Chapter 5 - THE LOCKDOWNThe bangs were not gunshots.
That mattered.
But for the first three seconds, nobody knew that.
Training took over.
I pulled Chloe behind the heavy counsel table.
Daniel moved with us.
Court deputies positioned themselves near both entrances.
Judge Monroe was taken through a secure rear door.
My parents crouched beside their attorneys.
Victor Hale simply froze.
“Stay down,” I ordered.
Emergency lights came on.
Red strips along the floor turned the courtroom into something unreal.
My rifle was no longer with me; after the previous day’s spectacle, courthouse security had secured all long weapons before I entered the family-court floor.
I was perfectly happy about that.
This was their building.
Their security operation.
My role was simple.
Keep Chloe protected.
“What were those sounds?” Daniel whispered.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Was it him?”
“Don’t know.”
Chloe grabbed my sleeve.
“Aunt Maddie?”
“I’m here.”
The phrase had become our promise.
I’m here.
Nothing more.
Nothing false.
One deputy pressed his radio closer.
“Mechanical breach on floor seven. Smoke devices. No confirmed firearm.”
Floor seven.
We were on eight.
Somebody wanted panic.
A minute later, sprinklers began running in the hallway.
Another deputy cursed.
“Fire panel manipulation.”
Voss.
He understood systems.
He understood distraction.
And he knew I would immediately focus on Chloe.
That thought bothered me.
What did he want while I was looking at her?
I turned.
“Hale.”
He stared.
“What?”
“What do you have that Voss wants?”
“Nothing.”
“He just threatened you.”
“I didn’t know it was him.”
“What do you have?”
His attorney protested.
“My client does not have to—”
“We are inside a lockdown triggered by someone who may be targeting this proceeding.”
Hale’s face collapsed.
“I have a drive.”
His attorney closed his eyes.
I stared.
“What drive?”
“Adrian gave it to me.”
My father said, “You said you barely knew him.”
“I lied.”
Hale’s voice cracked.
That was the moment Richard Carter finally understood what he had purchased.
Not legal representation.
A conspiracy.
Hale pulled a tiny encrypted storage device from inside his shoe.
Daniel stared.
“You kept evidence in your shoe?”
“I thought someone was searching my office.”
“When did Voss give it to you?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know.”
I almost lost patience.
“You’re lying again.”
“No. He said it contained documentation proving Daniel was unfit.”
“Did you access it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It required another key.”
“Where?”
“He said he would provide it if necessary.”
“So why keep the drive?”
“Insurance.”
Against Voss.
Smart.
Cowardly.
Useful.
I called Ortiz.
She was one floor below.
“Victor has a storage device from Voss.”
Silence.
“Say that again.”
Ten minutes later, a tactical team moved us to a secure area.
The courthouse incident turned out to be exactly what I suspected.
A distraction.
Someone wearing a maintenance uniform entered the seventh floor, triggered smoke devices, tampered with the fire controls, and disappeared through a loading corridor.
No one was injured.
But during the confusion, someone accessed a records office containing sealed evidence.
One envelope was taken.
The forged psychological assessment.
Voss was cleaning up.
Except Hale still had the drive.
Investigators transported us separately.
My parents were furious about being treated like potential witnesses.
My mother was simply quiet.
At the federal building, technicians began examining Hale’s device.
I sat across from Dad in a conference room.
“You still think this was necessary?” I asked.
He looked twenty years older.
“I wanted Chloe safe.”
“Stop saying that.”
His eyes lifted.
“You wanted control.”
He flinched.
Good.
“You couldn’t control where Daniel lived. You couldn’t control his grief. You couldn’t control Chloe growing up. So you called it protection.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Mistakes are forgetting a birthday.”
My voice remained calm.
“You helped strangers watch a thirteen-year-old through her bedroom window.”
Mom began crying.
Dad turned away.
“And you,” I said to her, “used Daniel’s grief over Emily as evidence against him.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now that it failed.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Was what you did fair?”
She had no answer.
The door opened.
Ortiz entered holding a laptop.
“We opened the drive.”
Hale’s criminal attorney immediately sat straighter.
“What did you find?”
“Records.”
“What kind?”
“Payments. Communications. Surveillance orders.”
My father looked sick.
Ortiz continued.
“Voss has spent years collecting information on people involved in his old investigation.”
Including me.
“There are eleven names.”
“Are they targets?” I asked.
“Some appear to be leverage.”
She turned the screen.
My name appeared beside a folder.
CARTER, MADISON — FAMILY PRESSURE.
Underneath:
Richard Carter.
Evelyn Carter.
Daniel Carter.
Chloe Carter.
My throat tightened.
Then another heading appeared.
OBJECTIVE: DISCREDIT CREDIBILITY PRIOR TO DISCLOSURE.
I frowned.
“Disclosure of what?”
“We wondered that too.”
Ortiz opened another document.
A date.
Two weeks from now.
A congressional oversight panel was scheduled to receive classified testimony regarding the old Voss investigation.
My testimony.
Except I had not been told yet.
“Somebody expected you to be recalled,” Ortiz said.
“So Voss wanted me compromised before I testified.”
“Exactly.”
The custody battle created the perfect public scandal.
Unstable combat veteran.
Violent in court.
Estranged from family.
Accused of psychological problems.
If Hale had succeeded in introducing the forged psychiatric report, the story could have followed me everywhere.
My family had become ammunition.
Dad stared at the screen.
“He used us.”
I looked at him.
“You let him.”
The words landed harder.
Before Dad could respond, an analyst entered quickly.
“Agent Ortiz.”
She went outside.
Two minutes later she returned.
“We found Walsh.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Police station in Evanston.”
My shoulders loosened.
“He walked in twenty minutes ago.”
“What’s he saying?”
“That he wants protection.”
“From Voss?”
“Yes.”
Ortiz hesitated.
“And he says he knows what Voss plans to do next.”
An hour later, Peter Walsh sat behind protective glass.
He looked nothing like the sinister investigator my parents had imagined.
He looked exhausted.
“I didn’t know there was a kid at first,” he said.
I stared at him.
“You photographed her bedroom.”
“I know.”
“You messaged her.”
“No.”
That got my attention.
“Voss did.”
“You can prove that?”
“He had the phone.”
Walsh rubbed his face.
“Hale hired me for ordinary surveillance. Then Voss appeared. He paid cash. Wanted details. Schedules. Weaknesses.”
“Why?”
“He said he was preparing litigation.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Not after a while.”
“What changed?”
“He asked about you.”
Walsh looked through the glass.
“He didn’t hate your brother.”
“I know.”
“He hated you.”
“I know that too.”
Walsh leaned closer.
“He kept talking about making you choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Duty or family.”
My pulse slowed.
“What is he planning?”
Walsh swallowed.
“He thinks you’ll be testifying.”
“Yes.”
“He wants you unavailable.”
Ortiz shifted.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Walsh closed his eyes.
“The lake house.”
My father sat upright behind me.
“What lake house?”
Walsh looked at him.
“Yours.”
Lake Geneva.
A property my parents had owned for thirty years.
“What about it?” Dad demanded.
Walsh stared at me.
“Voss has been inside.”
My mother whispered, “No.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
“Why?”
“He installed equipment.”
“What equipment?”
Walsh shook his head.
“I never saw all of it.”
Then he said the sentence that changed everything.
“But whatever he installed, he said Richard Carter would bring the whole family there himself.”
Dad stood.
“That’s insane.”
Walsh gave him a tired look.
“Mr. Carter, you already invited everyone.”
Silence.
Mom turned toward Dad.
He went pale.
Then I remembered.
Emily’s memorial weekend.
Months earlier, before the custody fight exploded, Dad had insisted the family gather at Lake Geneva on September sixth.
Two days away.
Every Carter.
In one house.
At the same time.
Voss had not merely infiltrated our custody dispute.
May you like
He had designed it around our family calendar.
And my father had unknowingly delivered every person I cared about to the same address.
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