The call came through on a Tuesday afternoon while I was reviewing quarterly reports in my corner office on the twenty-fifth floor. Eleanor Vance, that’s me—though most people in Chicago’s logistics industry know me simply as “the woman who turned one used truck into an empire worth hundreds of millions.” I built Vance Logistics over thirty years, starting with nothing but debts that would have broken most people and a stubborn refusal to stay poor.
“Miss Ellie,” my head of security Luther said, his voice carrying that particular flatness that meant trouble, “I think you need to see something. I’m sending you a location pin.”
I looked at my phone screen as the pin dropped—a small park near Lake Forest, about forty minutes from downtown. “What am I looking at, Luther?”
“Just come,” he said. “I’ll drive you myself.”....