Chapter 42 - The Sheriff's Arrival
Mark grabbed his tire iron again, struggling to stand, but I pushed him gently back into his chair. "Stay here."
I walked to the front hallway, looking through the frosted sidelight window. Blue and red emergency lights were silently splashing across the virgin snow of the driveway. Two county sheriff cruisers and an unmarked black SUV were parked near the old willow tree.
Sheriff Miller stepped onto the porch, his heavy winter coat dusted with snow, flanked by three uniformed state troopers with hands resting on their holsters.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open. The freezing night air rushed into the warm hall.
"Sheriff," I said, keeping my posture straight and composed.
"Clara," Miller said, taking off his Stetson and stomping the snow from his boots. "Sorry to disturb you at two in the morning. We received an automated silent distress beacon registered to this address through a federal relay in Baltimore. Everything all right out here?"
I looked past him toward the unmarked SUV. A woman in a dark wool overcoat stepped out, holding a federal badge wallet in her hand as she walked up the stone steps.
"Mrs. Sterling," the woman said, her voice crisp and authoritative. "I am Special Agent Vance-Carter, Department of Justice, Internal Oversight. I believe my father is currently in your basement."
I stared at her, stunned. *Vance-Carter?*
"Your father?" I echoed.
"Harrison Vance went rogue forty-eight hours ago when our department initiated a full forensic audit on his covert operations division," the agent explained, stepping into the warm foyer. "He tapped private lines and used unauthorized federal transport to come out here. We’ve been tracking his transponder since he crossed state lines."
Julianne appeared in the hallway, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw the badge.
"Evelyn," Julianne breathed.
"Aunt Julianne," Agent Vance-Carter replied calmly. "You're lucky we beat the tactical extraction team here. Otherwise, you'd be answering questions in a black site in Virginia."
Within twenty minutes, Sheriff Miller and the state troopers brought Harrison Vance and his two battered operatives up from the cellar in heavy steel handcuffs. Vance looked broken, his eyes avoiding his daughter’s gaze entirely as he was escorted into the back of a state cruiser.
As Vance was shoved into the vehicle, he looked back at me one last time through the open door. "The ledgers, Clara. You can't keep them. They belong to history."
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"They belong to the people your family tried to destroy," I said quietly, watching the cruiser door slam shut.
Agent Vance-Carter turned to me on the porch, the winter wind whipping her dark hair across her face. "The files Donald kept... where are they?"
