Chapter 17 - THE COUNTERATTACK
Thomas escaped the neighborhood.
But his face hit every federal alert in the country.
His accounts froze.
His known associates were questioned.
His properties were searched.
His network collapsed.
For the first time, he was no longer directing events.
He was reacting.
That changed everything.
Diane agreed to testify.
Grant agreed to testify.
Victor agreed to testify.
Natalie gave her statement.
Rebecca authenticated Laura’s trust amendment.
Caleb Rhodes explained the sabotage.
The cloud vault provided financial records.
My father’s tape established motive.
Laura’s recording established fear and knowledge.
Emma’s tablet connected Thomas to Diane’s attempt to silence her.
The case became enormous.
Fraud.
Conspiracy.
Obstruction.
Witness intimidation.
My father’s homicide.
Laura’s death.
Still, Thomas remained missing.
Then someone contacted Ortiz.
His daughter.
Caroline Voss.
I had met her twice.
She was a surgeon in Boston.
She had been estranged from Thomas for years.
“He called me,” she said.
“What did he want?” Ortiz asked.
“To say goodbye.”
“Did he say where he was?”
“No.”
“Anything unusual?”
Caroline hesitated.
“He mentioned his wife.”
Thomas’s wife had died fifteen years earlier.
“Where is she buried?”
Caroline looked at me.
“Hollow Creek Cemetery.”
Less than a mile from Laura’s crash site.
Agents surrounded the cemetery before dawn.
Thomas stood beside his wife’s grave.
He carried no weapon.
No suitcase.
Only a folder.
He surrendered.
Just like that.
After all the fear and destruction, there was no dramatic chase.
No gunfight.
No final escape.
An old man raised his hands in the rain.
Ortiz placed him in cuffs.
As they walked past me, Thomas stopped.
“You think you won.”
I said nothing.
“You’ll lose your mother.”
“I lost her years ago.”
“Your company?”
“It can be rebuilt.”
“Your family name?”
“I don’t care.”
Thomas smiled.
“And Laura?”
That one hurt.
He knew it would.
I stepped closer.
“You couldn’t erase her.”
His smile faded.
“She left recordings. Documents. The trust amendment. She knew exactly who you were.”
Thomas stared at me.
May you like
“And a six-year-old found the phone you couldn’t destroy.”
For the first time, the great Thomas Voss had no answer.
