Chapter 10 - The Officer Who Knew Too Much
David called immediately.
Ryan answered this time.
“Don’t ask where I am.”
“Take the battery out of the tracker.”
“Already did.”
“Then move.”
“I can barely walk.”
David pressed his fist against the conference table.
“Ryan, listen to me. We found Dad’s tape. He said the original Riverside file is where we used to hide.”
Silence.
Then Ryan whispered, “The elevator cavity.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t go.”
“Why?”
“Because if I figured out what Dad meant, Grant can too.”
“He never knew about it.”
“He knows now if he heard you talking in the house.”
David looked at Chloe.
They had discussed Riverside in the kitchen.
The hidden microphone in his office did not matter.
There might have been more devices.
“Where are you?” David asked again.
Ryan exhaled.
“Bus maintenance yard on Mason Avenue. Old mechanic bay.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“You have a broken leg.”
“I also have a head start.”
“Not enough.”
Mara took the phone from David.
“This is Mara Chen, an attorney. I am in contact with the state attorney general’s office. If you want any chance of staying alive and clearing your name, stop improvising.”
Ryan went quiet.
Then he said, “You sound like Dad.”
“Your father apparently needed better legal advice.”
For the first time all day, David almost smiled.
Mara arranged a meeting with Investigator Sarah Patel from the Missouri Attorney General’s public corruption unit.
Patel wanted Ryan secured first.
She also wanted David and Chloe nowhere near Riverside until a warrant strategy could be discussed.
That plan lasted eighteen minutes.
Ryan called again.
“They found me.”
Behind his voice came a metal crash.
David stood.
“Who?”
“Morris.”
The line cut.
Patel told David to stay where he was.
David did not.
Neither did Chloe.
Mara swore at both of them, then gave Patel the address and followed in her own car.
The maintenance yard sat behind a row of abandoned warehouses near the river. By the time David arrived, two patrol cars were entering from the opposite side.
Dean Morris stood near the open mechanic bay.
His uniform was neat.
His right hand rested on his holster.
Ryan was nowhere visible.
Morris saw David and walked toward him.
“You need to leave.”
“Where’s my brother?”
“Your brother assaulted an officer and fled.”
“Which officer?”
Morris’s jaw tightened.
“Me.”
David looked him over.
No torn uniform.
No bruise.
No blood.
“Funny. You look great.”
Chloe stepped out of the passenger side.
Morris glanced at her, then back at David.
“This is an active scene.”
“So was my house when someone installed cameras.”
For the first time, Morris lost control of his expression.
Only for a heartbeat.
David saw it.
“So you know about that,” Morris said.
Chloe immediately pulled out her phone.
“Thank you.”
Morris looked at the phone.
“Are you recording me?”
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
“You people have no idea what you’re involved in.”
“Then explain it,” David said.
Morris lowered his voice.
“Ryan stole almost four hundred grand, disappeared, and came back injured. Maybe ask yourself who beats a man like that unless he owes dangerous people money.”
David took one step closer.
“Maybe ask yourself why you knew he had a key.”
Morris’s hand shifted near his belt.
Behind him, a metallic bang sounded from inside the mechanic bay.
Every officer turned.
Ryan burst through a side door on one crutch, limping toward a chain-link fence.
Morris shouted, “Stop!”
Ryan did not.
One of the patrol officers moved to intercept him.
Then a black SUV accelerated through the far gate.
It was not a police vehicle.
Ryan saw it and changed direction.
The SUV swerved after him.
Everything happened at once.
David ran.
Chloe screamed Ryan’s name.
Morris yelled into his radio.
Ryan threw himself behind a parked city bus as the SUV clipped a tool cart and sent metal drawers exploding across the pavement.
The SUV stopped.
Two men got out.
Neither wore uniforms.
That was when the patrol officers finally understood the scene did not belong to them.
One drew his weapon and ordered everyone to the ground.
The two men retreated into the SUV and sped back through the gate.
David caught only one useful detail before it disappeared: a white contractor decal on the rear glass, the same stylized mountain logo he had seen on security vehicles at Hale Development job sites when he was younger. It did not prove Grant had sent them, but it made the yard feel less like a random attack and more like an old company operation wearing new clothes.
One of the patrol officers shouted the partial plate into his radio. Another ran to the damaged gate and photographed fresh tire marks while a third checked the mechanic bay for anyone else. The sudden professionalism only emphasized how little control Morris seemed interested in taking now that the men had escaped.
Morris did not chase them.
He ran toward Ryan.
David reached his brother first.
Ryan shoved something into David’s hand.
A folded scrap of paper.
“Riverside,” he gasped. “Second access.”
Morris grabbed David’s shoulder.
“Move away.”
David spun.
“Don’t touch me.”
Then unmarked state vehicles entered the yard.
Investigator Sarah Patel stepped out with two agents.
“Officer Morris,” she called. “Step away from both men.”
Morris froze.
Patel held up credentials.
“This scene is now part of a state public corruption investigation. Keep your hands visible.”
Morris looked toward the gate where the SUV had vanished.
Then toward Ryan.
Then at David.
For a moment, David thought Morris would run.
Instead, he smiled faintly.
“You’re too late.”
Patel’s expression did not change.
“For what?”
Morris looked directly at Chloe.
“The file isn’t at Riverside anymore.”
Chloe went pale.
Morris raised his hands.
“Grant got there years ago.”
Ryan, still on the ground, started laughing.
It sounded painful.
Morris frowned.
“What?”
Ryan looked at David.
“Show him the paper.”
David unfolded the scrap.
It was a photocopy of an old architectural detail.
Two maintenance cavities appeared behind the original service elevator.
One had been crossed out in red during construction.
The other was marked VOID — SEALED.
May you like
Ryan smiled at Morris.
“Grant found the wrong hiding place.”
