Chapter 13 - The Bargain At Midnight.
James reached for the phone, but Elena raised one hand.
"Where are you, Nolan?"
His voice came through with wind in the background.
"Close enough."
Ava stepped beside her mother.
"What do you want?"
Nolan laughed softly.
"There she is."
James's eyes closed for one controlled second.
Ava recognized the anger in that movement and touched his sleeve.
Nolan continued.
"I want the archive drive and the trust agreement."
Elena looked at Ava.
"Why the trust agreement?"
"Because Ava is going to sign it."
Ava almost smiled at the absurd confidence in his voice.
"No."
"You haven't heard the offer."
"I don't need to."
A long silence followed.
Nolan had always treated refusal as the beginning of negotiation.
This time Ava let the word remain complete.
"No."
His tone changed.
"Then Aunt Ruth dies because you wanted to prove a point."
Ava's stomach dropped.
James stepped forward.
"You do not have Ruth."
Nolan sent a photograph to Elena's burner phone.
It showed Ruth seated in an old wooden chair inside a dim room.
Her hands appeared bound in front of her.
She looked furious rather than frightened.
Ava recognized the room behind her.
It was not James's house.
The walls were pale green and lined with framed photographs of military aircraft.
James recognized it too.
"The Hale Memorial Airfield lounge."
Elena looked at the police commander.
He was already signaling to officers.
Nolan heard movement through the phone.
"If police enter the building, I leave through the hangar with Ruth."
James took the phone from Elena.
"Listen carefully."
Nolan's voice tightened.
"No, Colonel. You listen."
"You have mistaken restraint for uncertainty all night."
James spoke with no emotion at all.
"You have assaulted my daughter, participated in the unlawful confinement of my wife, tampered with evidence, fled police, and abducted my sister."
Nolan tried to interrupt.
James continued.
"Your next decision determines whether this gets worse."
Ava watched her father's face.
The anger was still there, but it had become disciplined.
That mattered to her more than she could explain.
Nolan gave them a deadline.
Midnight.
Twenty-three minutes away.
He demanded Ava come to the airfield alone carrying the archive drive and signed management agreement.
The commander muted the phone.
"She is not going alone."
Ava nodded.
"Of course not."
James looked at her, expecting resistance.
Ava held up the second phone recovered from the coatroom.
"But Nolan needs to believe I am."
Elena understood.
The archive contained Nolan's own surveillance software and security protocols.
If they gave him a duplicate drive containing a beacon and a delayed data upload, he might reveal where he intended to flee and whom he expected to meet.
The commander hesitated.
"That is not a civilian operation."
James agreed.
"Then make it a police operation."
For the next twelve minutes, officers prepared a controlled exchange.
Ava changed out of her torn evening heels and into flat shoes borrowed from a guest.
Elena copied decoy files onto an encrypted drive.
James stood near the ruined cake table and watched his daughter sign a blank sheet that would be substituted for the real management agreement.
Ava noticed his expression.
"What?"
"You shouldn't have to do this on your birthday."
She looked around at the wrecked decorations.
"I think the birthday part ended when you weaponized the cake."
James almost smiled.
It was the first light moment either of them had found all night.
Then Elena returned with the decoy drive.
Her expression had changed.
"There is a problem."
Ava's smile disappeared.
"What?"
Elena held up the archive copy.
"Someone accessed the real files remotely four minutes ago."
The commander looked at Celeste.
May you like
Celeste smiled from the sofa.
"Nolan isn't the only Price who knows how to plan ahead."
