Chapter 7 - The Trap Inside Hayes Logistics
By 1:00 p.m., every news network in New York knew Declan Hayes’s name.
Most already knew it before.
They simply used different words now.
Businessman.
Shipping magnate.
Waterfront power broker.
Suspected crime figure.
Fugitive.
Sadie watched the headlines on a prepaid phone from the back room of a small tailor shop in Queens.
The shop belonged to Leo’s cousin.
Apparently every powerful organization in New York eventually depended on someone’s cousin.
“They’re saying you fled the country,” Sadie said.
Declan adjusted the collar of a borrowed jacket.
“Convenient.”
“They have footage of your plane leaving Teterboro.”
“It’s empty.”
“You keep an aircraft ready as a decoy?”
“No. Leo improvises when angry.”
Leo, standing by the door, said, “You’re welcome.”
The plan was simple in the way terrible plans often were.
Federal agents controlled Hayes Logistics.
Patrick’s people were almost certainly watching them.
Sadie’s desk sat on the executive floor.
Inside the bottom drawer, beneath three years of stationery, birthday decorations, emergency aspirin, and a broken stapler, was a memory card containing Michael Collins’s evidence.
They needed it before Patrick realized the music box was empty.
Walking through the front door was impossible.
Fortunately, Declan owned the building.
More precisely, the company occupied a renovated shipping exchange built in 1927.
The original architecture included maintenance corridors that modern floor plans ignored.
Declan knew one.
Leo knew two.
Patrick probably knew all three.
Which was why they chose the most obvious.
Sadie looked at Declan when he explained.
“That sounds stupid.”
“It is.”
“And that’s the strategy?”
“If Patrick expects me to avoid the obvious entrance, he’ll concentrate on the others.”
“So we use the one he expects least because he expects it most?”
Leo nodded.
“She understands.”
Sadie sighed.
“I miss calendar management.”
They entered through a utility tunnel connected to a neighboring parking structure.
Leo’s people monitored police radio.
The building had been temporarily closed to employees.
Federal investigators occupied floors seventeen through twenty-two.
Sadie’s desk was on twenty-one.
They reached the stairwell.
Declan stopped.
“You stay behind Leo.”
“No.”
“Sadie.”
“My desk.”
“My building.”
“My father’s evidence.”
Declan looked at Leo.
Leo shrugged.
“I’m not getting involved.”
Coward, Declan thought.
They climbed.
At floor nineteen, footsteps sounded above.
Everyone froze.
Two agents descended.
Declan pulled Sadie through a maintenance door.
The space was narrow.
Too narrow.
Sadie found herself pressed against him.
His hand rested against the wall beside her head.
Their faces were inches apart.
Neither moved.
The footsteps passed.
Sadie became painfully aware of his breathing.
Declan became painfully aware that she was looking at his mouth.
Then she whispered, “They’re gone.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved.
“Declan.”
“Yes?”
“You’re still blocking the door.”
He stepped back.
“Right.”
Leo’s voice came from the corridor.
“If you two are finished being terrible fugitives, we have four floors left.”
Sadie’s face heated.
Declan decided Leo’s long service had made him too comfortable.
At floor twenty-one, they entered an unused records room.
Through the glass wall they could see investigators moving between desks.
Sadie pointed.
“My desk is seventy feet away.”
“There are twelve agents.”
“Fourteen.”
Declan looked.
“Where?”
“Conference room reflection.”
He saw them.
Fourteen.
“You really do notice everything.”
“It’s literally my job.”
They waited.
At 1:37, a fire alarm sounded.
Leo smiled.
Sadie stared.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing dangerous.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“Steam sensor in the kitchen.”
Agents began evacuating.
Within three minutes, the floor cleared.
Leo watched the stairwell.
“Six minutes before they realize it’s false.”
Sadie ran.
She reached her desk.
Bottom drawer.
Stationery.
Aspirin.
Broken stapler.
Birthday cards.
Her fingers searched.
Nothing.
“No.”
Declan arrived.
“What?”
“It’s gone.”
“Think.”
“I kept it in a small blue envelope.”
They emptied the drawer.
No envelope.
Sadie’s breathing accelerated.
“Someone took it.”
“Who knew?”
“Nobody.”
“You ever lend the card?”
“No.”
“Move it?”
“I haven’t touched it in months.”
Declan looked around the desk.
Then he noticed something.
A tiny square of clean wood on the dusty back edge.
Something had recently been removed.
“What sat there?”
Sadie followed his gaze.
“My picture frame.”
“Which one?”
“The office Christmas photograph.”
“Where is it?”
She looked around.
Missing.
Her expression changed.
“The card.”
“What?”
“I put it inside the frame.”
“Why?”
“I needed the envelope for receipts.”
Declan closed his eyes briefly.
“You are terrifying.”
The frame was gone.
Someone had known exactly where to look.
Then Sadie saw an object beneath her keyboard.
A peppermint candy.
She never left candy there.
She picked it up.
A paper strip was wrapped beneath the plastic.
Three words.
ROOFTOP. COME ALONE.
Declan took it.
“No.”
Sadie looked at him.
“They have the card.”
“Maybe.”
“Whoever took the frame wants me.”
“Yes.”
“So I go.”
“No.”
“You cannot solve every problem by saying no.”
“I can try.”
The fire alarm stopped.
Leo appeared.
“Three minutes.”
Sadie looked toward the ceiling.
The rooftop.
Declan grabbed her hand.
“We leave.”
She resisted.
“My father spent nine years protecting that evidence.”
“And he spent nine years protecting you.”
The words stopped her.
Declan’s voice softened.
“I am not trading you for a memory card.”
Sadie stared at him.
Something shifted.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Something more dangerous.
Trust.
Then the overhead speaker crackled.
A man’s voice.
“Sadie.”
Her blood turned cold.
Michael.
She knew that voice.
Older.
Weaker.
But her father.
“Sadie, if you can hear me, don’t leave.”
Declan looked upward.
The voice continued.
“They have me on the roof.”
Sadie’s eyes filled instantly.
“Dad.”
Declan tightened his grip.
“It may be recorded.”
The speaker crackled again.
“Your mother used to hide twenty-dollar bills in the flour container because she thought burglars never baked.”
Sadie stopped.
No one knew that.
Her father continued.
“You broke your wrist when you were eleven because you jumped from the garage roof after I told you not to.”
Sadie’s face crumpled.
“Dad.”
“It’s him,” she whispered.
Declan swore quietly.
Leo checked his weapon.
“Roof has two entrances.”
“And Patrick knows both,” Declan said.
Sadie pulled free.
“I’m going.”
“So are we.”
The stairwell door burst open below.
Federal agents.
“Hayes!”
Leo turned.
“Time.”
Declan made the decision instantly.
“Roof.”
They ran upward.
Agents followed.
Floor twenty-two.
Twenty-three.
Twenty-four.
The rooftop access door waited ahead.
Sadie reached it first.
Declan caught her shoulder.
“Behind me.”
This time she obeyed.
He opened the door.
Wind slammed into them.
Rain had begun again.
Across the rooftop stood three men.
One held Michael Collins.
Sadie knew him immediately despite nine years.
Thinner.
Gray-haired.
A cane supporting one side.
Alive.
“Dad.”
Michael looked at her.
The expression on his face broke something open inside her.
“My girl.”
Sadie took one step.
Declan stopped her.
Beside Michael stood Patrick Hayes.
The dead brother.
Alive beneath a black umbrella.
He smiled.
“Hello, Declan.”
Declan’s face became unreadable.
Patrick looked almost pleased.
“You got old.”
“So did you.”
Patrick laughed.
“Still angry.”
“You faked your funeral.”
“You gave a beautiful speech.”
“You heard it?”
“I watched.”
Declan’s jaw flexed.
Patrick turned toward Sadie.
“Your father has been very difficult.”
Michael said, “I consider that a compliment.”
Sadie almost laughed through tears.
Patrick held up the silver picture frame from her desk.
“Looking for this?”
He removed the memory card.
Declan watched.
Patrick smiled.
“Michael spent years pretending he had hidden his evidence somewhere complicated.”
Michael looked at his daughter.
“I knew you’d keep it safe accidentally.”
Sadie cried then.
Just once.
A tear lost in the rain.
Patrick held the card between two fingers.
“Now I have everything.”
“No,” Michael said.
Patrick looked at him.
Michael smiled.
“You have a copy.”
Patrick’s expression changed.
Sadie stared.
“What?”
Michael’s eyes remained on Patrick.
“You never understood me.”
He looked at Sadie.
“The evidence was never meant to survive in only one place.”
Patrick’s smile disappeared.
Below, federal agents reached the final stairwell.
Declan heard them.
Michael continued.
“I sent a second copy nine years ago.”
“To whom?” Patrick demanded.
Michael smiled.
“A federal prosecutor.”
Patrick’s face drained.
Declan understood.
“Which prosecutor?”
Michael looked at Lucia, who had just emerged from the second stairwell entrance.
Except Lucia was not alone.
Beside her stood a woman in a federal coat.
Michael smiled.
“To her.”
The federal prosecutor stepped forward.
“Patrick Hayes, we need to talk.”
For the first time since returning from the dead, Patrick looked afraid.
Then a gunshot cracked across the rooftop.
Everyone dropped.
The prosecutor’s security team moved.
Sadie screamed.
Declan covered her.
Patrick’s men scattered.
Michael fell.
“Dad!”
Sadie crawled toward him.
No blood.
He had stumbled, not been hit.
Declan looked toward the adjacent rooftop.
A shooter.
Not Patrick’s man.
The rifle disappeared behind a ventilation unit.
Leo shouted into his radio.
Patrick stared toward the neighboring building with shock.
Then he said something Declan had not expected.
“That wasn’t mine.”
Another shot struck metal.
Everyone moved behind cover.
Declan looked at Patrick.
Patrick looked back.
For one impossible second, the brothers understood the same thing.
Someone else wanted them both dead.
Patrick had built a conspiracy.
But someone had been building one underneath his.
May you like
And whoever controlled the next layer had just announced themselves with a bullet.
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