Chapter 13 - The Alleyway Escape
Officer Davis slammed his shoulder into the heavy metal emergency door, but it had been deadbolted from the outside.
“Damn it!” Davis cursed, turning back toward the stairs. “Mrs. Vance, stay up here with your daughter. I’m going around through the front perimeter.”
“Be careful, Davis,” Claire called down, holding Sophie close against her chest.
She carried her daughter down the metal stairs, stepping over the fallen crates and the subdued masked assailant who lay unconscious on the floor. The warehouse was dead quiet now, save for the hum of the distant fluorescent lights.
They walked out through the side entrance into the cool night air. The police cruiser sat parked against the shipping containers, its headlights still blocked by the fallen wooden crate.
Davis emerged from the front rolling door, jogging over to them with his weapon holstered.
“He got away through the drainage tunnels,” Davis said, breathing heavily. “We’ve got units blanketing the perimeter, but he knows this industrial park better than anyone.”
Claire set Sophie down gently, crouching to look her in the eyes. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“I was scared, Mommy, but I remembered what you told me,” Sophie said bravely, wiping a tear from her cheek. “We don't have to be afraid of him anymore.”
“That’s right, baby,” Claire said, her voice fierce with resolve. “We never have to run again.”
As Davis walked back to his cruiser to call in K-9 units for the drainage tunnels, Claire looked down at her hand.
Resting on the hood of the car, left behind by one of Marcus’s accomplices, was a second black boxing glove—identical to the one from Maple Street.
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Inside the cuff of the glove was a small, folded piece of paper with a single address written on it: the old family cabin deep in the northern woods where Marcus had hidden his final reserves.
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