Chapter 2 - The Red Notebook
The Stay of Execution came at 1:42 PM, precisely ten hours and eighteen minutes before the lethal drugs were scheduled to enter my bloodstream. It was a temporary reprieve—a forty-eight-hour hold granted by a stunned judge who wanted to know why a lead prosecutor owned real estate tied to a capital murder case.
They moved me out of the death house back to the high-security block. But I didn't sleep. I couldn't.
Elena Vance sat across from me in an attorney-client consultation room. The room was small, smelling of old paper and stale coffee. She had laid out a series of property maps, tax records, and trial transcripts across the table.
"Your daughter," Elena began, leaning forward. "How did an eight-year-old girl know about Elmhurst Street? You've been in isolation for five years."
"Chloe isn't a normal kid," I said quietly, staring at my calloused hands. "Her mother was an accountant for the Moretti syndicate before she died. She taught Chloe numbers before she taught her the alphabet. When I was arrested, Chloe was placed in foster care with a woman named Sarah Jenkins. Who placed her there?"
Elena flipped through her notes. "Child Protective Services. The caseworker was... assigned directly by the District Attorney’s office."
"They kept her close," I realized, the blood running cold in my veins. "They didn't kill her because they thought I had hidden the ledgers with her. They were watching her, waiting for her to lead them to whatever my father left behind."
"Which brings us back to the notebook," Elena said. "What is in it, Gavin?"
"It’s not my ledger," I admitted. "It was my father's. My father wasn't just a carpenter. In the 1980s, he built safe rooms and hidden compartments for the highest-ranking political figures in Texas. Judges, senators, district attorneys. If someone wanted a wall that wasn't a wall, they called Arthur Cole. Before he died, he told me he kept a record of every job he ever did, including the custom installations."
Elena's eyes widened. "Including installations for the people who prosecuted you?"
"Marcus Vance—the prosecutor—his family owned an old estate in North San Antonio," I explained. "My father built a hidden safe beneath the floorboards of the Elmhurst property, which used to belong to Vance's grandfather. When Vance realized my father had documented the blueprints of his family's illegal off-the-books vault, he panicked."
"So they didn't frame you just to catch a mafia enforcer," Elena whispered, horror dawning on her face. "They framed you to silence the Cole family permanently, clear your father's house, and secure the blueprints before anyone else found them."
"And they thought Chloe was just a broken little girl who didn't understand what she saw," I said, a bitter coldness settling over me. "They were wrong."
Before Elena could reply, the door to the room flew open. Warden Mitchell walked in, flanked by two armed state troopers. His expression was no longer cautious; it was grim.
"Ms. Vance, you need to step out," Mitchell said sternly.
"Warden, we are in the middle of a privileged legal consultation," Elena protested, standing up.
"The Attorney General’s office just issued an emergency warrant," Mitchell replied, pulling a document from his coat. "They are claiming that the evidence you submitted was obtained through illegal communication with an active criminal syndicate. The stay of execution is being challenged in the State Supreme Court right now. They're trying to vacate it by midnight."
"They're moving fast," I said, rising slowly from my chair, the chains rattling. "Because they know if we get to that house before they destroy it, half the state capitol goes down with them."
Elena grabbed her briefcase. "I'm driving to San Antonio. I'm going to that house myself with a federal marshal."
"No," I warned her, looking her dead in the eye. "Don't go alone. They don't just have lawyers, Elena. They have men who take out problems. Men like I used to be."
May you like
She looked at me, seeing the truth in my words. "Then what do I do?"
"You find Sarah Jenkins and my daughter," I said, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "You hide them. Because if Marcus Vance realizes Chloe is the one who gave up the location, she becomes the next target."
