Jenna dropped to her knees amidst the scattered stacks of cash. She picked up a bundle of bills, her hands shaking so violently she dropped it again.
“Corbin wasn't the mastermind,” she choked out, tears finally breaking through her stoic mask. “He was just a low-level driver. When I found out what he was really transporting in his truck, I tried to take Maya and run. But Corbin caught us. He beat me unconscious. When I woke up, he told me that if I ever went to the police, the real boss would slaughter my entire family.”
Miller stepped into the room. “We saw the ledger in the box, Jenna. The offshore deposits were in your name.”
“Because Corbin forged my signature!” Jenna cried out, looking up at us in absolute despair. “He opened those accounts to make me the fall guy! He told me that if the cops ever raided the house, the paper trail would lead directly to me. I would go to federal prison, and Maya would go right into the foster system—where his men could easily snatch her.”
My mind raced, frantically reassembling the pieces of the puzzle. I had completely misread the evidence.
“The hospital footage,” I said, my voice dropping. “You walked her right to the van. You handed her to the man with the snake tattoo.”
Jenna wiped her bloody nose with the back of her sleeve. “That man is named Viper. He’s the boss’s lead enforcer. Viper called me at the hospital while you were in Maya's room. He said if I didn't bring Maya to the loading dock immediately, he was going to walk inside and execute every doctor, nurse, and child on the floor until he found her.”
I felt a sickening jolt in my stomach. She hadn't betrayed Maya. She had walked into the fire to keep the hospital from turning into a massacre.
“I didn't have a choice,” Jenna sobbed. “I had a scalpel from a medical cart hidden in my pocket. When we got to the van, I pulled it on Viper. I tried to hijack him. But there was a second man in the driver's seat. They disarmed me, threw Maya in the back, and dragged me here to this freight yard.”
“Why would they leave you alive?” Boone asked, his gravelly voice tight with confusion.
“Because Corbin was stealing from them,” Jenna explained, pointing at the duffel bag. “Corbin had been skimming cash off the top of the shipments for months. Viper found out. Viper dragged me here, executed Corbin downstairs for the theft, and told me I was going to take the fall for everything. They left me with the stolen cash so when the cops arrived, it would look like a drug deal gone wrong between me and Corbin.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled crayon drawing of the faceless monster.
“Maya drew this,” I said, showing it to Jenna. “A monster with a star on his chest. We didn't call the police because I assumed the star meant the local Sheriff was the boss.”
Jenna looked at the drawing and shook her head vehemently.
“It’s not a police badge,” she whispered. “It’s a corporate logo.”
She stood up, walked to the shattered window, and pointed a trembling finger out at the massive shipping yard.
Through the freezing rain, I saw hundreds of massive steel shipping containers stacked in rows. I pulled out my binoculars and focused on the side of the nearest container.
Painted in massive, faded white letters was a corporate logo.
A large, jagged star.
Below it read: NORTH STAR LOGISTICS.
My blood ran completely cold.
“The boss isn't a cop,” Jenna said, her voice shaking. “His name is Silas Thorne. He owns North Star Logistics. He controls the entire regional freight pipeline. He uses his legitimate shipping trucks to move stolen weapons, drugs, and children across state lines. The trucks never get searched because he owns all the weigh stations.”
The photograph of Corbin shaking hands with the man wearing the heavy silver watch flashed in my memory.
“Thorne,” I muttered. “That’s the man with the silver watch.”
“Yes,” Jenna sobbed. “They lock the kids in shipping containers, load them onto the commercial flatbeds, and drive them to private airfields. Once a container gets loaded on a truck, they vanish forever.”
“Where is Maya right now?” I demanded.
Jenna’s eyes suddenly flared with desperate hope. “When Viper shoved us into the van at the hospital, I slipped the prepaid burner phone from the hidden box into Maya’s pocket. I turned the GPS locator on.”
Miller didn't waste a single second. He ripped his military-grade tablet from his tactical backpack and booted up the tracking software. He punched in the serial number from the burner phone receipts we had found in the box.
A glowing red dot appeared on the screen.
“Got her,” Miller said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. But his face instantly drained of color. “Elias... the dot is moving.”
I looked over his shoulder. The red dot was traveling fast, navigating through the maze of the freight yard toward the main highway exit.
“They put her in a container,” Miller said, his voice tightening. “They loaded it onto a truck. It’s leaving the yard right now.”
“Let’s go!” I shouted.
We bolted out of the supervisor’s office, leaving the massive bag of cash abandoned on the floor. Jenna followed right behind us, refusing to be left behind again.
We flew down the metal stairs, jumped over Corbin’s dead body, and burst out the front door into the freezing rain.
The heavy rumble of a massive diesel engine echoed across the yard. I looked toward the main gate.
A massive, black North Star Logistics semi-truck was pulling out of the loading bay, a massive steel shipping container strapped to its flatbed.