Chapter 5 - THE LOCKBOX
Clara looked up, wiping her face with the back of her bruised hand. She picked up the silver badge, turning it over under the bright workbench lamp.
On the back of the heavy silver shield, embedded beneath a mechanical sliding plate, was a small, circular optical glass scanner designed to read a commander’s fingerprint while transmitting a unique digital authorization code to municipal databases.
"Daniel built the vault lock with the help of a federal tech engineer," Julian explained. "He knew Reyes would eventually hunt down his daughter to destroy the evidence. So he made sure Reyes could never open that vault without bringing his own badge—and bringing Lily with him."
Lily touched the silver star softly. "Mommy... Captain Reyes asked me when my birthday was when he came to my school."
Clara looked at her daughter, a chill running down her spine. "Lily's birthday is in four days. She turns eight."
"Eight years old is the exact age Daniel set for the biometric lock to become active," Julian nodded grimly. "Reyes figured it out. He knew that in four days, the vault’s automated timer would expire and trigger an alert to the Department of Justice unless he accessed it first and wiped the hard drives."
Clara stood up, her grief transforming into a cold, terrifying rage that burned away her physical pain.
"Reyes wasn't trying to kill us tonight," Clara realized, her dark eyes flashing. "He was trying to kidnap Lily so he could hold her until her birthday, force her to touch that scanner, and erase the evidence that could destroy him."
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"And now," Julian said, grabbing a tactical shotgun from the wall rack and racking the slide with a heavy, metallic clack, "he knows you have his badge. He has no key, he has no girl, and his time is running out."
Outside the workshop, high above the sound of the falling rain, the distant, rhythmic chopping of helicopter blades began to echo over the harbor...
