Chapter 3 - The Badge on the Floor
Danielle entered Rachel’s house behind the tactical team.
“FBI!”
No response.
Rooms cleared one by one.
Kitchen.
Living room.
Guest bedroom.
Empty.
Danielle saw overturned furniture but no blood.
That gave her hope.
Then an agent called from upstairs.
“Found someone!”
Danielle ran.
Rachel was inside a bathroom.
Alive.
Her wrists had been zip-tied.
Tape covered her mouth.
Danielle dropped beside her.
“Where’s Lily?”
Rachel tore the tape away.
“They took her.”
The words nearly broke Danielle.
“Who?”
“Two men. Masks.”
“Mercer?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“When?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Did they say anything?”
Rachel nodded.
“One of them said, ‘Vale should’ve stayed dead.’”
Danielle froze.
Thomas Vale.
Marcus appeared in the doorway.
He heard it too.
Rachel continued.
“Lily kicked one.”
Despite everything, Danielle almost smiled.
“That sounds like her.”
“She’s terrified.”
Danielle stood.
The fear inside her hardened into purpose.
They were no longer dealing with a corrupt sheriff protecting money.
Someone had kidnapped an FBI agent’s child.
Every federal resource available would now descend on Millstone County.
Roadblocks went up.
Helicopters launched.
Amber Alert systems activated.
Danielle was formally removed from operational command because Lily was her daughter.
She ignored the emotional implication and accepted the procedural necessity.
Marcus remained lead.
But nobody told Danielle to go home.
Perhaps because everyone understood there was nowhere else she could possibly go.
At 6:42 p.m., Melissa Grant walked into the command center.
She carried a cardboard banker’s box.
“I know what 417 means.”
Danielle turned.
Melissa placed the box on the table.
“Mercer kept this behind a false wall in his office.”
Inside were financial ledgers.
Photographs.
Copies of contracts.
And surveillance reports.
Dozens of names.
Judges.
Business owners.
Police officers.
County commissioners.
Federal contractors.
Danielle found herself.
There were photographs dating back four years.
Her office.
Her former apartment.
Lily’s school.
Danielle’s hands tightened.
“He’s been watching me.”
Melissa nodded.
“Why?”
“Thomas Vale.”
“What about him?”
Melissa looked at Marcus.
Then Danielle.
“He isn’t dead.”
Danielle stared.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Mercer does?”
“He did.”
“Did?”
Melissa swallowed.
“Sheriff Mercer didn’t run this morning because he was afraid of you.”
“Then why?”
“He was afraid of them.”
“The men who took Lily?”
“Yes.”
Danielle stepped closer.
“Who are they?”
Melissa opened the bottom of the box.
There was a photograph.
Five men standing at a hunting lodge.
One was Mercer.
Another was a county judge.
The third Danielle recognized as a state senator.
The fourth was a contractor.
The fifth man made Marcus curse.
Assistant Director Nathan Cole.
FBI.
Danielle stared at the photograph.
A senior FBI official.
Someone with access to cases.
Witness identities.
Agent schedules.
Her schedule.
“That’s how they knew about breakfast,” she whispered.
Marcus nodded grimly.
Danielle suddenly understood why Case 417 had collapsed.
It had not failed.
It had been killed.
From inside the Bureau.
Melissa pulled out a flash drive.
“Mercer gave this to me last night.”
“What?”
“He told me if anything happened to him, I should give it to someone outside the county.”
“Why you?”
“I think he finally got scared.”
Danielle inserted the drive into an isolated laptop.
One video file appeared.
Mercer’s face filled the screen.
He looked exhausted.
“If you’re watching this, I’m probably dead.”
Danielle glanced at Marcus.
Mercer continued.
“I did things I can’t undo. Took money. Protected people. Threatened people. Told myself everybody did it.”
He looked away.
“But Thomas Vale found the books. When he tried to go federal, Nathan Cole gave us his identity.”
Danielle felt sick.
Mercer continued.
“We were ordered to kill Vale.”
Melissa covered her mouth.
“I couldn’t.”
Danielle leaned toward the screen.
“I hid him.”
Mercer named a location.
St. Matthew’s Monastery.
Sixty miles north.
Then he said something unexpected.
“Agent Carter, if this reaches you, they’ll come after your daughter because Vale left something in her possession.”
Danielle stopped breathing.
“What?”
The recording continued.
“You don’t know about it. Neither does she.”
Mercer leaned toward the camera.
“Three weeks ago, Thomas Vale found your daughter outside her school. He gave her something.”
Danielle remembered Lily coming home with a little silver keychain.
A gift, she had said, from an old man who found it near the sidewalk.
Danielle had barely noticed.
A tiny metal bird.
She had put it in Lily’s backpack.
The backpack lying in Rachel’s hallway.
Danielle grabbed it.
The bird was gone.
“They have it,” Marcus said.
“No.”
Danielle searched every pocket.
Empty.
Then she remembered.
Lily had moved it.
Yesterday.
She had attached it to the zipper of her winter coat.
The coat Lily was wearing when she was taken.
Danielle looked at Marcus.
“The evidence is still with her.”
At that exact moment, a secure FBI terminal beeped.
An incoming video call.
Unknown source.
Marcus answered.
Lily appeared on screen.
She was crying.
May you like
A masked man stood behind her.
And beside him, tied to a chair, was Sheriff Wade Mercer.
