CHAPTER 8 — BEFORE SUNRISE
Detective Chen ordered me not to contact Victor again without police involvement.
I agreed.
Then I told her I intended to cooperate with the demand.
She stared at me across the dining table.
“You cannot provide evidence you do not possess.”
“I can make him believe I have it.”
“That is dangerous.”
“He has my nephew.”
“We are involving state police and federal agents.”
“And every additional vehicle increases the chance Victor panics.”
Chen leaned closer.
“Lucas, this is not a negotiation over property.”
“I know exactly what it is.”
Dad stood near the fireplace.
“I am going with him.”
“No,” Mom said immediately.
“I am not asking permission.”
“You almost had a heart attack three days ago.”
“And my grandson is missing because of what happened in this house.”
I turned toward Dad.
“You are staying here.”
His expression hardened.
“I spent my entire life believing keeping the peace protected this family. It did not. I will not sit in another room while someone threatens that boy.”
There was no changing his mind.
Detective Chen finally approved a controlled operation.
Investigators prepared duplicate storage files and placed tracking devices inside two boxes. I wore a concealed transmitter. Dad was fitted with one as well.
Victor sent an address at 3:12 a.m.
An abandoned seafood processing plant south of Tillamook.
We drove there in my SUV.
Unmarked police vehicles remained several miles behind.
Dad sat beside me, quiet.
After twenty minutes, he said, “When Fiona was little, she used to sleep beside our bedroom door during storms.”
I kept my eyes on the highway.
“She was afraid the roof would blow away. I told her I would hold it down.”
His voice broke.
“I thought fathers could promise impossible things and somehow make them true.”
“You gave her every chance.”
“Maybe too many.”
“You did not teach her to do this.”
“No. But I taught her we would always rescue her.”
The distinction mattered.
Love without boundaries had become a tool Fiona used against them.
At 4:03, we reached the processing plant.
The building stood beyond a rusted gate, surrounded by broken equipment and tall grass. The ocean was a dark line beyond the road.
Victor called.
“Leave your phones in the vehicle.”
We did.
Police could still hear through the transmitters.
We carried the boxes inside.
The plant smelled of salt, oil, and rotting wood.
Victor stood beneath a hanging industrial light.
Two men were with him.
Mason sat in a metal chair nearby.
His hands were not tied, but one man stood behind him.
“Mason,” Dad said.
The boy looked up.
“Grandpa, I am sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Victor nodded toward the boxes.
“Open them.”
I placed one on a steel table and lifted the lid.
Copies of financial records filled it.
Victor flipped through several folders.
“Where is the ledger?”
“I thought Gregory had it.”
“He removed it from the unit before his arrest.”
“Then why ask me for files?”
“To determine how much law enforcement already knows.”
Victor looked toward Mason.
“The boy believed his father hid the ledger at the mansion.”
I turned to Mason.
“Why?”
“I heard Dad say he put insurance under the old man.”
Dad frowned.
Victor explained.
“Gregory referred to Samuel as the old man. Mason assumed he meant his grandfather.”
“What did he actually mean?” I asked.
“A wooden fisherman statue.”
I remembered it.
A carved figure that had stood in Gregory’s home office for years.
After their foreclosure, several items had been taken to the storage unit.
Investigators had listed artwork and decorations, but nobody would think to dismantle a cheap wooden statue.
“Where is it now?” Victor asked.
“I do not know.”
Mason spoke.
“Caleb does.”
Victor’s head turned.
Mason’s face changed the instant he realized his mistake.
Victor stepped closer.
“Where is your brother?”
“You know where he is.”
“Where is the statue?”
Mason said nothing.
Victor grabbed the front of his sweatshirt.
Dad moved forward.
“Take your hands off him.”
One of Victor’s men blocked Dad.
I raised both hands.
“You came for evidence. Leave the boys out of it.”
Victor shoved Mason back into the chair.
“Gregory’s ledger names investors, shell companies, officers, and public officials. It is worth more than this house.”
“Then why did Gregory keep it?”
“Insurance.”
Against Victor.
Against anyone who might expose him.
Gregory had been reckless, but even he understood that secrets created leverage.
“Let Mason leave with my father,” I said. “I will help you find the statue.”
Victor laughed.
“You are not in a position to negotiate.”
A siren sounded in the distance.
Not part of the plan.
Victor’s men reacted immediately.
One ran toward a window.
The second drew a handgun.
Dad stepped between the weapon and Mason.
“Police,” the man shouted.
Victor looked at me.
“You brought them.”
“You expected me not to?”
Victor grabbed Mason and pulled him toward a side door.
I lunged.
The man with the gun swung it toward me.
Dad struck his wrist with a metal flashlight Detective Chen had given him.
The gun fired.
The sound exploded through the building.
Mason screamed.
The bullet struck an overhead pipe.
Steam burst into the room.
Officers entered from both sides.
Victor dragged Mason into the fog.
I followed.
Shapes moved through the steam.
Someone hit me from the side, sending me into a metal railing.
I heard Dad shouting Mason’s name.
Then another gunshot.
When the steam cleared, Victor was on the floor.
Detective Chen had him at gunpoint.
Mason crouched beside an overturned table.
Dad stood in front of him, one arm stretched protectively across the boy’s chest.
Blood covered Dad’s sleeve.
“Dad!”
He looked down, surprised.
The first bullet had not struck only the pipe.
A fragment had cut deeply through his upper arm.
He remained standing until the paramedics entered.
Then his knees buckled.
Mason caught him before he hit the floor.
At the hospital, doctors repaired the wound.
The injury was painful but not life-threatening.
Dad woke to find Mason asleep in a chair beside his bed.
Mom sat on the other side.
When Dad opened his eyes, she leaned over and kissed his forehead.
“You are never allowed to complain about me being stubborn again,” he whispered.
She laughed through tears.
Victor and both men were arrested.
Federal agents recovered records from his vehicle and office.
But the ledger remained missing.
Caleb was the only person who might know where the wooden fisherman had gone.
When we returned to the mansion, he led us to the garage.
“I took it from our old house,” he said. “Dad was going to throw it away.”
He pointed toward a cabinet.
The carved fisherman stood behind a box of holiday decorations.
Detective Chen carefully removed it.
The base had been opened before and resealed.
Inside was a black notebook and a flash drive.
The ledger documented years of fraud, illegal lending, bribery, and intimidation.
It also contained payments made to a person identified only as F.M.
Fiona Mercer.
Not Gregory.
Fiona.
The payments began nearly three years earlier.
Long before Gregory lost their house.
Long before they came to Cannon Beach.
May you like
My sister had not been dragged into Gregory’s scheme at the end.
She had helped build it from the beginning.
