Chapter 2 - The Ghost of East Dallas
The rain started around 7:00 AM, drumming a furious, rhythmic tattoo against the bulletproof glass of my black SUV as Prescott drove us through the decaying industrial grid of East Dallas.
“Are you sure about this address, Prescott?” I asked, staring out the window at rusted chain-link fences and peeling neon signs flickering in the gray downpour.
“Positive,” Prescott said, keeping both hands firmly on the steering wheel. “Her cell phone pinged off a relay tower near a self-storage facility off Commerce Street twenty minutes ago. She didn't flee the city, Mr. Lawson. She went back to her base of operations.”
My mind raced through a dozen violent scenarios. Was she an operative for a rival hotel syndicate looking to extract corporate espionage through my children? Was she working with federal investigators trying to unearth some loophole in my commercial real estate holdings?
None of it fit.
If Hannah Vance—or Carter—wanted to destroy me, she could have done it months ago. She could have poisoned my children, stolen my corporate server drives, or recorded audio of my harsh, tyrannical management style to leak to the press.
Instead, she had spent sixteen months folding my daughters’ tiny socks, humming old lullabies, and teaching three mute little girls how to laugh again.
That didn't sound like a corporate saboteur. That sounded like someone executing a very deliberate, agonizingly slow rescue mission.
We pulled into the gravel lot of a dilapidated one-story brick storage complex. A faded sign hung over the office: Commerce Street Archives & Storage.
I didn't wait for Prescott to open my door. I shoved it open, the rain instantly soaking through my bespoke wool suit jacket, and strode toward Unit 114.
The padlock was missing. The metal rolling door was pushed up about two feet, revealing a sliver of warm, yellow light spilling out onto the wet gravel.
My hand instinctively slipped inside my jacket, wrapping around the grip of my Sig Sauer.
“Stay back, Prescott,” I murmured, stepping forward.
I crouched slightly, ducked beneath the rolling door, and stepped into the cramped, windowless storage unit.
The air inside smelled of old paper, dried lavender, and cedarwood—the exact same scent that used to linger in my wife’s studio apartment before we married.
Hannah sat cross-legged on a worn Persian rug in the center of the room. Surrounding her were dozens of open cardboard banker’s boxes filled with photographs, legal transcripts, medical journals, and cassette tapes. She was carefully placing a stack of framed photographs into a canvas tote bag when she heard my boots scrape against the concrete floor.
She didn't scream. She didn't reach for a weapon.
She simply stopped, closed her eyes for a brief second as if bracing for a blow she knew was coming, and then slowly turned her head to look at me.
In the harsh fluorescent glow of the single bulb overhead, her face looked exhausted. Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath her amber-brown eyes, and her lower lip was bitten raw.
“You’re not very good at hiding tracks, Miss Vance,” I said, my voice cold and flat as I kept my hand resting near my holster.
Hannah let out a dry, humorless laugh, standing up slowly and brushing the dust off her jeans. “I wasn't trying to hide, Mr. Lawson. If I wanted to disappear, I wouldn't have left my current address on the kitchen counter under Sophie’s crayon drawing.”
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I narrowed my eyes. “You left it there on purpose?”
“Of course I did,” she said, her voice steady, possessing that same low, melodic cadence that had brought my daughters back from the dead. “Because unlike you, I don't run away from difficult truths when they finally show up on my doorstep.”
