Chapter 25 - The Forty-Eight-Hour Clock
The countdown began at dawn.
Marcus worked the phones, coordinating with an emergency magistrate in the state capital and a specialized forensic accountant in New York. Kendra sat at the end of the table, signing affidavit after affidavit, repudiating her ownership of the offshore accounts and assigning total power of attorney to Marcus’s legal escrow trust.
By noon, the financial trap was set. But there was still one missing piece: Eleanor.
"She knows something is wrong," Arthur said, hanging up his flip phone. "I called her motel room. The manager said she checked out early this morning. She paid in cash and left in a taxi with three suitcases."
"She’s heading for an airport," Clara said. "She knows the forty-eight hours Richard gave us is almost up. If Richard files, the borders get flagged."
"Where would she fly?" I asked. "She doesn't have an active passport."
Arthur’s face tightened. "Yes, she does. She renewed it six months ago. She kept it in her vanity case."
"No," Kendra said suddenly, her head snapping up. "Not the airport. She won't fly."
We all looked at her.
"Mom has a crippling phobia of metal detectors and international customs gates since her sister died," Kendra explained, her voice steadying as the adrenaline kicked in. "When we went to Montreal five years ago, she refused to fly. She took the Amtrak train out of Albany up across the Canadian border. She said train customs only glance at your papers; they don't run deep biometric scans unless you're on a terror watchlist."
Marcus immediately pulled up a train schedule on his laptop. "The Ethan Allen Express leaves Albany for Burlington and Montreal at 3:15 PM. That’s two hours from now."
"We won't make it to Albany through highway traffic in two hours," I said, checking my watch. The knot in my stomach tightened into iron. "And the state police won't issue an interstate arrest warrant without a judge signing off on the offshore evidence, which Marcus said won't clear until 4:00."
"Then we don't go to Albany," Arthur said, standing up. His eyes had an old, dangerous clarity I had never seen before. "The train makes a fifteen-minute maintenance and cargo switch at the rail junction in Saratoga Springs at 4:10 PM. The tracks run right behind my old lumber yard."
I looked at my father. The man who had spent twenty years shrinking from his wife's shadow was standing tall, his jaw set like granite.
May you like
"Let’s go get your mother," Arthur said.
***
