"WHILE VISITING MY FUTURE IN-LAWS, I SAW MY SIL LOOKING PALE AND EXHAUSTED, EATING WATERY OATMEAL. AS I LEFT, SHE SECRETLY SLIPPED ME A NOTE: “COME BACK AT 10 P.M. YOU WILL SEE WHAT YOU NEED TO SEE!”

The glare of the high-intensity spotlights turned the dark lawn into a blinding, shadowless arena.

I didn't run toward my car.

Running across an open, manicured lawn toward a vehicle parked in a dead-end drive was exactly what their security team expected. The black SUVs were already sweeping around the carriage house, cutting off my access to the Volvo.

Instead, I turned hard to the left, sprinting toward the sea cliffs at the rear of the property.

The sound of heavy engines roared behind me, tires tearing up deep trenches of turf as the SUVs accelerated across the wet grass.

"Claire! Stop!" Daniel’s voice bellowed over the estate’s PA system, echoing off the stone walls of the house. "You have nowhere to go! The cliff drop is eighty feet onto jagged rocks! You will die out there!"

I kept running.

My lungs burned with the icy autumn air. My socked toes inside my sneakers were wet with mud, but my grip on the black audit notebook never slipped.

I reached the tree line bordering the cliff edge—a dense thicket of twisted wind-swept pines, sharp briars, and slippery granite boulders.

The first SUV slammed to a halt twenty yards behind me. Three men in black tactical gear jumped out, holding long, heavy flashlights and sidearms.

"Spread out!" the lead guard shouted. "She’s in the briars! Command says recover the black book at all costs! Non-lethal force authorized, but break her legs if she resists!"

I dropped to my hands and knees, crawling beneath the thick canopy of thorn bushes. The sharp briars tore at my black sweater, scratching my neck and face, but I barely felt the pain. The adrenaline surging through my veins was a white-hot river of clarity.

I reached a small, granite outcrop overhanging the ocean.

Below me, eighty feet down, the dark Atlantic roared against the black rocks, throwing white sea foam high into the air. The mist was thick here, carrying the smell of salt and wet kelp.

I pulled out my primary phone—the one I had used near the basement transom window.

The silver radio jammer Richard had activated in the basement was blocked by the thick fieldstone foundation of the main house and the dense clay of the lawn.

The signal bars on my phone screen flickered back to life.

ONE BAR. TWO BARS.

A barrage of notifications flooded the screen: six missed calls from Maya, four emergency pings from the encrypted cloud server.

I dialed Maya’s direct line.

She answered on the first ring. "CLAIRE! WHERE ARE YOU? THE GPS SIGNAL CUT OUT TWENTY MINUTES AGO!"

"Maya, listen to me very carefully," I gasped, pressing my back against the wet granite rock as flashlight beams swept through the pine trees ten yards above me. "I have the primary audit ledger. I have the digital cloning file. I am at the eastern cliff edge of the Mercer estate."

"I called Special Agent Vance at the FBI Boston field office!" Maya shouted over the line. "He reviewed the Aegis Bio-Tech filings you flagged! He saw your forged signature! They have four tactical units en route to your location right now!"

"How far away are they?" I asked, listening to the heavy footsteps of the guards crunching through the pine needles above me.

"Five minutes! Maybe six!"

"They won't give me six minutes, Maya," I said, looking over the edge of the cliff into the dark, churning water below. "Richard's private security team is twenty feet away. They have orders to recover the book."

"Claire, do not jump!" Maya cried out. "The tide is coming in! The rocks at the base of those cliffs will crush you!"

"I'm not jumping," I said, a dark, dangerous calm settling over my mind. "I'm going to make them come to me."

I hung up the phone, pulled the black leather audit notebook from under my coat, and held it high above my head, standing up fully on the edge of the granite ledge.

The high-power beam of a tactical flashlight locked directly onto my face.

"FOUND HER!" a guard screamed. "SHE'S ON THE CRAG!"

Three guards burst through the briars, their boots slipping on the wet pine needles, their weapons raised.

Behind them, stepping through the broken branches, came Daniel.

He was winded, his face pale, his expensive suit mud-stained at the knees. He stopped ten feet away from me, looking at the black book in my raised hand, then down at the eighty-foot drop behind my heels.

"Claire... please," Daniel said, his voice trembling, holding his hands out in a desperate, pleading gesture. "Step away from the edge. Let's talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about, Daniel," I said, my voice cutting through the roar of the ocean below. "You forged my signature. You used my career to cover up human trafficking and biological abuse."

"It was for the family!" Daniel shouted, taking a cautious step forward. "My father was desperate! The estate was going to be seized! We had no choice!"

"You always have a choice!" I yelled back, moving my foot back until my heel hung over the dark abyss. "And right now, you have a choice to make."