Chapter 4 - The Web of Immunity
By 2:00 AM, the emergency trauma wing at St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital was secured under armed state police guard.
Audrey lay in the bed, her wrist wrapped in a cast, an IV drip restoring her fluids while she slept under mild sedation.
I sat in the corner armchair, holding her uninjured hand, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.
Captain Vance walked into the room, setting two paper cups of black coffee on the bedside table before sitting down beside me.
"Julian’s primary defense team arrived at the precinct forty minutes ago," Vance reported, his voice low. "They brought a high-ranking city prosecutor who tried to claim the initial call was an unverified prank and that Julian acted in self-defense against a domestic dispute."
"Who was the prosecutor?" I asked, my voice flat and dangerous.
"District Attorney Miller," Vance revealed. "The same man whose campaign received three hundred thousand dollars from Arthur Thorne’s real estate trust last year."
I let out a low, cold laugh.
"They really believe their money buys them immunity from everything," I murmured, pulling a black leather ledger from my coat pocket—a ledger I had retrieved from Arthur Thorne’s locked study while carrying Audrey out of the estate.
"What is that?" Vance asked, leaning forward.
"Twelve years ago, when I was leading the Public Corruption Unit," I explained, opening the binder to reveal pages of handwritten offshore wire transactions, "I investigated an illegal zoning scheme involving state harbor development contracts."
"The primary lead vanished after our main witness died in a suspicious hit-and-run."
I pointed to a specific account code listed on page fourteen of the ledger.
"That account belongs to District Attorney Miller's private firm in the Cayman Islands," I said, looking Vance straight in the eyes.
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"Arthur Thorne didn't just buy local police protection tonight, Marcus."
"He's been paying off the entire district attorney's office for fifteen years."
