Chapter 34 - The Press Conference
The revelation hit us like a physical blow. The corruption wasn't an isolated family crime syndicate run by desperate socialites; it was a systemic, political machine that had simply rebranded itself while the federal prosecutors were busy celebrating their victory over Richard and Vivian.
We needed to move fast, but we couldn't go back to Marcus Vance—not yet. If the political machine had infiltrated the federal annex deep enough to know where Marcus was looking, any official filing would be intercepted before it reached a judge’s desk.
“We go public,” Tessa said decisively, standing in the center of our living room as the evening shadows lengthened across the floorboards. “Not through a courtroom. Through the one channel they can't muzzle or bury in a bureaucratic subcommittee.”
“Caroline,” I said, connecting the dots instantly.
“Caroline,” Tessa nodded, reaching for her phone. “She’s the senior financial compliance director at the state oversight board now. She has direct access to the state-level media pool, and her department operates outside federal jurisdiction.”
Within twenty minutes, Caroline was sitting at our kitchen table, her eyes wide as she read Julian Vance’s recovered addendum and cross-referenced the corporate ID numbers with her state database.
“My God,” Caroline whispered, her hand trembling as she set the document down. “This matches three separate dormant state infrastructure accounts that were quietly unfrozen last month. I thought it was routine municipal housekeeping. It’s a campaign war chest funded entirely by the liquidated assets of the probate families Richard and Vivian defrauded.”
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“And the man running on that war chest is scheduled to hold a live televised press conference at City Hall tomorrow morning,” I added quietly.
“Then we rewrite his script,” Caroline said, a fierce, determined spark igniting in her eyes. She pulled a encrypted flash drive from her briefcase and plugged it into her laptop. “I’ll route the certified probate documents and the digital audit trail straight through the state oversight broadcast relay. When he steps up to the podium tomorrow, every major news network in the Pacific Northwest won't be broadcasting his campaign speech—they’ll be broadcasting the forensic accounting of how he bought his election with stolen widows' pensions.”
