Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Followed Me
Daniel photographed the note before anyone touched it again.
I recognized the handwriting.
Not Margaret's.
Not Ethan's.
Not Karen's.
But I had seen it somewhere.
I just could not place it.
“Who knew your schedule?” Daniel asked.
“Court staff.”
“Drivers?”
“I drive myself.”
“Security detail?”
“Not routinely.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You never told me someone was following you.”
“I didn't know.”
That was the truth.
The photograph had been taken from across the street.
I was wearing a gray coat I had donated months earlier.
Whoever photographed me had been patient.
Deliberate.
Margaret tried to dismiss it.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Daniel looked at her.
“It was delivered before we announced the room lockdown.”
“So?”
“So whoever sent it already knew Judge Carter was here.”
Her face changed.
The officer investigating Margaret's phone returned with preliminary information.
“There are multiple calls between the burner device and a number registered to a private investigation company.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
Margaret remained silent.
The company was called Mercer Strategic Research.
I knew the name.
One of its investigators had testified in my courtroom two years earlier.
Not as a defendant.
As a witness.
A former police detective named Raymond Cole.
Suddenly I remembered the handwriting.
Cole had once written his phone number on an evidence receipt.
The slanted capital letters matched the message on the photograph.
I told Daniel.
He immediately contacted investigators.
Margaret stared at me with new calculation.
“You remember someone's handwriting from two years ago?”
“My job requires me to remember details.”
Her expression hardened.
That was the first moment I saw real fear in her.
Not fear of my title.
Fear of my attention.
Ethan sat beside the wall.
“What would she hire an investigator for?”
Karen answered before Margaret could.
“To investigate Olivia.”
Margaret turned on her.
“Enough.”
Karen flinched.
I looked at her.
“What else did your mother tell you?”
Karen breathed slowly.
“She said Ethan had married someone dangerous.”
Ethan laughed once in disbelief.
“Dangerous?”
“She said Olivia had secrets.”
I almost smiled.
“My secret was a job.”
Karen shook her head.
“No.”
Her eyes moved toward Margaret.
“She said there was something in your judicial history that could be used to destroy you.”
Margaret's face became rigid.
I looked at her.
“What did Cole find?”
She refused to answer.
Then Daniel's radio came alive.
Raymond Cole had been located.
He was not at his office.
May you like
He was at the airport.
And he had purchased a one-way ticket leaving the country that evening.
