Chapter 13 - The Ghost in the Security Feed
Arthur didn't hesitate. Decades of survival instincts surged through his veins. He drew a titanium lockpick set from his lapel, working the inner partition lock while reaching into his trench coat for the concealed Glock 19 he had smuggled past the corrupt warden.
"Daniel, get down!" Arthur barked.
The heavy steel access door to Daniel's side of the booth hissed open. A figure dressed in tactical urban camo, sporting a matte-black ballistic mask and a suppressed submachine gun, stepped into the crimson gloom.
Without uttering a single syllable, the assassin raised the weapon.
*Thump-thump-thump.*
The suppressed rounds hammered through the Plexiglas edges and into Daniel’s chest. The impact lifted Arthur’s son off his metal stool, slamming his broken body against the rear concrete wall. Daniel slid to the floor, leaving a thick smear of dark arterial blood across the cinderblocks.
Arthur kicked the lower service hatch open, leveled his sidearm through the gap, and fired three consecutive hollow-point rounds. The bullets struck the hitman’s tactical vest, staggering him backward. The assassin recovered instantly, dropped a smoke canister that hissed blinding white phosphorus into the booth, and melted back into the shadows of the prison corridor.
Arthur coughed, eyes burning from the chemical smoke. He vaulted through the broken partition, dropping to his knees beside his dying son.
Daniel was drowning in his own blood, his lungs wheezing like punctured bellows. He grabbed Arthur’s lapel with surprising, dying strength.
"The... safe deposit box..." Daniel gurgled, blood bubbling on his lips. "Geneva Trust... downtown branch. Account 409... Rachel didn't die... in the crash..."
Arthur gripped Daniel’s shoulders. "What do you mean she didn't die?! I identified her remains at the morgue!"
"Dental records... were forged..." Daniel whispered, his eyes rolling back into his head, his fingers slipping from Arthur’s coat. "The coffin... is full of stones... She's waiting... at the lighthouse..."
Daniel’s head slumped sideways onto the concrete. His pulse stopped.
Alarms wailed across the penitentiary. Sirens echoed from the outer yards. Arthur stood up, wiping soot and his son’s blood from his hands. His mind was spinning into an abyss of revelation and dread.
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If Rachel wasn't in that grave... whose body had they buried five years ago? And who was holding the real strings behind Lily’s nightmare?
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