“Blackmail, Mullen? That’s a dark path.”
“They buried my son in the dirt,” I hissed, the venom finally leaking into my voice. “The darkness is exactly where I intend to operate.”
Dick paused. “I’ll have the encrypted file to you by dawn. But Nate, if she panics and goes to the police, this whole revenge tour collapses before it starts.”
Chapter 3: Removing the Supports
The ensuing days blurred into a grueling regimen of trauma management and tactical warfare. By day, I was the soothing father, coaxing Jamie to eat, holding him through night terrors, and introducing him to a specialized trauma psychologist, Dr. Viola Russell.
By night, I sat in the blue glow of my home office, compiling my master document: The Blueprint for Justice.
I had retained the most ruthless divorce attorney in Virginia, Earl Nicholson, moving to immediately freeze all marital assets, severing Miranda and Walter’s access to capital just as they desperately needed bail money. I also hired Joan Stevenson, a razor-sharp victims’ rights advocate, to interface with the district attorney’s office.
Detectives Martin Ferguson and Curtis Spence had warned me that the defense would attempt to frame the burial as a severe, but ultimately harmless, disciplinary prank. They would try to minimize the intent.
I couldn’t allow that.
On the fourth evening following the arrests, I procured an untraceable burner phone. Earlier that afternoon, Dick had arranged for a discreet courier to deliver a manila envelope to Chelsea McKenzie at her bank. It contained a flash drive loaded with undeniable proof of her felony embezzlement, accompanied by a typed note instructing her to call my burner at exactly 10:00 PM.
When the clock struck the hour, the device chimed.
“Hello, Chelsea,” I greeted her. My vocal cords felt strung with piano wire.
“Nate,” she whimpered, the absolute terror palpable through the cellular network. “What is this? What do you want from me?”
“I want you to grasp the gravity of your architecture,” I stated coldly. “You placed a monetary wager on how long my six-year-old child would survive suffocation. Now, you are facing a crossroads.”
“It wasn’t my idea! Walter commanded us to do it!”
“You are an adult, Chelsea. You chose compliance over morality. But here is your sole opportunity for salvation. That drive contains proof of your nine-thousand-dollar theft. Combined with aggravated child abuse, you will rot in a concrete cell for two decades.”
I could hear her hyperventilating. “Please, I’ll pay the bank back. My husband’s hours were cut. I was desperate!”
“I do not care about your petty rationalizations,” I snapped. “Tomorrow morning, you will walk into the District Attorney’s office. You will offer a comprehensive, unredacted statement detailing Walter’s orchestration and Miranda’s enthusiastic sadism. You will turn state’s evidence. If you refuse, or if you utter a word of this arrangement to the authorities, I mail the drive to your branch manager and the police.”
“You’re blackmailing me to destroy my own family!”
“I am offering you a fire escape while the building burns,” I corrected. “You have until tomorrow at noon. Make the smart choice.”
I severed the connection, my hands remarkably steady. I had expected to feel a twinge of moral revulsion, but looking at the monitor showing Jamie sleeping fitfully in the next room, I felt nothing but a profound, chilling clarity.
The following evening, my attorney Joan Stevenson called, her voice vibrating with adrenaline. “I have no earthly idea what the universe just did for us, Nate, but Chelsea McKenzie just handed the prosecution the keys to the kingdom. She flipped. She spent four hours corroborating every sadistic detail, including Walter’s premeditation.”
“Is it sufficient for convictions?”
“It shatters their unified defense strategy entirely. The primary three—Walter, Miranda, and Wade—are going to hang.”
One pillar down. Eight remained.
Dick arrived at my newly heavily-secured home later that night. He dropped a thick dossier onto my oak desk. “Chelsea performed flawlessly. But Walter made bail today. He took out a predatory loan against his house. Miranda and Wade are still rotting in holding, but the patriarch is out and trying to rally the troops.”
“He owes seventy thousand to a mob-connected bookie,” I recalled, tapping the dossier. “And his assets are frozen because of Earl’s legal maneuvers.”
“Correct,” Dick grinned, a feral display of teeth. “The bookie’s name is Curtis the Snake. He operates under the radar but possesses a notorious lack of patience. If Curtis believes Walter’s assets are going to be seized by the state following a massive criminal conviction…”
