Chapter 2 - THE BLACK CASE IN MY GARAGE
The flare frightened them long enough for Chloe and me to reach the side entrance.
I locked the reinforced mudroom door behind us.
My parents stood in the hallway.
Dad held a wooden fireplace poker.
Mom kept asking whether the police were coming.
Chloe dragged the black case across the floor.
“Turn off your phones,” she said.
“They can track us.”
I took her phone first.
The battery compartment had been modified.
A small transmitter blinked beneath the plastic casing.
I removed it and placed the device inside a metal bread box.
“You brought the tracker here.”
Chloe looked ashamed.
“I didn’t know.”
The men outside began pounding on the garage door.
My house had been designed for brutal lake weather.
The doors could withstand hurricane-force wind.
They would not open quickly.
But the men had tools.
One security camera showed them pulling a portable saw from the SUV.
I contacted the dispatcher again.
Deputies were still twenty minutes away.
“What is in the case?” I asked.
Chloe shook her head.
“I can’t tell you.”
I grabbed the handle.
“Then it goes outside.”
She threw herself over it.
“No.”
Dad stepped between us.
“Carter, stop acting like this is only your decision.”
“It is my house.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because all of you keep forgetting.”
The garage camera went dark.
The men had cut the cable.
A second camera remained active from the roofline.
They moved toward the electrical panel.
I switched the house to generator power and locked the system remotely.
Then I faced Chloe.
“You have fifteen seconds.”
She began crying.
“I worked for Northstar Recovery Partners.”
I knew the name.
Northstar purchased distressed businesses and collected high-risk private debts.
Its owner, Victor Dane, appeared in charity photographs and business magazines.
Chloe had worked there for eight months.
She claimed she handled client onboarding.
In reality, she had been creating false identities for investment accounts.
Northstar targeted elderly clients.
Employees convinced them to transfer retirement funds into “protected income programs.”
The programs did not exist.
Money moved through shell companies and disappeared overseas.
“How much did they steal?” I asked.
“Almost ninety million dollars.”
My mother gasped.
The number sounded impossible.
Then Chloe pointed toward the case.
“The proof is inside.”
Hard drives.
Signed contracts.
Audio recordings.
Bank credentials.
And a master ledger connecting Northstar executives to lawyers, doctors, and public officials.
“Why did you take it?”
“I found my name on the documents.”
“They planned to blame everything on me.”
“So you stole the evidence.”
“I copied it.”
“Then what is the original?”
She looked at the black case.
“This.”
Dad lowered the poker.
“And the money we gave you?”
Chloe closed her eyes.
“Victor demanded it.”
“He said if I returned part of what had gone missing, he would let me leave.”
“You gave him five hundred and eighty thousand dollars?”
“Most of it.”
“Did he let you leave?”
“No.”
The garage door shuddered.
Metal screamed as the saw cut into the lower panel.
Chloe looked toward me.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“The evidence includes names of victims.”
“One of them is Uncle Raymond.”
My father stared at her.
His older brother had died six months earlier after losing his retirement savings.
The family believed he made a bad investment.
Chloe knew Northstar had taken the money.
She had remained silent.
Dad’s face changed from fear to fury.
“You knew?”
“I was trying to protect everyone.”
“You protected your job.”
The garage door bent inward.
Then the house lights flashed.
Someone had overridden the external panel despite the generator lock.
The security system announced a breach at the rear basement window.
May you like
The men outside were not working alone.
Someone was already inside.
