High fences, bars on the windows, 24-hour security provided by three former state troopers. Vance was strictly forbidden from leaving the property. He was locked in. Alone with a fear that grew every day. He barely slept. He jumped at every shadow, every creak of the floorboards, every howl of the wind in the chimney. He knew he was next. And he waited. Waited for the ghost to come for him.
At the same time, Ellen Miller got what she wanted. Well, not exactly. In that frantic struggle in the car, just before the shot, she’d managed to hit the record button on the small tape recorder in her pocket.
The recording was short, only a few seconds. The quality was terrible, full of static and the sounds of a struggle. But on it, Ian Sterling’s voice was clearly audible, saying with a mocking sneer: “Yeah, we did it. All of us. Because she wanted it.”
It was a confession. Direct. Irrefutable. Ellen knew that taking this tape to the police was suicide. They would have just destroyed her along with the tape. No. This tape was her primary weapon. Her ace. It wasn’t meant for a detective; it was meant for the fathers who were still standing. It was meant to be the stone that starts the avalanche and makes the system devour itself.
The night at the quarry had changed Ellen. Revenge was no longer the goal. The goal was destruction. She realized she couldn’t crush the system, but she could make it eat itself. To do that, she had to pit the two wolves—Taylor and Sterling—against each other.
She didn’t call or send notes. That was risky and left a trail. She chose a more subtle and cruel instrument. She had the tape of Ian Sterling’s confession, recorded before he died. Ellen made a copy.
One envelope containing a tape was sent anonymously to Senator Taylor’s office. No note. No explanation. Just the voice of his main ally’s dead son bragging about a crime. It was a signal. A hint that someone had leverage that could destroy them both.
The second envelope was for Sterling. But it didn’t have a tape; it had a photo. The one she’d found at Paul Thompson’s, showing the trio posing by the car. Ellen circled Vance Taylor’s face in red. On the back, she wrote just two words: “He knows.”
It was a brilliant move. Taylor, receiving the tape, assumed it was blackmail from Sterling, who wanted a lever of power. Sterling, receiving the photo with the note, assumed Taylor knew something about his son’s disappearance and was hinting that Vance might talk. The paranoia and distrust that had always existed between them flared up. The alliance of two titans turned into a deadly duel.
Each, protecting his son and his power, began to strike at the other. Sterling, using his position, launched a full-scale investigation into the business interests the Senator protected, accusing them of criminal ties and massive embezzlement.
Taylor, in turn, used his political channels in the state capital to launch a counter-wave of dirt, accusing Sterling himself of corruption and collusion with the underworld, using the botched “assault” case as an example.
The public infighting between the town’s two most powerful men was the final straw for the state authorities. A commission arrived from the capital. The investigation was short and brutal. Not wanting to air the town’s dirty laundry, the commission didn’t bother figuring out who was right.
Both men, having lost control and the trust of the party, were stripped of everything. Senator Taylor was placed under investigation for white-collar crimes and criminal associations. Sterling, for failing to maintain order and allowing crime to run rampant, was forced into a humiliating early retirement, stripped of all influence and power. The system, to save face, devoured them both.
In the chaos, Vance Taylor was left completely alone. The money was gone, the friends had vanished, and his powerful father was under indictment. His world had collapsed. But worse was the fear…
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