Chapter 16 - The Harbor Safehouse
The rain had arrived by midnight, lashing the asphalt of Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront in sheets of grey water. Marcus and his former partner, Detective Diaz, moved through the shadows between two rusted shipping containers near an abandoned repair dock.
I sat in the reinforced surveillance van fifty yards away, watching through the infrared feed on the monitor. Marcus had ordered me to stay back, but there was no power on earth that could have kept me at home while my son’s future was being decided on the docks.
"Thermal signatures show two individuals inside the warehouse office," Diaz’s voice crackled through the earpiece. "One sitting, one pacing. The pacing one is armed."
"Stand by for breach," Marcus whispered back.
On the screen, I watched the silhouettes move with tactical precision. A sudden flash of white light exploded on the camera feed—a stun grenade—followed by the muffled crack of a reinforced door being kicked off its hinges.
Shouts echoed through the audio channel. A scuffle. The sound of metal hitting concrete.
"Clear!" Marcus shouted over the radio. "Diaz, cuff the guard. I’ve got the notary."
Two minutes later, Marcus dragged a disheveled, shivering man in his late fifties out into the rain and threw him into the back of the surveillance van. The man wore an expensive silk shirt covered in grease and rain, his eyes wide with sheer terror.
"Arthur Pendelton," Marcus growled, shoving a digital camera right in his face. "Registered notary public for the state of New York. You’re looking at twenty years for international racketeering, child trafficking conspiracy, and felony document forgery."
"I didn't have a choice!" Pendelton shrieked, cowering against the van’s steel wall. "Vance told me he would put my grandchildren in the East River if I didn't stamp the surrogacy covenant! He had the paperwork already filled out!"
"Who brought you the paperwork?" I asked, stepping out of the shadows, my eyes burning into his.
Pendelton froze when he saw my face. His breath hitched in his throat, his jaw dropping as if he had just seen a ghost rise from a grave.
"You..." he stammered, pointing a trembling finger at me. "You were there. In the hospital corridor. In the green coat."
"No," Marcus said coldly, grabbing the man by the collar and jerking him upright. "That wasn't Clara. That was her twin sister, Lauren. Tell us how she got Clara's thumbprint on the paper."
"Lauren had a silicone casting mold!" Pendelton cried out, breaking down in tears. "She took it from Clara's hand while Clara was sedated in the recovery ward! She brought the mold to me in an envelope and made me notarize the signature! It was all staged! I have the original audio recordings on my phone—Vance made me record the exchange for his private files!"
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Marcus looked at me through the dim light of the van, a fierce, victorious gleam in his eyes.
"We have them," Marcus said softly. "We have the whole damn conspiracy."