Chapter 3 - THE JUDAS COVENANT
I burst through the back door into the pouring rain.
The cold water was a shock,
a baptism of reality.
I ran through the overgrown garden,
my shoes sinking into the mud.
I didn't go for my car;
they would be tracking it.
Instead,
I climbed the back fence,
tearing my blouse on the rusted wire.
I stumbled into the alleyway,
my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I needed to get to the city,
to someone I could trust.
But who?
The Chief of Police was in the ledger.
The District Attorney was Frank’s golfing partner.
I was in a cage,
and the bars were made of the very people who were supposed to protect me.
I walked for miles,
clinging to the shadows,
until I found a 24-hour diner near the edge of town.
I walked into the bathroom,
staring at the stranger in the mirror.
My face was pale,
streaked with dirt and blood.
My eyes were wide,
the pupils dilated with adrenaline.
I took out my phone and called the only person who didn't care about Topeka politics.
My sister,
Sarah,
who lived three states away.
“Hannah?”
she answered,
her voice thick with sleep.
“What’s wrong?”
“Listen to me,”
I said,
my voice cracking.
“I’m sending you some files.
If I don't call you in twelve hours,
send them to the FBI.
Not the local police,
Sarah.
The FBI.”
“Hannah,
you’re scaring me,”
she cried.
“Just do it!”
I hung up and spent the next hour uploading the photos and the recordings to a cloud drive.
The seven-second clip,
the voices of Roger and Victor,
the images of the ledger.
It was all there.
As I finished,
I saw a black SUV pull into the diner’s parking lot.
My heart stopped.
Frank’s car.
They had found me.
I realized then that Brian must have had a tracker on my phone.
I dropped the phone into the toilet tank and slipped out through the kitchen’s grease-stained back exit.
I could hear Frank’s voice,
booming and angry,
inside the diner.
“Where is she?”
I ran toward the woods,
the darkness swallowing me whole.
I climbed an old oak tree,
pressing myself against the bark.
I watched as Frank and two of his men searched the perimeter.
They had flashlights,
their beams cutting through the rain like lightsabers.
“She can’t have gone far,”
one of the men said.
“Find her,”
Frank ordered.
“Dead or alive,
just get that ledger back.”
Dead or alive.
The father-in-law who served me soup had just signed my death warrant.
I waited in that tree for hours,
shivering,
my teeth chattering so loud I thought they would hear.
I realized I couldn't just run.
If I ran,
they would eventually find me.
I had to go back.
I had to strike them where it hurt.
I had to destroy the engine of their power.
I remembered the gala.
The annual Public Works fundraiser.
It was tomorrow night.
May you like
Every corrupt soul in Topeka would be there.
It was the perfect stage for a final act.
