Chapter 12 - The Whisper in the Dark
I drove straight to the state police barracks on Route 4, bypassing the county sheriff’s jurisdiction entirely.
While driving, I called Marcus.
“Marcus, listen to me very carefully,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the rain-slick highway. “Do not give that burner phone to anyone in your department. Do not speak to Sheriff Cooper.”
Marcus paused. “Cooper? Why? He just called dispatch asking for my location.”
“Cooper is on Julian’s payroll,” I said, the cold truth spilling out. “I just watched Julian hand him fifty thousand dollars in cash at Victoria Sterling’s driveway. Cooper is clearing their departure from Bay Harbor Slip 44 tonight.”
Marcus let out a slow, lethal curse. “That son of a bitch. I knew Cooper was dirty when he bought that cabin on the lake, but this... Nora, where are you?”
“Heading to the State Police Troop C headquarters. I have the video on my phone. I have the ledger from the dollhouse. I have the bigamy certificate.”
“I’m meeting you there,” Marcus said. “Claire and Lily are locked in the room. Claire has my personal sidearm. Nobody gets near that door.”
Twenty minutes later, I slammed Claire’s Volvo into park outside the red-brick state police headquarters. Marcus’s truck skidded into the space beside me.
Together, we marched through the front doors.
The sergeant at the front desk looked up, startled by the sight of an ash-covered woman flanked by a county deputy in tactical gear.
“I need to speak to the State Fire Marshal and the Senior Special Agent on duty immediately,” Marcus said, slamming his county badge onto the counter. “We have an active domestic terrorism, arson, and murder-for-hire plot involving Oak Creek County Sheriff Tom Cooper.”
Within ten minutes, we were seated in a windowless briefing room. Across from us sat Special Agent Sarah Diaz of the State Bureau of Investigation and Fire Investigator Chen.
I laid the evidence on the steel table piece by piece.
The SanDisk flash drive.
The marriage certificate proving Julian was married to Victoria Sterling.
The forged insurance policy.
And finally, I laid my phone down and pressed play on the video recorded outside Villa 14.
Agent Diaz and Investigator Chen watched the footage in absolute silence. They watched my husband—supposedly in Chicago—laughing as he kissed his mistress. They watched Sheriff Cooper take a bribe to falsify an arson report.
Investigator Chen looked up, his jaw clenched. “Mrs. Vance, we already had an undercover unit monitoring Victoria Sterling’s logistics firm for federal money laundering. But we had no idea Julian Vance was running this domestic angle.”
“He tried to kill me, Agent Diaz,” I said, my voice steady, iron-hard. “He rigged a propane tank under my bedroom. The only reason I’m alive is because my eight-year-old daughter warned me at the airport gate.”
Agent Diaz stood up, strapping her sidearm to her hip. “Where is that yacht heading?”
“Slip 44, Bay Harbor Yacht Club,” I said. “They’re leaving tonight.”
Diaz turned to Chen. “Call the Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team. Mobilize State Police SWAT. We take them at the dock.”
She looked back at me. “Mrs. Vance, you stay here.”
“No,” I said, standing up to meet her eyes. “He thinks I’m sitting in a hotel room waiting for him to play the grieving husband. If you storm that dock with sirens, he might slip out on a tender boat into the fog. You need him to hesitate. You need him to think he still has the upper hand.”
Diaz frowned. “What are you proposing?”
May you like
“I’m going to call him,” I said. “And I’m going to make him walk straight into the light.”
***
