Chapter 2 - THE THING IN EMMA'S SHOE
Victor Kane was not a good man.
That mattered.
He had spent twenty years around:
illegal betting,
loan enforcement,
front companies,
smuggling,
and men who called intimidation “business.”
He did not pretend otherwise.
But he had rules.
No children.
No trafficking.
No narcotics near schools.
No violence without purpose.
Rules do not make a criminal good.
They make him organized.
Victor had been trying to leave one part of his organization for three years.
Not retire.
Restructure.
Cut away the men who had turned laundering into trafficking.
One name sat at the center:
Elliot Voss.
Victor’s former accountant.
Laura Carter worked for him.
Not as a gangster.
As a financial assistant.
Then bookkeeper.
Then reluctant witness.
Six months earlier, Laura discovered duplicate ledgers.
Cash businesses on one side.
Shell charities on the other.
Money moving through both.
Then something worse.
Payments tied to missing women.
Laura copied files.
She told nobody.
Then made one mistake.
She trusted her boyfriend.
Daniel Price.
Daniel sold the information.
To Voss.
Laura learned three days before the mall.
That morning she received the message:
MOVE NOW.
She believed Voss had found her.
She also believed Victor Kane wanted the evidence.
She was right about one.
Wrong about the other.
Victor did not know Laura had copied anything.
Until Emma kicked one tiny shoe loose in his arms.
Something fell.
A pink plastic charm.
Victor’s bodyguard Marcus bent down.
Picked it up.
Not a charm.
A microSD card inside a toy casing.
Victor’s expression changed.
Emma sniffled.
“My shoe.”
Victor looked at Marcus.
Then at the direction Laura disappeared.
Now he understood.
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Emma had not simply been abandoned.
She had been used as a courier.
