Chapter 7 - The Unlikely Ally
Thirty miles away, inside a small, secure farmhouse owned by a trusted former librarian colleague of Martha’s, Leo was safe, playing quietly with a set of wooden spoons under the watchful eye of a retired county sheriff.
Elena and Martha sat inside a parked van two blocks from the local district attorney’s office.
Using Viktor’s satellite phone, Martha had bypassed the local police dispatch and placed a direct call to a specific name she had pulled from Clara’s encrypted drive: Assistant District Attorney Sarah Lin.
Lin had been quietly investigating Vance Holdings for corporate fraud for over eighteen months, but every time she got close, key witnesses vanished or recanted their statements.
The van door slid open, and Sarah Lin stepped inside, pulling her raincoat tight around her. She was a sharp-eyed woman in her late thirties, carrying a heavy leather briefcase. She looked at Martha, then at Elena.
“You’re the woman every law enforcement band in the tri-state area is looking for right now,” Lin said, her tone cautious, but her eyes burning with intense curiosity. “There’s a felony child abduction warrant out for your arrest, Elena.”
“Issued by a judge whose campaign was financed by Arthur Vance,” Elena said, handing over a thick manila folder filled with printouts from Clara’s drive. “Read this before you call the troopers.”
Lin opened the folder under the small overhead light of the van. As she scanned the documents—the medical biopsy orders for a two-year-old child, the off-the-books Latin American clinic transfers, the prepaid bus receipts under false names, and the full transcript of Clara’s daily surveillance logs—her expression changed from skepticism to profound disgust.
“This... this is monster-level stuff,” Lin whispered, her fingers tracing the medical codes. “They were planning to perform an illegal bone marrow and organ harvest on a minor without parental consent.”
“They have three hours before Arthur Vance’s private jet leaves from the regional airport,” Martha said, stepping forward. “Arthur is on that plane. He came here personally to oversee the extraction because his own heart is failing. He has the falsified emergency custody papers signed by a corrupt magistrate in his pocket right now.”
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Lin looked at Martha, noting the calm, authoritative posture of the older woman in the beige cardigan. “If I take this to a federal judge, I need physical proof that Arthur Vance authorized the abduction.”
Elena pulled out her phone. “We have something better. We have Clara.”
