Chapter 16 - THE COURTHOUSE LOCKDOWN

Voss pulled out a small phone instead of a weapon.

He pressed one button before agents tackled him.

Every light in the courtroom went dark.

Emergency alarms began sounding.

Grant pushed Eli beneath the witness table.

I covered him with my body.

Mara crouched near the wall with Grace against her chest.

In the hallway, doors unlocked automatically.

Someone had compromised the courthouse security system.

The darkness lasted less than thirty seconds.

When the emergency lights appeared, Cole was gone.

Two transport officers lay unconscious near the prisoner exit.

Their uniforms and identification cards were missing.

Voss’s phone had triggered a prearranged escape.

The courthouse entered immediate lockdown.

Officers searched every floor.

A camera recorded Cole entering the underground parking garage dressed as a transport officer.

He climbed into a maintenance van and drove through a gate opened remotely.

Voss refused to explain who had helped them.

Federal agents arrested him for obstruction, conspiracy, bribery, and evidence tampering.

But Cole was free.

Grant moved Mara, Eli, and Grace to a protected location outside the city.

I joined them because Cole’s threat made me a target.

The safe house stood near a quiet lake surrounded by pine trees.

For two days, nothing happened.

Eli began sleeping longer.

Mara fed Grace beside the fireplace.

For brief moments, they looked like an ordinary family recovering from an impossible nightmare.

On the third evening, Eli found a folded paper beneath his pillow.

Nobody knew how it entered the house.

The message contained only a hand-drawn picture.

It showed a boy standing beside a minivan.

Behind him was a woman holding a baby.

Above them, Cole had drawn a large clock.

The hands pointed to midnight.

Grant searched the house and surrounding forest.

No intruder appeared on the cameras.

Then Mara examined the picture more closely.

The license plate on the drawn minivan contained a sequence of letters and numbers.

It was not their old vehicle’s plate.

It belonged to a storage facility in Flagstaff where Mara had hidden copies of Cole’s financial records.

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Cole was telling her to come alone.

Midnight was less than three hours away.