CHAPTER 13: THE GHOST IN THE FOG
Sarah stared into the face of a dead man.
Mark looked exactly the same as the day he supposedly burned to death in that car crash on the Golden Gate Bridge.
He wore a heavy, expensive black overcoat that shielded him from the freezing coastal wind.
Sarah scrambled backward across the rotting wood of the pier, clutching Lily against her chest.
“Stay away from me,” Sarah screamed, her voice cracking with pure horror.
“Sarah, please just listen to me for one second,” Mark pleaded, stepping cautiously forward with both of his hands raised.
How do you force yourself to breathe when the ghost of the man you mourned for five agonizing years is suddenly standing right in front of you?
Sarah did not listen to a single, deceitful word he said.
She lunged forward with blinding speed, slapping his face so hard the crack echoed through the thick fog.
“You let me grieve for you in misery for five years,” Sarah roared, sobbing uncontrollably.
“You watched me starve myself just to feed our daughter while you played dead in the shadows.”
Mark absorbed the stinging strike without flinching, his jaw tightening slightly under his perfectly trimmed beard.
“If I had stayed alive, Victor would have murdered all three of us in our sleep,” Mark argued calmly, rubbing his red cheek.
“I had to become a ghost to build an impenetrable cage to keep you safe.”
Lily stepped out from behind her mother, holding the heavy silver hard drive directly in front of her.
“You are not a ghost, Daddy,” Lily stated, showing zero emotion as she stared at her father.
“You are just a man who tells very, very big lies.”
Mark dropped to one knee on the wet dock, a genuine flash of unbearable pain crossing his dark, calculating eyes.
“I missed you every single day of my life, my beautiful Lily,” Mark whispered, reaching out a trembling hand to touch his daughter’s freezing cheek.
Lily took a deliberate step backward, avoiding his outstretched fingers.
“You smell exactly like the bad men with the guns in the helicopter,” Lily observed coldly, her copper eyes devoid of warmth.
Sarah pulled her daughter behind her back again, her fierce maternal instincts overriding her paralyzing shock.
“Vance is dying on that rusted barge right now because he actively stayed behind to save us,” Sarah accused fiercely.
“Vance is a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer who deserves to bleed out alone in the dark,” Mark countered, his voice suddenly turning icy and hard.
Deafening automatic gunfire echoed from the abandoned barge across the dark, churning water.
“We have to go back and help him,” Sarah demanded, turning wildly toward the thick fog bank.
“He is already dead, Sarah,” Mark stated brutally, grabbing her freezing arm with an iron grip.
“And if we do not leave this pier in exactly thirty seconds, Victor’s cleanup crew will massacre us too.”
Sarah tried to rip her bruised arm out of his massive hands, but Mark refused to let her go.
“You are hurting me,” Sarah cried out, terrified by the sudden violence in her husband’s touch.
“I am saving your life,” Mark growled, pulling her forcefully toward the shadowed entrance of an abandoned fish market.
The thudding sound of tactical boots echoed off the wooden planks just a few dozen yards behind them in the heavy mist.
“They are searching the shoreline,” Mark hissed, wrapping his heavy overcoat around Sarah and Lily to hide their bright life vest.
“Keep your mouths shut and do not make a sound.”
Sarah held her breath until her lungs burned with fire, praying the federal agents would just walk past the rotting warehouse.
The bright beam of a heavy military flashlight swept across the damp brick wall directly above their heads.
“I found a wet life jacket floating near the pilings,” an armored agent shouted into the thick fog.
“Keep pushing north toward the shipping crates,” another heavily armed voice commanded in the darkness.
The heavy boots slowly faded away, leaving the three of them alone in the terrifying silence of the abandoned pier.
Mark let out a long sigh of relief, dropping his protective embrace.
“We need to move to the extraction vehicle right now,” Mark ordered, turning his back on his traumatized family.
Sarah stared at the broad shoulders of the man she had loved for her entire adult life, unable to recognize the monster standing before her.
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