Chapter 13 - THE FALSE TRAITOR
For one terrible second, I believed him.
Rachel had known where we were going.
She had controlled the copies.
She had chosen the safe apartment.
The federal prosecutor had been attacked after she contacted him.
Adrian watched my face and smiled faintly.
“He paid her for years.”
Then I remembered something.
Adrian never gave information without trying to control the person receiving it.
“What's her account number?” I asked.
His smile vanished.
“What?”
“You said she was paid. Give me one account. One date. One transfer.”
He looked down.
There was no account.
No payment.
He was trying to separate me from the only investigator he feared.
I walked out without another word.
Rachel was waiting in the hall.
“He named me, didn't he?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he lied badly.”
She exhaled.
The real leak was Deputy Chief Martin Hale, a longtime family friend of Charles.
Phone records showed he had warned Pike before every warrant and raid.
He had also arranged the attack on the federal prosecutor.
Hale was arrested that afternoon while trying to leave the country.
With the leak closed, the remaining evidence moved fast.
Dozens of search warrants were served.
Properties were seized.
Doctors and attorneys surrendered.
Former employees came forward.
At the center of it all stood Eleanor.
She testified before a grand jury for two days.
When she finished, she asked to see me.
We met in a quiet hospital garden.
She held the sealed letter from the metal box.
“I wrote this the night before they took me,” she said.
The letter transferred ownership of the Franklin Street townhouse and any future recovered proceeds to a legal defense fund for women facing financial abuse.
“It was never filed,” she said. “But the intent matters to me.”
“I can help make it real.”
She smiled.
“That is why I chose you.”
I frowned.
“You did not know me.”
“I knew the condo would eventually find a woman who refused to surrender it.”
She reached into her bag and handed me an old photograph of the Mission Bay model unit.
On the back, Samuel Price had written: A HOME BELONGS TO THE PERSON WHO BUILDS A LIFE INSIDE IT.
I thought the worst was over.
Then Maya called.
Her voice was shaking.
“Owen has agreed to testify.”
“That is good.”
“No. He says he'll only do it if prosecutors give him custody of the girls.”
“He kidnapped them.”
“I know.”
May you like
Maya's next words were almost a whisper.
“And he claims he has a video proving I helped the family.”
