Chapter 10 - Shadows on the Horizon
A week before Courtney’s formal criminal trial was scheduled to begin, the county experienced an unseasonable heatwave. The humidity hung thick and suffocating over the valley, making every breath feel heavy.
I was sitting in my living room on a Tuesday afternoon, reviewing network security logs on my laptop while Maisie watched an animated movie on the couch.
My phone buzzed against the coffee table. The caller ID showed *RESTRICTED.*
I answered it. "David Miller."
"Mr. Miller?" A gravelly, professional voice came through the receiver. "This is Detective Reynolds from County Financial Crimes."
"Detective. Good to hear from you. Are we still on track for my deposition on Thursday?"
There was a long, uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line. The kind of silence that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up before you even hear the bad news.
"Mr. Miller... there's been an incident at the county women's correctional facility."
I closed my laptop lid slowly. "What kind of incident?"
"Courtney Miller suffered an apparent severe medical episode during transport to the courthouse this morning," Reynolds said, his voice clipped and strained. "She was transferred under guard to St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital for emergency surgery."
"Is she alright?" I asked, though my gut told me something was dreadfully wrong.
"She didn't need surgery, David," Reynolds said, dropping the formal title. "The transport van was intercepted at an intersection two blocks from the facility. Two men posing as county paramedics ambushed the guards with stun weapons. No shots fired. They took her."
I stood up from my chair, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What? Who took her?"
"We don't know yet," Reynolds admitted. "Julian Vance was picked up at his penthouse an hour ago; he’s clean, totally panicked, and had nothing to do with this. But when we dug deeper into the three passports recovered from that safety deposit box... we found out who issued the Canadian one."
"Who?"
"It wasn't a standard fake, David. It was a high-level covert identity linked to an ongoing federal racketeering case out of Montreal. Courtney wasn't just a con artist stealing from small-town contractors. She was a courier for an international syndicate laundering dirty real estate money across the border. And that flash drive you handed to the court?"
May you like
Reynolds took a ragged breath.
"It didn't just have Kevin's business ledger on it. It had decrypted master keys to three offshore routing hubs that the syndicate has been looking for since last November."
