Chapter 9 - The Trial and the Reckoning
The blue and red lights that filled the logging road twenty minutes later did not belong to Sheriff Donald Thomas.
They belonged to eleven cruisers from the Virginia State Police, flanked by four black Suburbans bearing the seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Special Agent Sarah Ross stepped out of the lead vehicle. She was forty-five, had graying hair cut into an efficient bob, and carried a thick legal binder under her arm.
She walked into the gravel yard, taking in the scene: Jax and his men sitting peacefully on the tailgates of their trucks with their hands zip-tied, Miller drinking black coffee from a thermos by the woodpile, and Richard Sterling III curled in a fetal position in the mud, weeping into his Barbour coat while Marcus splinted his broken arm with two tongue depressors and a roll of vet wrap.
Ross walked over to me.
She looked at my flannel shirt, my wet boots, and the old Remington resting against the tractor wheel.
"Colonel Vance?" she asked.
"Arthur," I said. "Just Arthur."
She nodded slowly. "We have District Attorney Wallace in custody. He signed the search warrants twenty minutes ago. Agents at the Sterling Estate have recovered three years of erased security footage from an off-site cloud server Victoria forgot existed. The domestic assault charges have been upgraded to attempted murder and witness intimidation under the federal RICO statute."
"And the mother?" I asked.
"Victoria Sterling was arrested thirty minutes ago at the Richmond airport," Ross said, a slight, professional smile touching her lips. "She had two suitcases containing three million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds and an unregistered passport for Switzerland. She didn't make the gate."
Ross turned to look at Richard, who was being hauled to his feet by two state troopers, his face covered in mud, his designer trousers ruined, his arm bound in veterinary gauze.
"He's going to spend a very long time in a very small room, Mr. Vance," she said.
"That's his business," I replied. "My business is done."
Ross offered her hand.
I took it. Her grip was firm, clean, and honest—the grip of a woman who did the work because the work needed doing.
"Thank you for your service, Colonel," she said.
"I retired fifteen years ago, Agent Ross," I told her.
May you like
"Men like you don't retire, sir," she said quietly. "They just wait."
***
