Chapter 13 - The Man Who Wanted Noah Back
The safe house was compromised.
Police moved everyone immediately.
Ruiz examined surveillance footage.
At 2:14 a.m., a masked figure approached through a blind spot.
He knew exactly where the cameras were.
That meant Victor still had help.
Bell eventually gave them another name.
A former security contractor named Mason Reed.
Police arrested Reed before noon.
He admitted giving Victor surveillance layouts.
More importantly, he revealed Victor’s plan.
Victor intended to flee the country.
But he wanted the pendant first.
He didn’t know police already had the memory card.
Ruiz decided to use that ignorance.
They created a controlled exchange.
A replica pendant.
A monitored location.
Noah would be nowhere near it.
Caroline volunteered to make the delivery.
Ethan objected.
“No.”
“He knows me.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t.”
“He also thinks I’ll do anything for Noah.”
“You will.”
“Yes.”
Caroline looked at him.
“And that makes me believable.”
The exchange was arranged at an abandoned parking structure.
Victor appeared at 11:06 p.m.
Caroline saw him for the first time at close range.
He looked ordinary.
That disturbed her most.
No monster’s face.
No theatrical cruelty.
Just a middle-aged man in a dark coat.
“You’ve caused a lot of trouble,” he said.
Caroline held the pendant.
“You caused it.”
“Lily made choices.”
“You threatened her.”
“She could have walked away.”
“Not when you threatened her child.”
Victor smiled faintly.
“You always did believe her.”
Caroline understood suddenly that this bothered him.
Lily had escaped his version of reality because Caroline believed her.
She tossed the replica pendant onto the ground between them.
Victor stepped forward.
Police moved.
Victor ran.
He made it two levels before Ruiz tackled him.
For several seconds, Victor fought.
Then handcuffs closed around his wrists.
Caroline stood twenty feet away.
Victor looked at her.
“You think this fixes what happened?”
“No.”
She looked directly at him.
“But it stops you from deciding what happens next.”
Victor was taken away.
The nightmare should have ended there.
But as Lily watched the arrest from a secure vehicle, she began crying.
Not from fear.
From relief.
Noah asked, “Is it over?”
Ruiz crouched beside him.
“The dangerous part is.”
Noah considered that.
“What comes after?”
Ethan answered.
May you like
“Living.”
For Noah, that might prove harder than surviving.
