Chapter 9 - DAVID'S CONFESSION
David's confession lasted eleven hours.
He described everything.
The fake death.
The offshore companies.
The bribed officials.
The forged documents.
The threats.
The laundering network.
Then he gave investigators the one thing they needed most.
Thomas's emergency protocol.
If Halcyon was compromised, Thomas would attempt to access a physical recovery key stored inside a private vault.
The vault was in Chicago.
Federal agents prepared surveillance.
For three days, nothing happened.
On the fourth night, someone entered the building.
It wasn't Thomas.
It was Julianne.
Agents arrested her outside the vault.
When confronted, she broke almost immediately.
Thomas had contacted her.
He offered two million dollars to retrieve the recovery key.
“Why would you help him?” I asked later.
Julianne couldn't look at me.
“Because I was scared.”
“So was Lily.”
She began crying.
I felt nothing.
“I didn't know she was dying.”
“You knew she was in the ICU.”
“I told David to call you.”
“Once.”
Julianne wiped her face.
“I thought he knew his family better than I did.”
“No.”
I stood.
“You thought the yacht mattered more.”
She didn't argue.
Julianne accepted a cooperation deal.
Her testimony helped investigators identify Thomas's local network.
Three arrests followed.
Then five.
Then nine.
But Thomas remained invisible.
Until he made one final mistake.
He called David.
The call was recorded.
“You betrayed me.”
David sat inside an interview room.
Federal agents listened from behind the glass.
“I learned from you.”
Thomas laughed.
“You think Maya will forgive you?”
“No.”
“Then why help her?”
David looked through the glass.
I was standing beside Hale.
“Because Lily would.”
Thomas went quiet.
“You don't deserve to say her name.”
David's eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
He swallowed.
“I don't.”
Thomas disconnected.
But investigators had enough.
The signal originated from a warehouse near Lake Michigan.
Federal teams moved immediately.
The warehouse was empty.
Except for a laptop.
A chair.
And another note addressed to me.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINAL HALCYON LEDGER.
There was an address.
Hale read it.
“No.”
“I wasn't suggesting it.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Absolutely not.”
The address belonged to an abandoned marina.
Agents prepared an operation.
I would not actually be alone.
A tracking device was placed beneath my coat.
Tactical teams positioned themselves nearby.
Hale looked at me before I entered the car.
“You don't have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
He pointed toward the marina.
“You've already done enough.”
I looked toward the frozen lake.
“Thomas thinks grief made me weak.”
“And?”
“He should meet the woman it created.”
I drove toward the marina.
Thomas Vance was waiting inside.
Alive.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably David's father.
He smiled when I entered.
“My favorite daughter-in-law.”
I looked at the man whose funeral I'd attended nine years earlier.
“You look terrible for a dead man.”
May you like
His smile vanished.
Good.
