PART 22
I handed the USB drive directly to Sarah Mitchell.
Within an hour,
federal prosecutors had listening stations set up in the hospital basement.
The recordings were devastatingly clear.
Judge Vance’s voice filled the room,
discussing the liquidation of properties belonging to the six women.
He talked about them like they were cattle,
assets to be harvested and discarded.
Then came a recording from the week before.
Vance was speaking to his son,
the detective.
"Emma Lawson is becoming a problem,"
the Judge’s voice growled through the speakers.
"She has her father’s spine."
"Get the boy."
"Once we have the child,
the father will surrender the master ledger,"
"and the girl will sign whatever we put in front of her."
"If she resists,
make it look like an overdose."
"She has a history of postpartum depression,
the media will buy it."
Hearing those words,
the cold,
calculated plan to kill me and take my son,
made me physically ill.
I gripped the edge of the desk,
my knuckles turning white.
"That’s enough to indict him for federal conspiracy to commit murder,"
the lead prosecutor said,
shutting off the audio.
"We’re issuing an arrest warrant immediately."
"We’re locking down the borders,
the airports,
the marinas."
"He can't run far."
But Sarah Mitchell’s phone vibrated on the table.
She answered it,
listened for three seconds,
and her face turned to stone.
She looked up at me,
her eyes filled with panic.
"Emma,"
she whispered,
"the safe house."
"What about it?"
"The agents guarding Noah."
"They aren't responding to their radios."
The security perimeter had been breached.
May you like
The Judge wasn't running away.
He was completing Phase Two himself.
