Chapter 17 - Shadows on the Road
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I didn't tell Emily about the FinCEN file.
She was thriving. Her design firm had just landed a major commercial contract, her smile was permanent, and she had begun dating a kind, soft-spoken high school history teacher who brought her wildflowers and listened to her talk without ever interrupting.
She had earned her peace. It was my job to guard it.
On a foggy Thursday evening in late October, I pulled my pickup truck into the parking lot of a local grocery store three blocks from my house. As I stepped out into the cool autumn air, I noticed a sleek, silver sedan parked near the back perimeter wall.
The engine was idling quietly. The windows were tinted black, reflecting the yellow glow of the parking lot lamps.
I didn't run. I didn't reach for a weapon.
I locked my truck, walked calmly across the asphalt, and stopped three feet from the driver’s side door of the silver sedan.
The electric window rolled down silently.
Inside sat a middle-aged man wearing an impeccably tailored dark grey suit. His hair was cut with military precision, his hands resting casually on the leather steering wheel. He didn't look like a common street thug. He looked like an executive partner at a Swiss private bank.
“Mr. Vance,” the man said, speaking with a subtle, polished European accent.
“You’re parked in a fire lane,” I replied flatly.
The man offered a small, terrifyingly polite smile. “You are a remarkably difficult man to trace, Daniel. Your federal security clearance redacts your current residential records quite thoroughly.”
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“That’s the point,” I said.
“We monitored the destruction of Whitmore Development,” the driver continued, turning his head to look at me with cold, pale blue eyes. “Margaret and Evan were sloppy, arrogant fools. They deserved their fate. But the forty million dollars currently frozen in the Virginia bankruptcy court does not belong to the state. It belongs to my principals.”
