CHAPTER 8 The Man in the Photograph
The first light shattered with a deafening pop.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Glass rained onto the concrete floor.
The warehouse plunged into darkness.
Khloe instinctively ducked, shielding her stomach.
Harrison pulled her behind a row of rusted lockers.
Eleanor didn't move.
She listened.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then...
Footsteps.
Not running.
Walking.
Slow.
Deliberate.
"Three people," she whispered.
"Maybe four."
Harrison tightened his grip on the flashlight, but kept it off.
"They're using the darkness."
"They're expecting panic."
A beam of light sliced through the warehouse.
Not from Harrison.
From above.
Someone on the second-floor catwalk swept a tactical flashlight across the basement.
A male voice echoed through the darkness.
"Mr. Cole."
Silence.
"I know you're down there."
Harrison remained perfectly still.
The voice chuckled.
"You're smarter than your father."
Khloe felt Harrison's body tense.
Her father.
They knew about him.
Another flashlight flicked on.
This one from the opposite side.
They were being boxed in.
Eleanor quietly counted.
"One..."
The first beam moved.
"Two..."
A second pair of footsteps.
"Three..."
Metal creaked overhead.
"No."
She corrected herself.
"Five."
The strangers weren't searching.
They already knew exactly where the trio had entered.
Someone had fed them the building layout.
Harrison leaned close to Khloe.
"When I say run..."
"I'm not leaving you."
"You are."
"No."
His voice hardened.
"Khloe."
She looked into her brother's eyes.
For the first time in her life...
She saw fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
Above them, another voice called out.
"You found the notebook."
Silence.
"We expected that."
Khloe frowned.
Expected?
The man continued.
"The question is..."
"...did you find the photograph?"
Eleanor slowly slipped the photograph into the inside pocket of her jacket.
No answer.
The voice laughed.
"I'll take that as yes."
Suddenly...
Gunfire erupted.
BANG!
The bullet struck the concrete pillar inches from Harrison's head.
Not aimed to kill.
A warning shot.
Another voice shouted,
"Don't damage the evidence!"
Evidence?
They weren't talking about the notebook.
They were talking about Harrison.
They wanted him alive.
Eleanor quietly reached into her backpack.
She removed a small cylindrical canister.
Khloe looked confused.
"What is that?"
"Old FBI habit."
She pulled the pin.
Smoke grenade.
Three seconds later...
Thick white smoke flooded the basement.
Visibility disappeared.
Chaos erupted above.
"They're moving!"
"I can't see!"
"Seal the exits!"
Harrison grabbed Khloe's hand.
"Now!"
The three disappeared into the smoke.
Upstairs...
The leader removed his night-vision goggles.
"They planned for this."
A younger man asked,
"Do we pursue?"
"No."
"Why not?"
The leader smiled.
"They already walked where I wanted."
He pressed a button on a handheld device.
Deep beneath the warehouse...
A hidden sensor activated.
Meanwhile...
The trio sprinted through a narrow maintenance corridor.
Their footsteps echoed.
Khloe struggled to keep pace.
"I'm okay."
She wasn't.
Eight months pregnant.
Running through broken concrete.
Her breathing became shallow.
Harrison noticed immediately.
"We stop."
"No."
"We keep moving."
"You'll collapse."
"So will the baby if we stay."
They reached an old freight elevator.
Long abandoned.
Rusted.
Its doors partially open.
Eleanor shined her flashlight inside.
The elevator car was gone.
Only an empty shaft remained.
"Dead end."
Harrison looked around.
"There has to be another exit."
Then...
The floor vibrated.
Just once.
A low rumble.
Eleanor froze.
"Oh no..."
"What?"
She pointed downward.
"They're collapsing the basement."
Concrete dust drifted from the ceiling.
Another vibration.
Stronger.
Steel beams groaned.
Khloe whispered,
"They're bringing the building down..."
Above ground...
An excavator engine roared to life.
The machine had been hidden behind Warehouse C.
Its hydraulic arm slammed into a support column.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The already unstable structure began to fail.
Inside...
Chunks of concrete crashed around them.
Harrison spotted a narrow drainage tunnel beneath a collapsed wall.
"There!"
The opening barely measured three feet high.
Eleanor crawled in first.
Khloe followed with difficulty.
Harrison entered last.
The moment he disappeared inside...
The warehouse ceiling collapsed.
The sound was like thunder trapped underground.
Dust swallowed everything.
For several minutes...
None of them spoke.
The tunnel was barely large enough to crawl.
Cold water soaked their hands.
Broken pipes dripped steadily overhead.
Finally...
Light.
A rusted storm drain opened into a wooded ravine behind the property.
The three emerged covered in mud and dust.
Khloe collapsed onto the grass, gasping.
Harrison immediately checked her.
"You okay?"
She nodded weakly.
"The baby..."
A tiny kick answered.
Relief flooded his face.
Far behind them...
Warehouse C disappeared into a cloud of dust.
Firefighters and police sirens began echoing in the distance.
Anyone arriving now would believe it had been an industrial accident.
Exactly the kind of accident the Harrington empire had survived for decades.
Eleanor removed the photograph from her jacket.
Somehow...
It had survived.
She looked again at the smiling man she recognized.
"I remember now."
Harrison looked up.
"Who is he?"
She answered slowly.
"His name isn't Robert Kane."
"What?"
"That's the identity he used in the FBI."
"He had another name?"
"Several."
Khloe frowned.
"What was his real job?"
Eleanor's voice became almost a whisper.
"He wasn't investigating organized crime."
"He was protecting it."
Silence.
Harrison slowly processed those words.
"You're saying..."
"My supervisor wasn't corrupted."
"He was the corruption."
Back in downtown Philadelphia...
Richard Harrington stood in his office watching smoke rise in the distance.
His phone vibrated.
"They escaped."
Richard closed his eyes.
"I figured."
"The warehouse collapsed."
"They survived."
Another pause.
"The photograph?"
"We couldn't recover it."
Richard's hand tightened around the phone.
"You had one job."
"They know about Kane."
Silence.
Long enough that the caller wondered if the line had disconnected.
Finally Richard spoke.
"No..."
"They know one name."
"They still don't know..."
He stopped himself.
The caller asked,
"Don't know what?"
Richard looked out the window toward the courthouse in the distance.
"They still don't know..."
"...who gave the order to push Khloe."
He ended the call.
Standing silently behind the half-open office door...
Vanessa had heard every word.
Her face turned white.
Because for the first time...
She realized something horrifying.
Richard didn't say Vanessa pushed Khloe.
He said...
Someone gave the order.
And she suddenly wasn't sure...
May you like
Whether that someone had ever intended for her to survive either.
End of Chapter 8
