Chapter 10 - THE MICHIGAN AVENUE RENDEZVOUS
The rain had turned into a heavy, blinding downpour by seven-thirty that evening as I stood beneath the striped canvas awning outside the Michigan Avenue restaurant, holding Amara’s small, cold hand tightly in mine. She wore a heavy blue hooded raincoat, her eyes wide and tired as she looked up at the glittering neon lights of the downtown Chicago skyline reflected in the wet asphalt.
“Are we going on a trip, Mom?” she asked quietly, shivering slightly against the damp wind blowing off the lake.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I said, keeping my voice reassuring even as my heart hammered frantically against my ribs. “We’re going to get on a nice warm plane tonight and go somewhere far away where the sun shines all the time.”
Just as the illuminated digits of my watch flipped to seven-fifty-five, a sleek black town car with tinted windows pulled silently up to the curb beside us. The rear door clicked open automatically from the inside, and a familiar face peered out through the dim interior light—Detective Thomas Vance.
“Get in, Clara,” Thomas urged quietly, holding out a hand to help Amara into the warm leather interior of the vehicle.
I scooped Amara up, bundled her quickly into the back seat, and slid in right behind her, pulling the heavy door shut just as a pair of headlights flared in the rearview mirror behind us. Thomas leaned forward and spoke a quick instruction to the driver, and the town car glided smoothly away from the curb into the thick evening traffic.
“I didn't expect to see you tonight, Detective,” I said, keeping my body positioned defensively between the door and Amara as I looked across the leather console at Thomas.
“Roman called me an hour ago,” Thomas explained, his face grim and exhausted in the dashboard light. “He told me about Victor Vance’s enforcers hunting for you and the document. I pulled every favor I had left in the department to secure safe passage out of Illinois for you two tonight.”
“And the medical form?” I asked, my hand resting protectively over the inner pocket of my coat where the folded paper was safely tucked.
“Roman needs it at the neutral meeting site to finalize the tribunal evidence against Marcus and his associates,” Thomas said, holding out his hand. “Hand it over to me, Clara. I’ll deliver it to Roman personally once you and Amara are safely boarded on the private airstrip flight.”
I hesitated, staring at his outstretched hand. Something about the sequence of events didn't feel right—the timing was too clean, the escape route too convenient, and the request for the physical evidence felt less like police protocol and more like a syndicate acquisition.
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“No,” I said quietly, pulling my coat slightly tighter around myself. “I give the document to Roman Valente himself, or I don't give it to anyone at all.”
Thomas dropped his hand, his expression hardening into something cold and calculating as the town car suddenly veered sharply off the main highway down a dark, unlit industrial ramp leading straight toward the abandoned shipping docks along the Chicago River.
