Emily's head snapped up. "He's still on the force." "He's not just still on the force," Marcus said grimly, pulling out his phone and scrolling with the quick, angry fingers before turning the screen toward the group. "He's the police chief now."
The revelation hit the garage like a physical blow. Emily stared at the photo on Marcus' screen, a silver-haired man in a crisp uniform, smiling for an official department photo, the same man who had beaten her father half to death and then spent 23 years climbing the very institution that was supposed to protect people from men exactly like him. That's why nothing my father found ever went anywhere, Emily said slowly, horror dawning across her face. It's not just that Voss had police in his pocket.
The police are Voss's, which means going to local authorities with this evidence isn't just risky, Victor said grimly. It's suicide. Then who do we take it to? Laura demanded.
Emily can't sit on evidence like this forever. Not with Voss already hunting her. But if the police chief himself is compromised, the state attorney general's office, Rosa cut in. Federal if we can manage it.
Somebody outside Finch's reach. That takes time we might not have, Victor said. Voss knows we have it now. That decoy safe wasn't random.
Somebody wanted whoever came looking to think they'd already lost. Which means Voss is expecting us to either give up or make a mistake trying to move fast. Emily's phone buzzed suddenly in her apron pocket, sharp and unexpected in the tense silence of the garage, and every single person in the room went still. Unknown number.
Emily's hands shook as she answered, putting it on a speaker with trembling fingers. Hello, Emily. Richard Voss's voice, unmistakable calm as ever, though something underneath it now carried the faintest edge of urgency he hadn't shown before. I understand congratulations are in order.
You found your father's little time capsule. Emily's blood ran cold. How do you... I have people everywhere, Miss Carter.
I've had 23 years to make sure of it. A pause, deliberate and calculated. I'll make this simple. Bring me what you found tonight and I will make absolutely certain nothing happens to your mother, to Victor, or to any of his associates ever again.
Refuse, and I promise you this war will not end with me losing. You killed my father, Emily said. And her voice, to her own surprise, didn't shake at all. You've spent 23 years hunting a family that never did anything to you except love him.
I am not giving you anything. Voss's silence stretched long enough that Emily wondered if the call had dropped. Brave words, he finally said. From a girl who has no idea what I'm actually capable of.
"Try me," Emily said and hung up. The garage erupted into motion the second the call ended. Victor barked orders, riders scrambling toward their bikes, Marcus already pulling up a map on his phone, calculating routes. "He'll trace that call," Victor said.
We need to move now and we need somewhere he doesn't already know about. There's nowhere he doesn't know about, Laura said, panic creeping back into her voice. He's had 23 years to map every place we've ever touched. Not everywhere, Victor said.
And something in his voice made Emily look up sharply. There's one place, somewhere I never told him about because I never told anyone about it. Not even the club. What place?
Emily asked. Victor hesitated and for a moment something unreadable passed behind his eyes. Grief maybe or a guilt so old it had calcified into something else entirely. Your father had a cabin, he said finally.
North, up near the state line. He built it the same summer he built this garage. Told me once it was meant to be a place he could take you and your mother someday away from all of this if he ever got the chance to walk away clean. Laura's breath caught audibly.
I never knew about a cabin. He never got to tell you, Victor said quietly. He was planning to tell you the week after you were born. Actually, he wanted it to be a surprise.
Emily felt something in her chest twist painfully at the thought. A life her father had been building quietly, hopefully right up until the moment it was taken from him. Then that's where we go, she said. It's a four-hour drive, Marcus warned.
With Voss's people possibly already looking for us. Then we better start moving, Victor said, already sweeping the evidence box back into its bag, tucking Daniel's letter carefully into an inner vest pocket like something sacred. Everybody, bikes up. We move in five.
As the garage exploded into organized chaos around her, Emily found herself standing very still, staring at the half-finished motorcycle her father had never gotten to complete, the gas tank that had guarded his last words for 23 years, the ghost of a man who had built two things in this space, a business and a promise, and only gotten to keep one of them safe. He would be proud of you, Laura said softly, coming to stand beside her. Whatever happens next, I need you to know that. I need him to still be alive, Emily said, the words slipping out before she could stop them raw and unguarded.
I know that's insane. I know Victor said there's no proof, but mom, what if he is? What if somewhere out there he's still Emily? Laura's voice was gentle but firm, cutting through the fragile hope before it could grow too large to survive breaking.
I need you to be careful with that thought. I loved your father more than anything in this world, and I have wondered the exact same thing every single day for 23 years. Hope like that can either save you or destroy you, sometimes both. Victor appeared beside them, having overheard the last of the exchange, his expression carefully neutral in a way that told Emily he was holding something back.
"There's something else," he said slowly. "Something I probably should have told you back at the compound, but there wasn't time, and I honestly wasn't sure it mattered." Emily's pulse spiked. "What?"
The Reno sighting? Victor said. Eight years ago, I told you it was unconfirmed, a rumor that went nowhere. He paused, jaw tightening.
What I didn't tell you is that three months ago, right before you turned 23, somebody using a name close enough to Daniel's to make my contact do a double take opened a P.O. box two counties over. The person never came back for the mail. The garage seemed to tilt beneath Emily's feet. You're telling me this now? she demanded.
After everything tonight, you're telling me this now. I didn't want to hand you false hope on the worst night of your life. Victor said, guilt written across every line of his face. I've chased ghosts before, Emily.
I didn't want you chasing one, too. Not until I had something real. And do you know something real now? Victor reached into his vest and pulled out a folded piece of paper, an address written in handwriting that made Emily's whole body go cold with a hope so sharp it physically hurt.
I got the PO box address from my contact an hour before I walked into that diner tonight, Victor admitted. I was going to look into it quietly on my own without dragging you or your mother into a hope that might break both your hearts all over again. Then everything happened and there wasn't time. Emily stared at the address in his hand.
Her father's letter pressed against her heart. The sound of his voice from the cassette tape still echoed in her ears, and she felt the entire night The diner, the chase, the garage, the truth about her mother, the evidence. Voss's threats collapsed into a single desperate terrifying question. "Where is it?" she whispered.
The P.O. box? Victor's eyes met hers, steady despite everything. And behind him, the last of the riders swung onto their bikes, engines roaring to life against the darkness, ready to move toward a cabin that held a promise her father never got to keep. Same town as the cabin, Victor said quietly.
Emily, I think your father might have been closer to home than any of us ever imagined. The four-hour drive north felt longer than the entire night that came before it. The convoy moved in tight formation through back roads. Victor clearly knew the route by memory, avoiding highways, avoiding anything with cameras or traffic that could report their position back to Voss.
Emily sat pressed against her mother in the truck's cab. The address in Victor's handwriting folded so many times in her palm that the creases had gone soft. You're not sleeping, Laura observed quietly, somewhere around hour two, watching Emily stare out at the dark tree line rushing past. How could I sleep, Mom?
What if it's really him? What if, after everything, we're driving toward him? Don't. Laura's hand tightened over hers.
Not unkind, just afraid. Please, baby. I can't watch you build something up in your heart only to have it break again tonight. I don't think either of us could survive that twice.
Emily wanted to argue, wanted to hold on to the hope blooming dangerously in her chest, but the fear in her mother's voice was too raw to push against. The radio on Marcus's dashboard crackled suddenly, Victor's voice cutting through tight with urgency. We've got a tail. Two cars have been with us since the county line.
Emily's whole body went rigid. Voss. Can't confirm, Victor said. But nobody innocent follows a line of motorcycles down an unmarked back road at 4 in the morning.
What do we do? Marcus asked. Split formation at the fork ahead. Bear take four bikes east.
Draw them off if they follow. Rest of us keep north. The convoy fractured at the next intersection. Half the riders peeling east in a roar of engines.
Taillights disappearing into the dark. And for a long, breathless mile, nobody in the truck spoke, watching the mirrors, waiting to see which way the pursuing headlights would break. They didn't follow east. "They're still with us," Marcus said grimly, watching his side mirror.