Chapter 14 - The Return to Roland Park
The gravel crunching beneath my shoes sounded impossibly loud in the dead silence of the estate grounds. The main manor lomed ahead through the thick fog, its tall Georgian windows dark except for a faint, flickering amber glow coming from a ground-floor study on the eastern wing.
I kept to the shadows of the manicured boxwood hedges, moving deliberately toward the lighted window.
When I reached the side of the house, I pressed my back against the cold brick wall and peered cautiously around the window frame.
Inside the study, a man in a tailored charcoal suit—not Vance, but one of his senior corporate attorneys—was frantically dumping stacks of manila folders into a large black industrial shredder. Next to him, a younger legal assistant was furiously wiping down a desktop computer tower with a magnetic degaussing wand.
"Hurry up," the attorney snapped, his voice carrying clearly through the cracked glass of the double-hung window. "The federal receiver's office got the automated registry flag twenty minutes ago. If the marshals pull up before we wipe the physical archives, Vance will hang us both out to dry."
"I'm going as fast as I can," the assistant stammered, sweat beading on his forehead as the degaussing wand whined against the hard drive casing. "The secondary server backup is encrypted; it takes time to clear the sector blocks."
I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out my phone, and tapped the screen to ensure my audio recording was active, streaming directly to Agent Miller’s secure portal.
But as I adjusted my grip, my shoe slipped slightly on a patch of wet moss beside the foundation, sending a small pebble rolling across the concrete patio.
Click.
Inside the study, the shredder abruptly stopped humming.
The attorney froze, his hands hovering over a stack of un-shredded bank statements bearing the explicit letterhead of Crestwell’s offshore accounts. He slowly turned his head toward the window, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the dark glass.
"Who's out there?" the attorney called out, his voice sharp and dangerous.
I didn't move, holding my breath against the brick wall.
"Check the perimeter," the attorney muttered to the assistant, motioning toward the heavy wooden side door that led directly out onto the patio.
Footsteps echoed heavily inside the hallway—approaching the door.
May you like
I scanned the dark courtyard. There was nowhere to run without crossing the open lawn illuminated by the manor's carriage lights. If they caught me here before the federal units arrived, my phone—and the live audio stream transmitting to Agent Miller—would be the first things they destroyed.
The heavy wooden door clicked, and the latch began to turn.
