Chapter 4 - THE TWIST IN THE CABINThe room felt like it was spinning in reverse. My ex-father, Victor Vance, had abandoned my mother and me when I was just three years old. He was a ruthless corporate raider who had been sent to federal prison for fraud over a decade ago. I had spent my entire life believing he was dead.
“This changes everything,” Detective Vance whispered, staring at the audio waveform on his screen. “If Daniel is Victor Vance’s son, then his entire marriage proposal between your mother and Arthur was orchestrated. It was a hostile takeover of the Carter estate.”
“Where is my mother?!” I yelled, pulling off my heart monitor stickers and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, despite the burning pain in my abdominal incisions. “If Daniel knows that safety deposit box contains evidence against Victor Vance, he’ll execute her! We have to go to the cabin in Blackhand Gorge NOW!”
“Ms. Vance, you’re in no condition to leave—” Dr. Parker started, but I cut her off.
“If I stay in this hospital, Daniel will send another hitman! The only place I’m safe is where my mother is, because he needs BOTH of our biometric signatures to open Box 408!”
Detective Vance looked at me, seeing the absolute determination in my eyes. He nodded slowly. “Get her clothes. SWAT is mobilizing, but we don't have time to wait for a full tactical team. We roll in ten minutes.”
Thirty minutes later, I was in the back of an unmarked police SUV, wrapped in a tactical vest over my civilian clothes, speeding toward the dense, fog-covered woods of Blackhand Gorge. The rain lashed against the windshield like thrown gravel.
As we approached the secluded cabin hidden deep within the pine trees, Detective Vance cut the headlights and engine. Four heavily armed officers crept through the dense brush toward the perimeter.
Through night-vision binoculars, I looked through the cabin’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
My mother was there, tied to a wooden chair in the center of the living room, her face bruised and pale. Standing in front of her was Daniel, holding a blowtorch in one hand and a legal document in the other.
But sitting in the armchair right next to him, sipping a glass of scotch, was a man with stark white hair and a thin, cruel scar running down his left cheek.
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My blood ran cold.
It was Victor Vance. My father. Alive, free, and directing the entire nightmare.
