Chapter 23: The Ghost of Toledo
Chapter 23: The Ghost of Toledo
The Buick came to a halt in a muddy ditch off the shoulder of Route 2. The engine was dead, smoke hissing from beneath the crumpled hood.
Inside the cabin, Sarah was coughing, the smell of deployed airbags thick in the air. "Penelope? Penelope!"
Mrs. Hargrove was slumped over the steering wheel, a dark gash bleeding freely across her forehead. She was breathing, but unconscious.
The door handle clicked from the outside.
Sarah scrambled backward, clutching Hope into the tightest ball possible. The door was ripped off its hinges with a sickening tear of metal.
Standing in the rain was a man wearing a dark tactical poncho. His face was obscured by a low-brimmed cap, but as he lowered his flashlight, Sarah saw the cold, professional eyes of the man from the hospital vent—Daniel Mercer.
"You," Sarah whispered, her voice cracking. "Your daughter... you failed Julian."
"Julian thinks I failed," Mercer said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp above the sound of the rain. "I didn't fail. I pivoted."
He reached into the vehicle, not toward the baby, but toward Sarah’s arm. He dragged her out into the cold mud. Sarah fought, kicking and screaming, but Mercer’s grip was like iron. He didn't hurt the baby, keeping one massive hand braced to shield Hope from the impact.
"Listen to me, girl," Mercer hissed, pinning her against the side of the wrecked car. "Julian has my daughter. The only way I get her back alive is if I deliver the key to the Sterling vault. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill the kid. But if I don't get those accounts, my little girl dies in a warehouse in Detroit by sunrise."
Before Sarah could answer, the roar of a modified V8 engine tore through the night.
Arthur’s silver Ram truck launched off the highway embankment, landing with a brutal thud in the mud twenty yards away. The headlights bathed Mercer and Sarah in a harsh white glare.
Arthur stepped out into the pouring rain, his trench coat flying behind him. He didn't have his gun drawn. He had something worse—a hunting knife with a seven-inch matte black blade.
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"Mercer," Arthur said, his voice carrying over the thunder. "Let the girl go."
Mercer pulled a compact submachine gun from beneath his poncho, aiming it straight at Arthur’s head. "One step closer, Colonel, and we all die in this ditch."
