Chapter 8 - The War Room in Madison
The office of the Special Prosecution Division in Madison did not look like the sleek glass boardrooms of Chicago.
It was located in the basement of the old state capitol building—a room filled with green filing cabinets, cold coffee mugs, and the heavy smell of old paper and tobacco.
Sitting behind a heavy oak desk was Richard Vance.
He was sixty-two, with thick silver hair, sharp blue eyes that were identical to my father’s, and a long scar running along his jawline. He was wearing a rumpled white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, staring at the stack of deeds and survey maps I had laid out across his blotter.
Iris sat in a leather armchair in the corner of the office, eating a jelly donut provided by a young assistant, happily drawing pictures of elevators on a legal pad.
"Henry kept all of it," Richard murmured, his deep voice trembling slightly as he turned the pages of my father’s diary. "Thirty years... he kept every receipt, every wire transfer, every illegal permit Arthur pushed through the county clerk’s office."
"He did it to protect us, Uncle Richard," I said, sitting across from him, my hand resting on Declan’s arm.
Richard looked up at me, his eyes softening as he studied my face. "You look so much like him, Nora. God, when you walked through that door... I thought I was looking at Henry forty years ago."
"Why didn't he tell me about you?" I asked quietly. "Why did I spend my whole life believing I had no family left except Julian?"
Richard let out a long, heavy sigh, leaning back in his leather chair. "Because Arthur Pendelton had three state senators in his pocket back in '96, Nora. When I took the job in the Prosecutor's office, Henry and I staged a public falling out. We erased my name from the family trust so Arthur couldn't use me to leverage him. It was the only way I could build a federal case without Arthur seeing it coming."
Richard reached across the desk and took my hand, his grip warm and strong—the same grip my father used to have.
"For ten years, we've been waiting for the final piece of the puzzle," Richard said. "We knew Arthur was using a shell company in the Cayman Islands to fund his land acquisitions, but we couldn't prove he was controlling Julian's accounts."
"Look at page forty-two of the ledger," Declan interrupted, leaning forward. "Henry cross-referenced the wire transfers with the Horizon Line acquisition accounts. Julian wasn't embezzling from Nora’s company to run away. He was funneling Nora’s corporate assets into Arthur’s offshore account to buy the mineral rights before the state legislature revised the zoning laws."
Richard turned to page forty-two, his sharp eyes scanning the column of numbers. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face.
"Wire fraud. Corporate embezzlement. Interstate racketeering. Conspiracy to commit land theft," Richard listed smoothly. He looked up at his chief investigator standing by the door. "Get the Federal Marshal on the line. I want arrest warrants issued for Arthur Pendelton, Marcus Hayes, and Julian Vance before sunrise."
The investigator nodded and rushed out of the room.
Richard stood up, walking over to the corner where Iris was sitting. He knelt down beside her chair, looking at her drawing of the elevator with the long steel cables.
"That's a very fine elevator, young lady," Richard said gently.
Iris looked up from her legal pad. She took a small bite of her donut, chewed thoughtfully, and then reached into her pocket.
She pulled out the brass key with the yellow ribbon and laid it in Richard’s palm.
"Grandpa said you'd need the small key to lock the bad man in the cage," Iris said softly.
Richard stared at the small key in his palm, tears shining in his sharp blue eyes. He looked up at me, his chest heaving with emotion.
May you like
"She speaks," Richard whispered in awe.
"She speaks when she has something important to say," I said, walking over and placing my hand on my daughter’s shoulder. "And she’s done keeping her father’s secrets."
