Chapter 8 - THE VAN
Hadrian reached the elevator before Mara caught his coat.
"If you go chasing that van yourself, you may make this worse."
"Someone just took my daughter."
"And every officer in the county needs a usable description, not another crime scene."
Hadrian ripped open the stairwell door instead of waiting for the elevator.
Mara followed while calling Sergeant Cole.
Naomi shouted the van description from the hallway.
White Ford Transit.
County seal on both doors.
Temporary plate ending in 72K.
Two male transport officers.
One female driver.
Hadrian repeated every detail to Damon, who was already moving toward the hospital.
"Find traffic cameras."
"On it."
By the time Hadrian reached the lobby, police dispatch had issued a child-abduction alert to every patrol unit in the district.
Hospital security locked the exits.
That did nothing for Sorrel.
The fake team had left through the ambulance service road.
A camera captured the van turning east.
Then it disappeared beneath an overpass.
Hadrian stood in the security room watching the same six seconds repeat.
Sorrel was visible through the tinted side window.
Her face was turned toward the hospital.
She had been looking back for him.
Mara placed both hands on the desk.
"Who knew the placement was happening?"
Naomi answered.
"Hospital staff, child welfare, the court clerk, the lawyers."
"Celeste?"
"Her attorney received notice."
Hadrian laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Then everyone knew."
Sergeant Cole arrived with a state investigator named Victor Salas.
Cole looked as though she had not slept in days, though it had been only one night.
"We found the van plate."
Hadrian stepped toward her.
"Where?"
"The plate was stolen from a church vehicle yesterday."
"What about the van?"
"Likely stolen too."
"Likely is not a location."
Mara touched Hadrian's arm.
He stopped.
Cole did not take offense.
"Traffic readers picked it up three miles east."
She opened a map.
"Then nothing."
Damon entered the room carrying Hadrian's missing suitcase.
Everyone turned.
Hadrian stared at it.
"Where did you get that?"
"Parking garage across from Doran's office."
"Laptop?"
Damon shook his head.
"Gone."
"Passport?"
"Gone."
Cole looked at him.
"You touched the suitcase?"
"Only the handle."
She swore.
Damon held up both hands.
"I was trying to stop them from making it disappear."
"Now we have to document your prints and explain every transfer."
Hadrian cut in.
"Later."
He pointed to the monitor.
"Sorrel."
Damon nodded and set the suitcase down.
"I may have something."
He opened his phone.
"The new Argent Shield system at the house connects to a fleet-management dashboard."
Mara looked at him.
"Why would a home-security company have fleet management?"
"It shouldn't."
Damon enlarged a network log.
"Unless it is also tracking vehicles for other clients."
A device identified as AS-14 had connected to the house system at 8:31 a.m.
Nine minutes before Sorrel's abduction.
The device was now moving east along Route 16.
Hadrian leaned closer.
"Is that the van?"
"I don't know."
Damon tapped the screen.
"But it's moving at fifty-eight miles an hour."
Cole sent the coordinates to patrol.
The signal continued east.
Then north.
Then east again.
Hadrian stared at the route.
"North Pines."
Mara looked at the map.
"It is heading toward North Pines."
Cole immediately requested state police units near the facility.
Hadrian moved toward the door.
Mara blocked him.
"No."
"You are not stopping me."
"I am trying to keep you from turning a rescue into a hostage situation."
"She is already a hostage."
"Then act like her father, not her weapon."
The words hit hard enough to stop him.
Hadrian looked at Cole.
"I am coming."
Cole considered it.
"You stay behind the perimeter and follow every order."
"Fine."
Mara started to object.
Cole cut her off.
"If Sorrel sees him, it may help negotiators."
That ended the argument.
They drove in separate vehicles.
Rain turned the highway silver.
Hadrian sat in the back of Cole's unmarked car with Mara beside him.
State police radios filled the silence.
Unit twelve had visual on the device signal.
No visual on the van.
Unit seven was approaching North Pines from the west.
Facility security reported no unusual arrivals.
That last message made Hadrian uneasy.
"Who called the facility?"
Cole looked at the radio.
"Dispatch."
"Then they know we're coming."
Mara swore.
Cole grabbed the microphone.
"All units, do not coordinate through facility security. Treat local staff as potentially compromised."
No one argued.
Two miles from North Pines, the tracking signal stopped moving.
Damon called.
"It is stationary near Old Quarry Road."
Cole changed direction.
The road narrowed into forest.
State units arrived first.
They found a black Argent Shield service SUV parked beside an abandoned maintenance shed.
No van.
No Sorrel.
Inside the SUV was a tracking transmitter.
It had been turned on remotely.
A decoy.
Hadrian stood in the rain while officers searched the woods.
Someone had anticipated the system they would use to follow.
Mara stared at the transmitter inside the evidence bag.
"They wanted us here."
Hadrian looked back toward the highway.
"Then where did they go?"
His phone vibrated.
The anonymous number.
Isabel.
DO NOT GO TO NORTH PINES.
Hadrian typed back.
THEY TOOK SORREL.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, a message arrived.
I KNOW.
Hadrian's hands shook.
WHERE IS SHE?
The answer took almost a minute.
THEY WILL NOT TAKE HER TO A PLACE YOU KNOW.
Another message.
ASK WHAT CELESTE BOUGHT YESTERDAY.
Hadrian showed Mara.
Mara called her investigator and asked for emergency financial tracing on Celeste's personal accounts.
The response came twenty-three minutes later.
Celeste had purchased three things the previous afternoon.
A prepaid phone.
A child's winter coat.
And two one-way train tickets from the downtown station to Montreal.
Hadrian stared at the transaction.
"She's taking Sorrel out of the country."
Mara shook her head.
"Maybe."
"What do you mean maybe?"
"Celeste is careful."
She pointed to the two tickets.
"Why buy traceable train tickets with her own card if she plans to use them?"
A decoy.
Just like the SUV.
Cole called the station anyway.
Plainclothes officers covered the platforms.
Border authorities received Sorrel's photograph.
Airports were alerted.
Hadrian called every private airfield his company had ever used.
Nothing.
At 10:16 a.m., the white transport van was found beneath a highway bridge.
The doors were open.
The seats were empty.
On the floor lay Sorrel's stuffed rabbit.
Hadrian stared at the photograph on Cole's phone until the image blurred.
The rabbit had been given to Sorrel less than twelve hours earlier.
It was the one object she had clung to after leaving the house.
Mara noticed something.
"Zoom in on the ear."
Cole enlarged the picture.
A seam had been torn open.
White stuffing protruded.
Hadrian looked at Naomi, who had joined them by phone.
"Did the rabbit have anything inside it?"
"Not that I know of."
Mara asked the evidence team to search it carefully.
Inside the stuffed ear, they found a folded strip of hospital receipt paper.
Four words were written in purple crayon.
BLUE DOOR. LOUD TRAINS. COLD.
Hadrian closed his eyes.
Sorrel had left a clue.
A seven-year-old had been abducted by adults with forged county credentials, and she was still trying to guide him back to her.
Damon searched maps for rail lines near blue industrial buildings.
There were dozens.
Leona called from the hospital.
"Mina heard you say loud trains."
Hadrian turned on speaker.
"What did she say?"
"She wrote a name."
Paper rustled.
"Bellweather Cold Storage."
Hadrian froze.
Bellweather.
The same shell company used for the domestic-service invoices.
Mara was already searching.
"There is a warehouse registered under that name near the freight yard."
Cole looked at the map.
"Twelve minutes away."
No sirens.
No marked cars near the final blocks.
State police established a perimeter around a long refrigerated warehouse with a faded blue loading door.
Freight trains thundered behind it every few minutes.
Hadrian waited in an armored command vehicle two streets away.
He could see the blue door through binoculars.
Mara sat beside him.
"If Celeste is inside, do not go in."
Hadrian did not answer.
"Hadrian."
"I heard you."
A tactical team entered through the rear loading bay.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then sixty.
Then ninety.
The radio cracked.
"One adult male detained."
Hadrian leaned forward.
"No sign of child in loading area."
His stomach dropped.
Another voice came over the radio.
"We have a locked office."
A crash followed.
Then silence.
Hadrian could hear his own breathing.
"Office clear."
Mara closed her eyes.
Hadrian looked at the blue door.
He wanted to tear it from the building with his hands.
Then a third radio voice cut through.
"Basement access found."
Footsteps echoed over the channel.
A door opened.
Someone shouted.
Then Cole's voice came through from inside the warehouse.
"We found a child."
Hadrian stood.
Mara grabbed his arm.
"Wait."
Hadrian could not.
He stepped out of the command vehicle.
Cole appeared at the blue loading door two minutes later.
Her face told him the answer before she spoke.
"It isn't Sorrel."
Hadrian stopped.
Behind Cole, a paramedic carried out a small boy wrapped in a silver emergency blanket.
He looked about six years old.
There were marks around both ankles.
Hadrian stared at him.
The message on the photograph returned to him.
She was not the first.
Cole approached.
"The boy says three adults left with Sorrel ten minutes before we arrived."
"Where?"
"He doesn't know."
Hadrian looked at the freight tracks.
A train was passing slowly behind the warehouse.
The boy began crying when he heard it.
Then he pointed at Hadrian.
"The lady said her daddy would follow the rabbit."
Hadrian's blood ran cold.
"What lady?"
The boy swallowed.
"The pretty one."
"Celeste?"
He nodded.
"What else did she say?"
The boy looked terrified.
May you like
"She said when you got here, she would already be at your house."
