” The guard behind me shoved my lower back hard with a heavy-gloved hand, forcing me to stumble forward across the threshold into the sterile, antiseptic-smelling receiving hall.
We were processed with mechanical brutality. Fingerprints rolled in black ink, digital mugshots taken from three angles, personal clothes bagged and tagged, and the coarse orange jumpsuit zipped up to my chin. Within forty-five minutes, I was assigned to a temporary intake tier on the third floor—a narrow tier of barred cells smelling of cheap disinfectant and unwashed fear.
The heavy steel door clanged shut behind me, the mechanical lock engaging with a finality that felt like a coffin lid clicking into place.
I gripped the cold steel bars of my cell door, staring out across the concrete walkway toward the shared dayroom. The other inmates were huddled around a small television bolted high in the corner, murmuring amongst themselves, but I couldn't hear what was playing over the roar of the ventilation fans.
Then, my name echoed down the concrete tier.
“Carter! Legal visit, booth three. Move out.”
A guard stood at the end of the tier, jiggling his key ring impatiently against the bars.
My heart leaped into my throat. It hadn't even been an hour since I arrived. Marcus couldn't have driven from Manhattan to Brooklyn in this traffic this fast unless... unless it wasn't Marcus.
My mind raced back to the silver sedan idling outside the sally port gate.
The guard unlocked my cell door, grabbed my elbow with a tight, bruising grip, and marched me down the echoing corridor toward the row of secure visitation booths. He shoved me into the small, enclosed stall, slammed the heavy metal door behind me, and locked it from the outside.
I sat down on the bolted stool, staring through the scratched Plexiglas partition into the opposing booth.
The door on the other side clicked open.
A man in a sharp, charcoal-gray tailored suit stepped into the booth. He wasn't old, perhaps in his mid-forties, with immaculate silver-streaked hair, sharp, intelligent eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a calm, terrifyingly composed demeanor. He didn't look like a defense attorney or a federal prosecutor. He looked like a senior partner at an international banking conglomerate.
He sat down slowly, picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver, and placed it against his ear.
After a brief hesitation, I picked up mine.
“Julian Carter,” the man said, his voice smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of emotion. “It’s unfortunate we couldn't meet under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded into the receiver, my knuckles whitening around the plastic. “Are you with Marcus? Did he send you?”
A faint, humorless smile touched the corners of the man’s mouth.
“Marcus Vance is a competent maritime and corporate litigator,” the man replied smoothly, crossing one leg over the other. “He is currently looking in all the wrong places for a woman who has spent the last ten years mastering the art of total digital and physical disappearance.”
My breath hitched. “You know where Claire is.”
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“I know where she was twenty minutes ago,” the man corrected, leaning forward slightly until his face was close to the glass. “And more importantly, I know why she took your son.”
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