Chapter 11 - The Phantom Son
The hospital parking garage was a labyrinth of echoing concrete pillars and flickering fluorescent tubes. Daniel sprinted toward his unmarked cruiser, his portable radio squawking frantically with updates from the citywide APB.
"All units, be on the lookout for a stolen white utility van, Tennessee license plate 948-XZL, exiting the St. Jude's medical center basement level heading north toward Interstate 40," dispatch barked through the static.
Daniel slammed his door, threw the cruiser into reverse, tires squealing against the slick concrete as he rocketed out of the parking structure and onto the rain-slicked boulevard. His hands shook slightly on the steering wheel—not from fear, but from a blinding, white-hot fury. They had taken Claire *again*. Right out from under the nose of hospital security.
He punched his phone's speaker mode, calling Marcus Vance's former precinct supervisor, Captain Miller.
"Miller! I need every traffic camera feed between the medical center and the old railway yards pulled up immediately. Thomas Cole is alive. He's the one who took my daughter!"
*‘Thomas Cole?’* Miller's voice echoed with shock over the receiver. *‘Dan, are you sure? The FBI checked those old West Virginia cold case files years ago. The DNA matched a body pulled from the river!’*
"It was a staged death, Miller! Marcus just confessed before you walked in! Lorraine helped her oldest son fake his own death thirty years ago to escape a federal indictment, and now he's running whatever syndicate Lorraine was fronting!" Daniel shouted over the wail of his cruiser's engine.
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*‘Jesus Christ,’* Miller breathed. *‘All right, Dan. I'm mobilizing the state troopers to shut down I-40 west and the old freight rail lines. Where are you heading?’*
"Where it all started," Daniel growled, hanging up without waiting for an answer. "The Cole family estate on the outskirts of town."
