The captain rubbed his temples, feeling the sudden, massive headache blooming behind his eyes. He knew exactly what Duke was doing. The bureaucracy of a formal felony complaint, complete with a detective's deposition and sworn witness statements, would take hours. It would freeze the entire scene.
"Fine," the captain growled. "Ramirez, get him a pen and a blank statement form. Get Detective Miller out here."
Vance’s face darkened. "Captain, I demand you release the child to my custody immediately."
"You can wait in the lobby, Mr. Vance," the captain said sharply. "Until the crime scene and the victims are fully processed, nobody is leaving this building."
Duke walked back to his chair and sat down. He had bought them time, but he knew it wouldn't last forever. The police were annoyed, and Vance was pacing the lobby like a caged predator.
Duke felt a tiny tug on his sleeve.
He looked down. Mia was sitting up, her wide, terrified eyes locked on Arthur Vance pacing near the front doors. She was trembling so violently that the plastic chair rattled.
She pulled Duke closer, her face completely pale.
"Mia?" Duke whispered. "What is it?"
"That's him," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the precinct.
"Who?"
"That's the man," Mia breathed, a tear spilling over her eyelashes. "That's the man who told my grandma I was dead."
Duke’s blood ran completely cold.
He looked at the slick, expensive lawyer pacing by the glass doors. Then he looked down at the dirty, bruised seven-year-old girl.
"Mia," Duke said, his voice incredibly gentle. "What is your grandma's name?"
"Eleanor," the little girl whispered, wiping her nose with her torn sleeve. "Eleanor Sterling."
Duke reached into his pocket and gripped the silver locket. The pieces slammed together in his mind with terrifying clarity. This wasn't just a kidnapping. This was an assassination disguised as paperwork.
"I need to use the restroom," Duke told Ramirez, who had just walked over with a clipboard. "Watch her. If that suit comes within ten feet of her, you scream for me."
Duke strode down the narrow hallway toward the restrooms, pulling his smartphone from his leather jacket. He bypassed the bathroom door, stepping into a quiet alcove near the vending machines.
He opened his messages and tapped the contact for Marcus Thorne.
Marcus was an old friend, a former Marine who had spent the last twenty years working as one of the most ruthless and expensive private investigators in Chicago. If someone had a secret, Marcus could dig it up before his morning coffee.
Duke snapped a quick, clear photo of the open silver locket in his palm, making sure the intricate crest was visible. He hit send.
A second later, he typed a text: Illinois. Wealthy family. Matriarch named Eleanor Sterling. What do you know?
Duke leaned against the cinderblock wall, watching the typing bubble on his screen appear, disappear, and appear again.
His phone buzzed. Marcus was calling him.
"Where the hell did you get that locket?" Marcus asked, his voice tight, skipping the pleasantries entirely.
"I pulled it out of the pocket of a seven-year-old girl," Duke said quietly. "Who are the Sterlings, Marcus?"
"Old money, Duke," Marcus said, the sound of rapid keyboard typing clacking in the background. "Massive money. Commercial real estate, shipping logistics, private equity. Eleanor Sterling is the matriarch. She’s seventy-two, a recluse, lives on a massive estate up in Lake Forest. She's practically royalty in this state."
"Tell me about the girl," Duke pressed.
"That's the thing, Duke," Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave. "Eleanor only had one son. Thomas Sterling. Three years ago, Thomas, his wife, and their four-year-old daughter, Mia, were flying up to Mackinac Island in a private Cessna. They hit a freak storm over Lake Michigan. The plane went down."
Duke closed his eyes, the sickening reality washing over him. "They didn't find the bodies."
"They found wreckage," Marcus corrected. "A week later. But no, they never recovered the bodies. A year after the crash, a judge officially declared Thomas, his wife, and little Mia legally dead."
"If Mia is dead," Duke said, his grip tightening on the phone, "what happens to the Sterling fortune?"
"It goes into a blind trust," Marcus said, the keyboard clacking frantically. "Eleanor is old, Duke. Her health is failing. When she dies, the entire multi-billion dollar estate dissolves into a corporate trust to be managed by a board of directors."
"Let me guess," Duke said, his voice turning to ice. "Who is the head of the trust?"
"I'm pulling the corporate filings right now," Marcus said. A moment later, he whistled softly through his teeth. "Arthur Vance. Senior partner at a downtown law firm. If Mia is out of the picture, Vance and his board have total, unchecked control over billions of dollars the second Eleanor dies."
Duke looked down the hallway. He could see Arthur Vance standing near the front desk, angrily tapping his expensive watch, demanding the police hand over the girl.
"Vance didn't just take her," Duke realized aloud. "He held her in a cage for three years. He faked the ward of the state paperwork. And now that Eleanor's health is failing, he hired a thug to transport her somewhere she'd never be found."
"Duke," Marcus said urgently. "Vance is dangerous. He owns half the judges in the county. If he walks out of that precinct with that little girl, she's going into a hole in the ground, and nobody will ever find her again. You have to stop him."
"Send me the corporate trust filings," Duke said. "Send me the obituary. Send me everything connecting Vance to Eleanor."
"Sending it now," Marcus said. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make a phone call," Duke said, hanging up.
His phone buzzed repeatedly as Marcus flooded his inbox with PDF documents, legal filings, and old news clippings. The digital proof was absolute. The entire inheritance cover-up was sitting right there on his illuminated screen.
Duke shoved the phone into his pocket and walked back out into the lobby.
The situation had deteriorated. Arthur Vance had lost his temper.
"This is a violation of state law!" Vance was shouting, his face flushed with rage, pointing a manicured finger at the precinct captain. "I have a signed federal court order! I have a medical mandate! You are holding a severely ill child hostage because of the paranoid delusions of a violent biker! If you do not hand her over to me this exact second, I will have your badge, and I will sue this city for ten million dollars!"
The captain, exhausted, overwhelmed, and fearing a massive lawsuit, finally broke.
"Enough," the captain barked. "Vance, take her. Get her out of my lobby."
Vance smirked, a cold, victorious light in his eyes. He turned and walked directly toward the plastic chairs where Mia was hiding behind Officer Ramirez.
"Come along, Mia," Vance said, his voice dripping with fake sweetness. "It's time to go home."
Mia screamed, a raw, terrifying sound of pure despair, and scrambled backward.