Chapter 8 - The Storm over Michigan Avenue
"He's out?" I screamed, stepping out of the vault into the corridor. "How could he be out?!"
"It’s a state court loop," Reyes swore, slamming her hand against the vault door. "His father’s firm has three former partners sitting on the state appellate bench! The federal warrants hadn't been fully processed by the state clerk's office before his lawyers got the release order signed!"
"Where is he now?" I demanded.
"His GPS ankle monitor was activated twenty minutes ago," the marshal checked his tablet screen. "He’s at his law firm's main offices on the forty-fifth floor of the Prudential Building on Michigan Avenue."
"He’s liquidating the hard drives," I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp, lethal clarity. "The master server for the Lin Maritime trust is located in his private office vault. If he wipes those drives before the federal marshals arrive with the vault warrant, the financial trail to Switzerland dies!"
"We don't have jurisdiction to enter his private law office without the signed federal search warrant from Judge Miller," Reyes said, her face pale with frustration. "And Miller won't sign it until six AM!"
"I have jurisdiction," I said.
Reyes looked at me. "What?"
"I am still legally his wife," I said, pulling my golden wedding band from my finger and holding it up to the bright vault lights. "And my name is listed as a secondary managing director on his law firm's corporate lease. I can walk through those front doors right now, and you can come with me as my private security detail."
Agent Reyes stared at me for three long seconds. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her face.
"Get the transport vehicle," Reyes told the marshals. "We're going to the Prudential Building."
Ten minutes later, three black vehicles pulled up to the curb outside the sixty-story glass tower on Michigan Avenue. The storm was at its peak, rain slashing across the sidewalk in sheets, thunder rolling off Lake Michigan.
I walked through the revolving glass doors of the lobby, flanked by Agent Reyes and two federal marshals in plain clothes.
The night security guard recognized me immediately. "Mrs. Vance? Mr. Vance came up twenty minutes ago. He said you were meeting him."
"Key the executive elevator to the forty-fifth floor, please," I said, my voice smooth and calm.
The guard swiped his master keycard. The elevator doors opened with a soft chime.
We ascended in total silence, the floor numbers flashing red on the digital display above the door: 30... 35... 40... 45.
DING.
The elevator doors opened directly into the marble reception area of Vance, Sterling & Cole.
The lights inside the main office were off, except for a single amber glow spilling out from the double mahogany doors at the end of the long corridor—Julian’s corner office.
I walked down the carpeted hallway, my heels clicking softly against the floorboards.
I pushed the heavy mahogany door open.
Julian was standing near an open wall safe behind his executive desk, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up, stuffing stacks of physical bearer bonds and foreign currency into a silver aluminum briefcase. A heavy industrial degaussing magnet sat on his desk, plugged into his server rack, destroying hard drives one by one with a loud, rhythmic THUMP-CLICK.
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He froze when he saw me standing in the doorway.
"Clara," Julian said, his voice quiet, his eyes darting to the plainclothes marshals standing behind me in the shadows. "You shouldn't have come here."
