Chapter 107 - The Perimeter at Sullivan’s
By midafternoon, the salty tang of the Atlantic hung heavy in the air. The temperature climbed, and the moss-draped live oaks of the lowcountry formed an arch over the two-lane highway leading out toward Sullivan's Island.
I ditched the stolen utility truck in the overgrown driveway of a condemned beach bungalow two miles from the main Vance compound. Emma stayed close to my side, wearing an oversized baseball cap pulled low over her brow.
"Stay behind me, Emma," I whispered as we moved through the salt marsh grasses, the mud sucking at the soles of our boots. "If anything happens—if you hear gunfire or shouting—you run straight back to that abandoned house, crawl under the porch, and don't come out until someone in a police uniform calls your name. Do you understand me?"
She looked up at me, her jaw clenched, her hands gripping her toy mouse until the seams strained. She didn't cry. She just nodded. "I understand, Daddy."
Through the heavy palmetto bushes, the rear of the Silver Gate estate came into view.
It was a sprawling, three-story antebellum-style mansion with towering white columns, freshly manicured lawns, and a high perimeter wall topped with discrete security sensors. But the iron gates were closed, and there were no uniformed guards patrolling the perimeter. Instead, three sleek black Suburbans were parked haphazardly on the front lawn, their doors hanging open.
The front door of the main house had been kicked inward.
"Someone beat us here," I muttered, slipping the recovered 9mm pistol from my waistband and checking the magazine. Seventeen rounds.
To the east of the main house, hidden behind a tall hedge of oleander, stood the single-story brick cottage where the estate's groundskeeper had lived when I was a boy. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the brick chimney.
"Stay here," I instructed Emma, tucking her into a depression behind a massive live oak whose roots formed a natural trench. "Keep your head down. Count to three hundred. If I’m not back, you call the number I programmed on that burner phone."
"Daddy, wait," she whispered, grabbing my sleeve. She pulled the plastic Disney pass from my pocket—the one Chloe had left in the glovebox. "Take this. Show it to her. Show her you aren't scared."
May you like
I looked at the crumpled pass, then looked into my daughter's resolute eyes. I slid the ticket into my breast pocket, squeezed her shoulder, and slipped through the hedge toward the cottage.
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