Chapter 7
Rebecca did not say Caroline Voss’s name out loud.
Not in the hospital.
Not over the phone.
Not anywhere with recording equipment she did not personally control.
Instead, she drove Nora and me to a secure federal facility outside the city.
No Blackwood property.
No regular FBI office.
No familiar agents.
Only a conference room with concrete walls and no windows.
Lila was moved there under guard.
Daniel stayed with her.
I watched Rebecca write one name on a legal pad.
CAROLINE VOSS.
Then she drew a line beneath it.
“What exactly did Lila say?” Nora asked.
Rebecca closed the door.
“She gave a flash drive to a red-haired woman approximately fifty years old who identified herself as a federal prosecutor.”
“That’s Voss.”
“It sounds like Voss.”
“She ran the case.”
“She still does officially.”
I stared at Rebecca.
“She knew everything I gave you.”
“Yes.”
“She knew the raid time.”
“Yes.”
“She knew I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“She knew where I lived.”
“Yes.”
Every answer made me colder.
“Why are we still alive?”
Rebecca met my eyes.
“Because whoever is compromised has been trying to discredit you, not kill you.”
“Tell that to Lila.”
Silence.
Nora folded her arms.
“What does Voss gain?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“What does Keller gain?”
“Money.”
“And Voss?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Maybe money too.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
They both looked at me.
“Caroline didn’t act like Keller.”
“You met her four times,” Rebecca said.
“Six.”
“Still.”
“She hated Conrad.”
“People fake things.”
“Not that.”
Rebecca leaned back.
“Then what are you thinking?”
I remembered the first time I met Caroline.
She had asked detailed questions about the Blackwood Foundation.
Not just the fraud.
The donors.
The board.
The trust.
She seemed particularly interested in old transfers tied to Conrad’s father.
At the time, I assumed she was building a larger case.
“What if she wasn’t working for the Blackwoods?”
Nora frowned.
“Then why take Lila’s evidence?”
“What if she wanted something else in it?”
Rebecca went still.
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
We brought Lila into the room.
She wore hospital clothes beneath an oversized gray sweater.
A bandage covered part of her forehead.
She could barely look at me.
I did not make it easier.
“Tell us about the flash drive.”
Lila swallowed.
“I copied everything I found.”
“Everything where?”
“Vivienne’s home office.”
“When?”
“Last Saturday.”
“What was on her computer?”
“Emails. Account statements. Documents about you.”
She looked at me.
“I was looking for a necklace.”
Nora raised an eyebrow.
Lila flushed.
“Adrian said it belonged to his grandmother and he was going to give it to me.”
“And instead you found evidence.”
“Yes.”
“What files did you copy?”
“All the folders I could.”
“Did you look through them?”
“Some.”
“Anything unrelated to me?”
Lila thought.
“There was a folder called Hawthorne.”
Rebecca stopped writing.
“Hawthorne?”
“Yes.”
“Did you open it?”
“Only once.”
“What was inside?”
“Old documents. Scans. Newspaper clippings.”
“About what?”
Lila closed her eyes.
“A death.”
The room went silent.
“Whose death?” I asked.
“A woman named Emily Voss.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
Nora slowly turned toward her.
“Voss?”
Lila nodded.
“Emily Voss.”
Rebecca stood abruptly.
“Caroline’s sister.”
I stared at her.
“You knew?”
“I know Caroline had a younger sister who died years ago. I didn’t know there was any Blackwood connection.”
“How did she die?”
“Car crash, I think.”
Lila shook her head.
“The file said drowning.”
Rebecca pulled out her phone, then stopped.
“No calls.”
Nora asked Lila, “What else was in the folder?”
“Insurance paperwork. Police reports. Something from Blackwood Shipping.”
“When did she die?”
“Maybe twenty-four years ago.”
Rebecca looked at me.
Conrad had run Blackwood Shipping twenty-four years ago.
“What happened?” I asked.
Lila’s voice lowered.
“I saw one handwritten note.”
“What did it say?”
She looked frightened just remembering it.
“Conrad handled the girl. File closed.”
No one spoke.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Caroline Voss was not protecting the Blackwoods.
She had spent decades believing they were responsible for her sister’s death.
That did not make her safe.
It made her unpredictable.
Rebecca finally said, “Where did you meet her?”
“Parking garage beneath a hotel.”
“How did she contact you?”
“She didn’t. I contacted a number I found in Adrian’s phone.”
“What name was it saved under?”
“CV.”
Rebecca paced once across the room.
“What did she say when you gave her the drive?”
“She said, ‘You did the right thing.’”
“Did she promise protection?”
“Yes.”
“Then Keller took you.”
“Yes.”
“Could Voss have sent him?”
Lila’s eyes filled with fear.
“I don’t know.”
A knock sounded.
One of Rebecca’s trusted agents entered.
“Agent Sloan.”
He handed her a sealed envelope.
Rebecca opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Caroline Voss leaving her townhouse at 5:12 that morning.
Caroline entering a rental car.
Caroline arriving at a train station.
Then nothing.
“She’s gone,” Rebecca said.
“Where?”
“Unknown.”
Nora leaned toward me.
“Everybody in this case keeps disappearing.”
My baby shifted.
I rubbed my stomach.
“Not everybody.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“What?”
“Keller hasn’t disappeared.”
“He abandoned his home and car.”
“He kidnapped Lila because he wanted the backup.”
“Yes.”
“If Voss already had the backup, why take Lila?”
Rebecca stopped moving.
Nora understood too.
“Because Keller didn’t know Voss had it.”
“Exactly.”
“Meaning Keller and Voss weren’t working together.”
Rebecca slowly nodded.
Two compromised officials.
Two different agendas.
That was somehow worse.
“What did Keller ask you?” I said to Lila.
“Where the drive was.”
“Did you tell him Voss had it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought she would protect me.”
Rebecca looked grim.
“And when he couldn’t get the drive?”
“He started asking about copies.”
“Were there copies?”
Lila hesitated.
Everyone noticed.
“Lila,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Were there copies?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca moved closer.
“Where?”
“I emailed one encrypted archive to myself.”
“Can you access it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Adrian changed the password to my account after the raid.”
“Did you use the same password anywhere else?”
She nodded reluctantly.
Rebecca almost groaned.
“We can recover it.”
Nora asked, “What was in the archive?”
“Everything.”
Rebecca immediately handed instructions to two agents.
Within an hour, technicians had recovered Lila’s email account.
The archive was there.
Encrypted.
Lila remembered the password.
The files opened.
There were more than four thousand documents.
Vivienne had kept records of everything.
Bribes.
Shell companies.
Private investigators.
Doctors.
Politicians.
Judges.
Police officers.
Charity officials.
Blackwood employees.
And one folder labeled E.V.
Emily Voss.
Inside was an old police report.
Twenty-four years earlier, twenty-three-year-old Emily Voss had been found dead in the river near a Blackwood Shipping dock.
The death was ruled accidental.
But a witness had originally reported seeing Emily arguing with Conrad Blackwood the night she died.
That statement disappeared from the final report.
Another document showed a payment from Blackwood Shipping to the investigating detective.
Rebecca’s face hardened.
“This is enough to reopen the case.”
I stared at Emily’s photograph.
She looked like Caroline.
Younger.
Softer.
Alive.
“What was Emily doing at the dock?”
Nora asked.
Rebecca kept reading.
Then she found it.
“Accounting intern.”
“For Blackwood?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
Emily had discovered something.
Just like I had.
Twenty-four years earlier.
“Caroline thinks Conrad killed her.”
Rebecca nodded.
“And if Caroline took the drive, she might be trying to prove it.”
“Then why run?”
“Because she obtained evidence outside legal procedure. Because she concealed evidence. Because if she’s been conducting a personal investigation while supervising our case, she could destroy the prosecution.”
There it was.
The Blackwoods’ final protection.
Even the woman trying to expose them had compromised herself.
Nora rubbed her forehead.
“If defense lawyers learn the lead prosecutor had a personal vendetta and concealed evidence, they’ll challenge everything.”
“Including evidence against me?”
“Yes.”
I stood slowly.
“No.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“No what?”
“We are not letting Adrian walk because everyone around him is corrupt.”
“No one said we were.”
“Then stop reacting.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What do you suggest?”
“We control what he thinks we know.”
Rebecca stared at me.
I continued.
“Keller is still out there. He doesn’t know you recovered Lila’s archive.”
“Correct.”
“He thinks the only complete copy is the drive.”
“Probably.”
“And he thinks Voss has it now?”
“Maybe.”
“What if we tell him she doesn’t?”
Nora started smiling.
Rebecca did not.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Good.”
“Dangerous is not a strategy.”
“It was Adrian’s strategy for six years.”
I looked at the files.
“We leak that Lila hid the original drive somewhere else.”
Rebecca’s eyes sharpened.
“And see who comes for it.”
“Keller.”
“Possibly.”
“Or whoever he’s reporting to.”
Lila whispered, “Conrad.”
We all looked at her.
“He called Conrad after he took me.”
“What did he say?”
“I only heard part of it.”
“What part?”
Lila swallowed.
“He said, ‘Your wife is losing control.’”
Rebecca’s face changed.
Not Vivienne’s man.
Conrad’s.
The parents had separate secrets.
Separate operatives.
Separate plans.
I thought back to Vivienne’s email.
CONRAD CANNOT KNOW THE FULL PLAN UNTIL AFTER THE RAID.
This family was not united.
They were betraying each other too.
And that weakness could save us.
Rebecca looked at me.
“What location would you leak?”
I thought of the estate.
The baby shower.
The room where everything began.
“My nursery.”
Nora frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Adrian knew I kept sentimental things there.”
Rebecca understood.
“We tell Keller the drive is hidden in the nursery.”
“He’ll believe Lila could have placed it there before the shower.”
“And if he goes?”
“We follow him.”
Lila whispered, “What if Adrian goes?”
I looked at her.
“Then we learn who he’s really afraid of.”
The false information was placed into a communication channel Keller was known to monitor.
Nothing happened for three hours.
Then, at 11:38 p.m., a motion detector activated inside the sealed Blackwood estate.
Someone had entered through a basement service tunnel.
Rebecca’s team surrounded the property.
Security cameras tracked a shadow moving upstairs.
Toward the nursery.
Rebecca watched from a mobile command van.
I watched beside her despite every protest.
The nursery door opened.
A man entered.
Gray jacket.
Baseball cap.
Mark Keller.
He searched drawers.
Opened boxes.
Pulled books from shelves.
Then he crossed toward the crib.
My empty crib.
My hands curled into fists.
He reached underneath it.
A federal tactical team stormed the room.
“FBI! HANDS!”
Keller spun.
For one terrifying second, his hand moved toward his waistband.
Then he saw six weapons pointed at him.
He raised both hands.
They took him alive.
Rebecca exhaled.
“We got him.”
But Keller did not look defeated.
As agents pulled him from the nursery, he started laughing.
Rebecca entered the room.
“What’s funny?”
He looked directly at her.
“You think I’m the leak?”
“You sold raid information.”
“Yes.”
“You kidnapped a witness.”
“Yes.”
“You helped frame an innocent woman.”
Keller smiled.
“No.”
Rebecca went still.
“What?”
“I sold information to Conrad. I cleaned up problems.”
He nodded toward me on the monitor.
“But I didn’t create the account in her name.”
“Who did?”
Keller’s smile disappeared.
“You’re still looking at the family.”
He leaned closer.
“You should be looking at the husband’s lawyer.”
My heart stopped.
Adrian’s personal attorney.
The man who had prepared our prenup.
The man who had handled our taxes.
The man who possessed copies of every identification document I owned.
May you like
Charles Whitmore.
And less than two hours earlier, Nora had learned that Charles was preparing paperwork requesting emergency custody of my unborn child.
