Chapter 40 - A Knock at the Door
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My heart stopped. The blood roared in my ears so loudly I could barely hear Amy’s shaky breaths over the phone line.
"Amy, listen to me very carefully," I said, my voice dropping into the cold, calculated register of a man preparing for war. "Do not open that door. Where is Frederick?"
"He's in his playroom upstairs," she whispered, the panic evident. "David, the man is banging on the glass. He told me he needs to see Frederick's original birth certificate for a federal audit. He knows about the immunity deal."
They were escalating faster than I could have possibly anticipated. They weren't just attacking my business; they were breaching the walls of my home.
"Get away from the windows," I commanded. "Take Frederick, go into the master bathroom, lock the heavy oak door, and get into the cast-iron bathtub. Do not come out until you hear my voice. I am three minutes away."
I didn't wait for her to reply. I dropped the phone, sprinted out of the server room, and ignored Sam shouting my name. I vaulted into my car and slammed the accelerator to the floor, breaking every speed limit and running three red lights to get to the suburbs.
As I careened onto my quiet, manicured street, I saw a black, unmarked SUV idling casually in front of my driveway.
A man in a cheap suit was standing on my porch, peering aggressively through the sidelight windows. He had his hand resting conspicuously inside his jacket.
I didn't slow down. I aimed the hood of my car directly at the back bumper of the black SUV and braced for impact. The collision was a deafening crunch of metal and shattering glass. The SUV jolted forward, the alarm blaring instantly.
The man on the porch whipped around, drawing a suppressed pistol.
I threw my car door open, already holding my lockbox firearm, and aimed it squarely at his chest from behind the cover of my engine block.
"Drop it!" I roared, the suburban tranquility shattered completely.
The man evaluated the situation. He looked at the smoking wreckage of his SUV, then at the steady aim of my weapon. He didn't panic. He just smiled, a cold, dead expression, and slowly lowered his gun.
"You have until midnight, David," the man shouted over the car alarm. "The ledger. Or next time, we don't knock."
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He holstered his weapon, casually walked to his ruined SUV, climbed in, and sped away, leaving a trail of leaking coolant on the pristine asphalt.
I ran into the house. "Amy!"
