CHAPTER 2 — THE ENTIRE POLICE CONFERENCE WENT SILENT
At first...
Marcus thought someone had accidentally connected to his mother's medical camera.
Then he heard Celeste laugh.
He froze.
Every officer in the auditorium stopped taking notes.
The giant screen showed rain.
My wheelchair.
Celeste's face.
Crystal-clear audio.
"...Tonight you die."
Nobody spoke.
Marcus slowly stood.
His chair crashed backward.
One detective whispered,
"Chief..."
Marcus never answered.
Instead...
He pulled out his phone.
"Dispatch."
"This is Chief Marcus Bennett."
"I need every available unit to my mother's residence."
"Code Black."
The dispatcher hesitated.
"Sir... that's your own home."
Marcus replied with a voice nobody in that room had ever heard before.
"Exactly."
Back at the mansion...
Celeste knew nothing.
She rolled my wheelchair toward the backyard.
Toward the abandoned swimming pool.
Its concrete walls had collapsed years ago.
Rainwater had turned it into a deep pit.
She intended to dump me inside.
"Nobody checks back here."
Dorian suddenly grabbed her arm.
"This has gone too far."
She smiled.
Then shoved him.
He slipped into the muddy slope, dropping the forged documents into the water.
Celeste didn't care.
"They're scanned already."
She wrapped both hands around my wheelchair handles.
One final push.
The front wheels reached the edge.
Then...
Every security light on the property exploded to life.
Red.
Blue.
Red.
Blue.
Police vehicles surrounded the mansion from every direction.
Helicopters thundered overhead.
Spotlights flooded the backyard.
Celeste turned pale.
She whispered only one word.
"...Marcus?"
A loudspeaker echoed through the storm.
"DO NOT MOVE."
She released the wheelchair.
Her knees buckled.
Then...
Instead of surrendering...
May you like
She ran straight into the mansion.
Nobody expected what she did next.
