He tells the police I took you.
Von supplies the evidence.
By tomorrow morning, my face is on every screen and every roadblock is looking for this limousine.”
Audrey did not move.
“You think my uncle ordered this.”
“I think someone with access to your schedule financed it.
Someone who benefits if you don’t reach today’s meeting.
Someone Von believes can protect him afterward.”
She looked toward the tunnel entrance.
“My uncle chaired Blackwood Meridian for twenty-three years.
I removed him from active management last spring.”
“Why?”
“Thirty-eight million dollars moved through consulting agreements that had no deliverables.
I could trace the approvals to his office, but not the final recipients.”
“And today?”
“The board was voting to revoke his remaining authority over the family trust.”
There it was.
“What happens if you die before that vote?”
Her silence answered first.
“My voting shares pass temporarily to the trust,” she said.
“He remains its controlling trustee until a successor is confirmed.”
“How long?”
“Thirty days.”
Thirty days was enough to replace a board, destroy an audit, move money, and make witnesses reconsider what they remembered.
I took an old phone from beneath the driver’s seat.
It had no connection to the Blackwood network.
I powered it on and dialed the emergency number Gideon had given me after the threat against Tessa.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hale?”
“Confirm your location.”
“Estate command center.”
“Who is physically with you?”
“Two communications officers and the duty supervisor.”
“Put the room on lockdown.
No one leaves.
Von is compromised.”
There was a pause.
“Where is Ms.
Blackwood?”
“Alive.”
Another pause, shorter this time.
“Evidence?”
“The advance vehicle abandoned route.
Our frequency was jammed.
Von pursued us instead of intercepting the hostile vehicles.”
Gideon’s voice changed.
Not disbelief.
Calculation.
“I lost the convoy feed nine minutes ago.
Von’s system shows him stationary on the highway.”
“He isn’t.”
I gave Gideon the maintenance depot coordinates and told him not to send estate personnel.
“State investigators only,” I said.
“And Gideon—if anyone asks where Audrey is, you don’t know.”
“I don’t take orders from drivers.”
“Today you do.”
