Victoria did not look toward the warehouse doors. She did not glance at the steel rafters, the shattered windows, or the black openings between stacks of abandoned machinery. Every instinct told her Voss would be watching for the smallest indication that she had not come alone.
Instead, she kept her attention on Daniel Cross.
He sat beneath the hanging lamp with his wrists bound behind the chair. One cheek was swollen. A cut beneath his left eye had crusted dark with dried blood. His clothes were dirty but intact, and although exhaustion had hollowed his face, his gaze was alert.
Commissioner Adrian Voss stood ten feet behind him.
“Give me the files,” Voss said again.
Victoria slipped one hand into her coat pocket.
Voss’s right hand moved immediately toward his jacket.
“Slowly.”
Victoria stopped.
“I’m getting my phone.”
“You won’t need it.”
“Then I assume you’re planning to communicate telepathically with the people holding my evidence.”
Voss smiled faintly. “Still performing.”
“You’ve known me long enough to know I don’t perform.”
“I’ve known you exactly twice.”
“Apparently you’ve known quite a bit more about me than you admitted.”
Voss’s expression barely changed.
Daniel spoke.
“Don’t give him anything.”
His voice was rough, but the words were clear.
Voss’s smile disappeared.
Victoria looked at Daniel.
“Where are the records?” she asked.
Daniel shook his head.
Voss moved forward and placed a hand on the back of Daniel’s chair.
“This man has spent three months confusing courage with leverage,” he said. “You don’t have to make the same mistake.”
Victoria studied Voss’s face.
He looked exactly as he did at department ceremonies: controlled, rested, almost paternal. There was no visible panic. No trembling hand. No hurried breathing.
That troubled her.
A man who knew an internal investigator had entered a warehouse after identifying him as the center of a corruption scheme should have shown some fear.
Unless he believed the situation remained entirely under his control.
“What are you offering?” Victoria asked.
Voss seemed pleased by the question. “Practicality.”
“That isn’t an offer.”
“You give me Daniel’s documents. Daniel leaves with you. Your roadside incident becomes an embarrassing misunderstanding. Officers Dalton and Cole receive discipline, perhaps termination, and this ends.”
Victoria gave a short laugh.
“You’re offering to sacrifice your own officers.”
“Men who make mistakes should expect consequences.”
“You ordered those mistakes.”
“That will be difficult to establish.”
Victoria let the silence hold.
Voss understood that she was studying him and did not seem to mind.
“Where is Sarah Bennett?” she asked.
Something changed in Daniel’s posture.
His shoulders tightened against the ropes.
Voss noticed too.
“Sarah is safe.”
Daniel lifted his head sharply. “Don’t believe him.”
“Interesting,” Voss said. “He says that quite often.”
Victoria moved one step closer to Daniel.
“Sarah is alive?”
Daniel stared at her.
“Yes.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No.”
“When was the last time?”
“Three months ago.”
Voss sighed. “This interrogation would be more efficient somewhere comfortable.”
Victoria ignored him.
“Daniel, Dalton says Sarah betrayed you.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
Voss’s expression did not change.
“She did.”
The answer landed more heavily than Victoria expected.
Daniel looked toward the floor.
“She gave them the plate number. She gave them the meeting location. She told Voss where I was taking the documents.”
Victoria thought of Sarah in the gas station, trembling at the sight of Dalton’s patrol car.
“Why?”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“Because she was terrified.”
“Of Voss?”
Daniel looked at the commissioner.
“At first.”
Voss stepped away from the chair.
“That’s enough.”
Victoria’s attention sharpened.
“Afraid of whom later?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
A metallic click came from the shadows.
Victoria froze.
Not Voss.
Another person.
Someone had just moved a firearm.
Voss’s eyes flicked briefly toward the sound.
There.
The smallest possible confirmation.
Victoria turned her head slightly.
“Who else is here?”
“No one who concerns you.”
“It concerns me if they’re armed.”
Voss smiled again. “You came into an abandoned warehouse alone to meet a man you believe ordered your detention, and now you’re worried someone may be armed?”
“I didn’t say I came alone.”
The warehouse went utterly still.
Voss looked at her.
For the first time that evening, real emotion crossed his face.
Not fear.
Annoyance.
“Victoria.”
She held his gaze.
“You’re not careless enough to assume I followed your instruction literally.”
Voss raised one hand.
From somewhere above, a red dot appeared on Daniel’s chest.
Victoria stopped breathing.
Daniel looked down.
“Sniper?” Victoria asked.
Voss shrugged.
“Insurance.”
“You said he leaves with me.”
“He can.”
The red dot remained steady.
“If I receive the files.”
Victoria felt the transmitter in her pocket. Captain Morris and her team would be hearing every word. But hearing was not the same as acting. They did not know the shooter’s location, and a rushed entry could get Daniel killed.
Victoria forced herself to remain calm.
“You don’t have enough people to control every exit.”
“Who said I need every exit?”
Voss nodded toward the darkness behind her.
“Only yours.”
Victoria turned just enough to see movement near the side door.
A man stood there.
Plain clothes. Pistol held low.
She recognized him.
Deputy Chief Harold Keene.
Captain Morris’s immediate superior.
Victoria’s thoughts aligned instantly.
Keene had been one of the few people informed after the roadside detention.
One of the few people who could have learned where Sarah was being protected.
One of the few people who could know Morris had joined the investigation.
“Now I understand,” Victoria said.
Keene stepped into the light.
“No, you don’t.”
Voss looked pleased.
“Deputy Chief Keene has been extraordinarily useful.”
Keene’s jaw tightened at the wording.
Victoria noticed.
Useful was not the way one partner described another.
It was the way a superior described an asset.
“Does Morris know you’re here?” Victoria asked.
Keene raised the gun slightly.
“She knows nothing.”
Victoria kept her face neutral.
That meant he did not know Morris was outside.
Good.
Daniel whispered, “Victoria.”
She looked at him.
His eyes moved toward the floor beside Voss.
Once.
Then back to her.
Victoria followed the gesture without moving her head.
A black briefcase sat behind a stack of metal pallets.
She had not noticed it when she entered.
Voss caught Daniel’s glance.
He kicked the case farther into shadow.
“Enough.”
Victoria turned toward him. “What’s in it?”
“Nothing you need.”
“Then why hide it?”
Voss’s patience thinned.
“Where are Daniel’s files?”
Victoria reached slowly into her coat and removed her phone.
Keene pointed the pistol at her.
“Put it down.”
“You want the files or not?”
Voss lifted a hand toward Keene.
“Let her.”
Victoria unlocked the phone.
The live transmission continued in the background.
She opened an encrypted folder.
Voss moved closer.
“There are copies,” Victoria said.
“I assumed so.”
“Multiple locations.”
“I assumed that too.”
“You harm Daniel and they’re released.”
“Released to whom?”
“People you cannot pressure through this department.”
Voss smiled.
“That sounds impressive.”
“It should.”
“Then why did you come?”
Victoria looked at Daniel.
“Because evidence can be copied. People can’t.”
For the first time, Daniel’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But she saw gratitude there.
Voss did too, and his mouth tightened.
“How touching.”
Victoria held up the phone.
“I can authorize access.”
Voss extended his hand.
“No.”
His face cooled.
“You said you wanted the files. You didn’t say you wanted my phone.”
“What do you want?”
“Daniel untied.”
“No.”
“Then we’re done.”
Keene stepped closer.
Voss held him back with a glance.
The red dot on Daniel’s chest shifted upward.
It settled near his throat.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Victoria’s pulse hammered once, then steadied.
“Move that laser.”
Voss said nothing.
“I’m the only person here who can give you what you want.”
Voss watched her.
Then he looked upward.
The red dot disappeared.
Victoria released the breath she had been holding.
“Untie him.”
“One hand.”
“Both.”
“One.”
Victoria thought quickly.
“Fine.”
Keene moved behind Daniel and cut the rope around his right wrist.
Daniel brought the arm forward slowly. His fingers were swollen and stiff.
Victoria watched his hand.
He flexed it once.
Twice.
Then dropped it beside the chair.
His fingertips pointed toward the black briefcase again.
More deliberate this time.
Victoria understood.
The briefcase mattered.
“What’s inside that case?” she asked.
Keene looked toward it.
Voss did not.
That contrast told her everything.
Keene did not know.
Voss did.
Victoria smiled faintly.
“You haven’t told him.”
Keene’s attention shifted to Voss.
“Told me what?”
Voss’s gaze remained on Victoria.
“She’s stalling.”
“What’s in the case?” Keene demanded.
Voss did not answer.
Victoria looked at Keene.
“You should ask him why a man who trusts you completely brought evidence you weren’t supposed to notice.”
Keene’s grip tightened around the gun.
“Adrian?”
Voss’s eyes hardened.
“Do not let her split us.”
Victoria shook her head.
“I don’t have to.”
She looked at the briefcase.
“He already did.”
A dull crash sounded somewhere outside the warehouse.
Keene turned instinctively toward the noise.
Voss did not.
Victoria used the half second.
She hurled her phone at the hanging lamp.
The bulb exploded.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
Daniel threw himself sideways with the chair.
Keene shouted.
A gunshot cracked through the building.
Victoria dropped behind the nearest steel pallet as another shot struck metal and threw sparks across the floor.
Then Captain Morris’s voice roared from outside.
“Police! Drop your weapons!”
The warehouse erupted.
Boots pounded at two entrances.
Someone above fired once.
Return fire cracked from the far side.
Victoria crawled toward Daniel.
“Where are you?”
“Here.”
She found his shoulder in the dark.
“Stay low.”
“My other hand.”
Victoria reached behind the chair and felt the rope binding his wrist.
She had no knife.
Daniel pushed something into her palm.
A thin piece of metal.
“What is this?”
“Chair bracket.”
She sawed at the rope.
Another gunshot echoed overhead.
Then someone screamed.
Victoria kept cutting.
The rope snapped.
Daniel dropped onto his hands and knees.
“The case,” he said.
“Forget the case.”
“No.”
“Daniel—”
“That’s what he came for.”
Victoria stopped.
“What?”
Daniel leaned close enough that she could feel his breath.
“He doesn’t want my files.”
The warehouse lights suddenly came alive.
Emergency floodlamps from Morris’s team blasted through the broken windows.
Voss was gone.
Keene lay near the side entrance, his pistol several feet away and an officer kneeling over him.
Daniel pointed toward the shadows.
The black briefcase was gone too.
Victoria stared at the empty place where it had been.
“What was inside?”
Daniel looked at her.
“The list.”
“What list?”
His answer was barely louder than the chaos around them.
“The names of everyone Voss owns.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Warehouse Raid Saved Daniel, but the Missing Briefcase Revealed That Voss Had Been Protecting Something Far More Dangerous Than Money
The Officers Chose a Woman Driving Alone, Never Realizing She Had Spent Months Studying Their Unit
Part 5 of 28
