Chapter 17 - The Interrogation of Blood
The man’s body stiffened beneath my boot. He was young—maybe twenty-five, with a buzz cut and a gold wedding band on his left hand. The wind had knocked the breath out of him, but the cold steel pressed against his spinal cord restored his senses with brutal clarity.
"Don't shoot... please, don't shoot..." he sputtered, spitting out a mouthful of pine needles and wet gravel. "I’m just... I was just hired through the security contract. We were told—"
"You were told a lie," I hissed, leaning down, my knee driving hard into the center of his back, compressing his lungs. "You were told to execute a widow in her own home to protect Arthur Vance's offshore shell accounts. Who are you?"
"Deputy... Deputy Harris. Evans County," he choked out. "Arthur pays the sheriff ten grand a month to run private security for the logistics compound. We just take the shifts. I swear to God, I didn't know anything about a husband!"
"Where is Ethan Holloway?" I demanded, pressing the barrel harder until the skin behind his ear indented.
"Ward D! Telfair!" he sobbed, his hands clawing at the dirt. "It's an off-the-books medical facility near the state prison! It’s run by a private contractor, Palmetto Care Systems! It’s where they keep high-profile witnesses and state wards that don't officially exist!"
"Is he alive?"
The question ripped out of me, jagged and bleeding. For nine months, I had brought fresh hydrangeas to three cold marble markers. For nine months, I had imagined my husband’s ashes scattered to the winds.
"He was alive three days ago!" Harris gasped. "I saw him when they moved him from the second floor to the trauma bay! They keep him in a medically induced coma with propofol. But... but Arthur ordered the transfer tonight. That’s why we were sent here!"
"Why?"
"Because you froze the foundation's funds!" Harris blurted out, terror stripping every layer of professional composure from his voice. "The bank alert hit Arthur’s phone at midnight! The forty-two million you moved into the children’s memorial trust... it triggered an automated audit of all cross-collateralized corporate assets! The state examiners are arriving at Sterling Logistics at nine o'clock this morning. If Arthur doesn't produce Ethan's software master key by dawn to liquidate the escrow, the bank defaults, the feds seize the servers, and Arthur goes to federal prison for life!"
"And what happens to Ethan when the feds arrive?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
Harris didn't answer right away. He hesitated.
I clicked the hammer of the Sig back.
"They're terminating the life support at dawn," Harris whispered, his voice trembling so hard it shook his shoulders. "Arthur told the facility administrator that Ethan had an unexpected cardiac arrest from his original crash injuries. The body is scheduled for immediate, closed cremation at the state mortuary at six a.m."
I looked at my watch.
It was 3:42 a.m.
May you like
I had two hours and eighteen minutes.
I brought the butt of the pistol down sharply against the side of Harris’s jaw. He went limp instantly, slumping into the mud. I stripped his zip-ties from his tactical belt, bound his wrists and ankles securely to the base of an iron lamppost, and took his service radio, his sidearm, and the keys to the running Suburban.
