Chapter 13 - THE JUDGE BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
Judge Arthur Carmichael’s private chambers occupied the top floor of an office building beside the federal courthouse.
By the time police surrounded it, Bianca had already sealed the elevators and taken three staff members hostage.
Dr. Hale stood beside her in the conference room, sweating through his shirt.
The building’s security feed showed Bianca holding a gun and Carmichael burning documents in a metal wastebasket.
“She is destroying the network,” Detective Park said.
Lorenzo watched the screen from the command vehicle. “She will destroy Hale next.”
Celeste sat handcuffed nearby. “He deserves it.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But he can prove what happened to Sofia and Leo.”
Leo was stable at the children’s hospital. Doctors believed he would recover. I should have stayed with him.
But I could not leave while the people who had harmed him were rewriting the ending.
A call came from Bianca.
She wanted Lorenzo upstairs alone.
“No weapons,” she said over speakerphone. “No police.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger and Sofia’s recordings.”
“In exchange for the hostages?”
“In exchange for the truth.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened. “I already know the truth.”
“No. You know the version Sofia left behind.”
She ended the call.
Matteo studied the building plans. A maintenance elevator connected the parking level to the judicial library.
Park prepared a tactical team.
Lorenzo looked at me. “Go back to Leo.”
“I will when this is over.”
“This is not your fight.”
I held up the photograph Dean carried, the note ordering my placement inside the mansion. “She made it my fight before I knew her name.”
We entered through the maintenance shaft.
The library doors opened into darkness.
Smoke from burned paper drifted beneath the ceiling.
A staff member lay tied behind a desk. We freed her silently.
Voices came from the conference room.
Carmichael was panicking. “The federal agents will trace every payment.”
Bianca answered, “Only if they find the ledger.”
Hale said, “You promised me immunity.”
“I promised to protect useful people.”
The same sentence she had used with Celeste.
Lorenzo stepped into the doorway.
“I brought the ledger.”
Bianca pointed the gun at him. “Alone, I said.”
“I stopped taking orders from you when I learned you poisoned my son.”
Carmichael reached for a second weapon hidden beneath the table.
I saw the movement through the side door.
“Gun!” I shouted.
Matteo tackled Carmichael. The shot went into the ceiling.
Park’s team entered.
Hale dropped to his knees.
Bianca grabbed the burning wastebasket and threw it toward a curtain. Flames climbed instantly.
Then she ran for the roof.
Lorenzo followed.
I stayed with Hale.
“Tell them,” I said. “Tell them what you did to Sofia.”
His face crumpled. “Bianca changed her medication after delivery. She ordered me to keep her sedated until the trust papers were signed.”
“And when Sofia recorded the evidence?”
“She told me to increase the dose.”
“Did you know it would kill her?”
He began to cry.
“Yes.”
Detective Park’s recorder captured every word.
Above us, a gunshot cracked across the roof.
Then Lorenzo’s voice came through the radio.
May you like
“Bianca is at the edge. She has the ledger.”
A second later, the line went silent.
