"No," I replied, pulling the top sheet slightly outward so the grease-pencil notation caught the edges of his flashlight beam. "Julian was smart enough to keep his hands off the field books, but you were too arrogant to let an independent hauler leave without signing off on their overtime. You wrote your own initials on forty-six consecutive tanker tickets, Victor. 'Rerouted per V. H.' And this Camden laboratory assay has your personal American Express card number written right on the intake receipt."
Victor’s smile vanished completely.
The air in the locker room went rigid. Outside, down on the river, the deep, mournful horn of an outbound coal barge echoed across the dark water, vibrating the metal siding of the shed.
"Give me the file, Naomi," he whispered.
He lunged.
He didn't reach for my wrists. He reached straight for the accordion folder, his heavy coat sweeping forward to pin me back against the metal lockers.
I didn't pull away. I dropped my center of gravity, ducked my left shoulder beneath his outstretched arm, and drove the hard, steel-reinforced corner of the heavy logbook straight into the soft hollow beneath his ribs.
Victor gasped, the breath exploding out of him in a wet grunt. The impact knocked him off balance against the changing bench. The heavy Maglite slipped from his fingers, clattering violently across the concrete floor and wedging itself under a dented steel locker, its beam pointing uselessly into the corner dust.
I didn't run for the yard.
I knew the layout of Pier 44 better than Victor ever had. He visited the site in hand-tailored suits to shake hands with council members; I had spent thirty-six months walking the bulkhead lines with survey crews.
I slipped through the side fire door into the narrow utility corridor behind the boiler room. It was pitch black, smelling of damp insulation and copper pipes. I kept my right shoulder pressed against the cold cinderblock wall, counting my paces in the dark—eight, nine, ten—until my knuckles struck the cold iron push-bar of the secondary exit.
I shoved through.
The river wind hit me like an open hand, stinging my eyes with fine river grit.
Directly in front of me, thirty yards down the dark gravel path, sat the administrative trailer. The front porch light was on, casting a yellow trapezoid over the wooden steps. Parked beside the trailer was not a security cruiser, and not Victor’s Escalade.
It was a dark green, heavy-duty utility truck bearing the gold seal of the Port Authority Police Department, its engine idling with a low, rhythmic diesel thrum. Standing at the foot of the trailer steps, wrapped in a heavy canvas field jacket with a clipboard tucked beneath his arm, was Arthur Vance’s personal maritime counsel, accompanied by two uniformed state conservation officers.
Victor burst through the fire door behind me, his boots sliding wildly on the wet shale.
"Stop her!" Victor screamed into the dark, his voice carrying straight over the hum of the idling patrol truck. "She broke into a secured municipal site! She's stealing proprietary corporate records!"
The two conservation officers didn't draw weapons, but they stepped immediately off the porch, their heavy tactical flashlights cutting twin beams through the mist. The taller officer, an older man with graying temples and a state badge pinned to his outer parka, stepped between me and Victor, raising an open, flat hand.
"Hold it right there, Mr. Holbrook," the officer said, his voice flat, professional, and loud enough to cut through the wind. "Step away from the employee."