Chapter 7 - THE ROCKET IN THE ATTIC
Leo’s wooden rocket sat on the top shelf of his bedroom, painted silver and red with uneven stars along the side. Sarah had built it with him for a school science fair the previous spring. It was never meant to fly. It was a hollow model made from balsa wood and a cardboard body, large enough to hide rolled paper if someone removed the plastic engine cone. When Brooks repeated Mark’s message, Sarah closed her eyes and cursed herself. The memory returned instantly. She had hidden a flash drive there after copying emails from Mark’s laptop. She never told Mark, but on the night she collapsed he must have seen enough of her open computer to know files had been duplicated.
The house remained a crime scene, so Brooks sent a tactical team. They entered through the kitchen, cleared every room, and reached Leo’s bedroom within minutes. The rocket was gone. Dust on the shelf showed where it had rested. A rear window latch had been forced. Someone had entered after the earlier search, probably while deputies focused on the greenhouse. The intruder knew exactly what to take. For Sarah, the theft was more than lost evidence. It was proof that Mark still seemed one thought ahead.
Leo blamed himself. “I should have told you,” he whispered. Sarah pulled him close. “You didn’t know.” He had watched adults miss obvious things for days, and now every forgotten detail felt dangerous. Sarah told him that being brave did not mean remembering everything or solving the case. “Your job is not to catch Dad,” she said, hating the word as soon as it left her mouth. “Your job is to be eight.” Leo looked unconvinced. Childhood had already been taken from him in pieces: first the false death, then the coffin, then the discovery that his father had caused it.
Forensic technicians examined the broken window and found a partial shoe print matching boots recovered from Keller’s apartment. The spy inside Harbor House had likely stolen the rocket. That meant Mark had the flash drive unless Keller was playing his own game. Brooks began to wonder whether the group was as united as it looked. Conspiracies built on money often cracked under fear. Hale was panicking. Mercer was a hired weapon. Keller had lived under a false identity for months. If pressure increased, one of them might decide that surviving mattered more than loyalty.
The planned rescue at Briar Hill moved forward. Sarah could not physically go, no matter how much Mark demanded it, so Brooks prepared a decoy. An unmarked ambulance left the hospital with a female officer in a hooded coat, while Sarah was transferred through a basement corridor to a secure medical wing under another name. News crews followed the decoy, exactly as Brooks hoped. Leo and Emily were moved separately to the sheriff’s office emergency quarters. Every road around Briar Hill was watched from hidden positions.
The abandoned hospital looked like something the forest had tried to swallow. Ivy covered red brick walls. Broken windows reflected the last orange strip of sunset. Wind moved through empty corridors with a low whistle. The decoy ambulance stopped at the main entrance. Brooks waited in a concealed command vehicle while the officer stepped out carrying a blue document case. No one appeared. Then a phone rang inside the ambulance. The screen showed an unknown number. Brooks answered.
“You brought police,” Mark said. “I can see the thermal signatures in the trees.” Brooks glanced at the tactical commander. Mercer had equipment they had not expected. Mark continued, “You always were predictable.” A gunshot echoed somewhere inside the old hospital. Brooks’s stomach dropped. She heard Mark breathing on the line. “That was the ceiling,” he said. “The next one doesn’t have to be.” Then he sent a live video to the phone.
Sam Reed sat tied to a wooden chair in what looked like an old treatment room. His face was bruised but alert. Behind him stood Dr. Hale, hands shaking so badly he could barely hold the camera. Mark appeared beside Sam. He looked tired, unshaven, but his eyes remained cold. “Sarah made me the villain before I had any choice,” he said. “She was going to take everything.” Sam suddenly lifted his head. “You had a choice every day of your life,” he said. Mark struck him across the face.
Before Brooks could respond, movement flickered at the edge of the video. Hale looked toward someone off camera. Mark turned too late. A loud crash shook the image. The phone dropped sideways, showing only floor tiles and shoes. Someone shouted. Another gunshot sounded. Then the video went black.
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Tactical units moved without waiting for further negotiation. Officers breached from three sides. Inside they found empty hallways, fresh tire tracks through a rear loading bay, and the treatment room from the video. Sam was gone. On the chair lay a strip of silver-painted balsa wood from Leo’s rocket. Written across it in black marker were five words. BRING LEO TO RED HOLLOW. Sarah stared at the photograph Brooks later showed her and felt fear turn into something harder. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t get my son.” Brooks nodded. “Then we make him come to us.”
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