Chapter 18 - The wiretap confession
Maya sat in the rear of the private transport vehicle, her wrists bound by plastic flex-cuffs. She was not being taken to the county jail; the car had bypassed the municipal courthouse turnoff, heading directly toward the industrial shipping district near the waterfront. Through the tinted glass partition, she watched the two security guards hired by Vance checking their encrypted phones.
They did not know that the small silver brooch pinned to the collar of Maya’s black blouse was not an ordinary accessory. It was Garrett’s personal emergency transponder, equipped with a high-gain military-grade audio relay that streamed directly to Marcus’s tactical unit.
The vehicle came to a stop inside a deserted logistics warehouse. The heavy corrugated metal doors rolled down behind them, cutting off the daylight. Harlan Vance was already waiting beside a black town car, holding a stainless steel incinerator canister.
The guard pulled Maya out of the vehicle, shoving her forward onto the concrete floor.
Vance walked over, looking down at her with pure disgust. "Where is the original registry paper, girl? Madison searched your apartment and found nothing. The safe at the estate only had the duplicate notes."
Maya looked up at him, her lip split from the rough handling, but her eyes burning with defiance. "You killed Garrett’s father, didn't you? He discovered that you stole his real daughter to hide your brother’s malpractice at St. Jude's, so you adjusted his digital heart monitor from the foundation's server."
Vance smiled coldly, kneeling down until his face was inches from hers. "Julian made a minor mistake during the delivery; the baby girl suffered minor hypoxia. If the Westons found out, our family firm would have been ruined. Swapping a healthy infant and declaring her dead was an elegant solution. The girl was placed in an anonymous foster home, and the Westons adopted a compliant orphan boy who would never question the trust management."
"Until Margaret started recovering her speech," Maya said, her voice clear and measured.
"Margaret was supposed to die quietly in a Swiss sanatorium," Vance whispered, pulling a small silver locket from his pocket—the one stolen from the estate safe. "And now, once I burn this original adoption ledger and your body is pulled from the river along with the remaining vials of poison, Garrett will spend the rest of his miserable life in a federal penitentiary for murdering both his mother and his beloved accomplice."
May you like
Maya looked directly into Vance’s eyes, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Did you honestly believe Garrett would let your transport car leave the estate gates without an escort?"
From the rafters above, the glass skylights shattered with a deafening crack.
