Chapter 30
thirty
Angelina
Three knocks, evenly spaced. The knock of someone who expects to be let in.
We've been on the couch for the past hour.
Waiting. Cole's thigh warm against mine, some late-night show neither of us is watching flickering on the TV.
I've been finding excuses to touch him—shifting closer, brushing his arm, my body seeking anchors while my mind runs through everything that could go wrong.
"Showtime." His voice is barely a breath.
He stands. Moves toward the kitchen, positions himself at the opening between the rooms—visible from the foyer, impossible to miss. One bodyguard—the variable she already knows about.
I smooth my shirt. Stand. The novel I've been pretending to read falls to the cushion. Three days with this book, and I couldn't tell you a single character's name.
I cross to the front door. The knob is cool against my palm. My heartbeat runs steady and too fast, the kind of calm that comes from preparation rather than peace.
On the other side of this door stands a woman who has killed fourteen federal judges. Who left a flower on my desk with a countdown to my death.
I open the door.
Victoria Lockwood stands on my porch. Blue coat, pleasant professional smile. A silver thermos clutched in both hands like an offering.
"Judge Castellano." Her voice carries genuine warmth. Concern, even. "I'm so sorry to come by this late. I found something about the judge killings. I didn't want to wait until morning."
Her eyes move past me. Find Cole at the kitchen opening. She looks back at me without a flicker of concern.
I don't step back to let her in. Not yet.
"Dr. Lockwood. It's nearly midnight." I keep my voice level, the same tone I use when a witness is about to perjure themselves and doesn't realize I already know. "That's a lot of research for a toxicology expert. Why bring it to me instead of the FBI?"
"The FBI has been less than helpful." Her expression shifts, a micromovement, there and gone. "Leads that go nowhere. Agents who don't return calls. I thought perhaps a judge might have more success getting their attention."
She shifts the thermos. "I brought chamomile. You must be under so much stress with everything happening. I thought we could talk."
I hold her gaze. Search for the monster underneath the helpful colleague routine. There's only earnestness. Conviction. The absolute certainty of someone who believes she's doing the right thing.
That's what makes her dangerous. Not the poison. The faith.
"Come in." I step aside, staying out of arm's reach. My throat tightens around the words—I'm inviting a murderer across my threshold, into the house where my daughter watches cartoons on Saturday mornings. "The living room is through there."
She crosses into my home. Passes Cole without a second glance, without slowing. She doesn't understand that she just turned her back on the most dangerous person in the room.
The door closes behind her with a soft click.
Victoria settles onto the couch, her back to the kitchen. To Cole. She sets the thermos on the coffee table. Chesca curls up on those same cushions on Saturday mornings. The team is positioned around this house. And I want this woman in handcuffs so badly I can taste it.
I take the armchair by the windows. The floor-to-ceiling glass behind me shows nothing but dark hills and distant city lights.
From here, I can see everything: Victoria on the couch, Cole standing silent at the kitchen opening behind her, the photographs she's about to spread across my coffee table.
Cole catches my eye. Barely a nod. I'm here.
What Victoria hasn't factored in: Damian waiting in the garage. Asher on the Hendersons' roof with his scope trained on these windows. Jax two blocks out. Vanessa watching every camera in a six-block radius.
Victoria unscrews the thermos cap and pours into it—the cap doubles as a cup. Steam rises. The smell of chamomile fills the space between us, sweet and deceptively gentle.
"Tea?" She takes a sip. "I find it helps. Especially on nights like this."
"I'm fine. Thank you."
She takes another sip. See? Safe. I recognize the performance. I've watched witnesses do the same thing on the stand, demonstrate innocence through casual behavior.
"I've been going through court records," she says, reaching into her bag. She produces a manila folder, spreads photographs across my coffee table. Dead judges, crime scene timestamps. "The pattern is accelerating. Whoever is doing this—they're getting bolder."
Whoever.
"And you think I fit the profile."
"I think you do." Her pale green eyes meet mine. There's something wet in them—a grief that never quite dries. "Trafficking cases. Powerful networks. The people behind them have long memories, Your Honor."
"We all have cases like that."
"Not like this." She taps one of the photographs. Judge Patterson. Eleanor, who made me laugh at that ethics panel two years ago. "She thought she was untouchable too."
I look at the photographs spread across my coffee table. Faces I've been trying not to think about. Colleagues, friends of colleagues. People who sat where I sit and made the same choices I make.
"You've done a lot of research, Dr. Lockwood."
"Research. Patterns. Following the money." She recites it like a catechism—practiced, memorized. "Finding the connections others miss."
"And what connections have you found?"
She sets down the cup. The pleasant mask slips. What remains is quieter. Colder. Certain of its own righteousness.
"Of course you have. You're smart. Smarter than the others."
Her lips curve—almost respect, if respect could exist between us.
"They were corrupt," she says. "Every single one. Taking bribes, burying evidence, letting guilty men walk free while girls like my sister—"
Her voice catches. Real grief, rage to match. It lands in my chest—an unwanted recognition. I know what it's like to watch systems fail. I know what it's like to beg for help that never comes.
I can't afford to feel sympathy for the woman who came here to kill me.
"I know about Rose."
Victoria goes still.
"I know she was trafficked. I know you searched for her."
"You don't know anything." The words come out sharp, defensive. "You don't know what it's like to watch the system fail. To file reports that go nowhere. To beg judges—judges—for help, and have them look right through you."
She stands and moves around the coffee table toward the windows, toward me.
My fingers tighten on the armrest. She stops three feet away, staring out at the dark hills beyond the glass. Close enough that I can smell the chamomile on her breath.
Behind her, across the room, Cole shifts his weight. Ready, but not moving yet.
"Eighteen months," Victoria says to the glass. "Eighteen months of legal channels. Lawyers. Advocates. Police who told me to be patient. Judges who said there wasn't enough evidence." She turns to face me. "And by the time I found her—"
Her voice breaks. She doesn't finish. She doesn't need to.
"The people who destroyed my sister are still out there. Protected by judges like them." She gestures at the photographs on the coffee table. "So I started correcting the balance."
"Correcting the balance." I keep my tone neutral. "Is that what you call it?"
"What would you call it?" Victoria returns to the couch. Sits. Composed again, grief tucked back behind purpose. Her back to Cole once more. "They had power. They abused it. They protected monsters and called it justice. Someone had to stop them."
"And me? What monsters have I protected?"
Victoria tilts her head. She's reciting from memory now—I recognize the cadence. Someone else's research. Someone else's conclusions.
"The Orozco case. Five years ago. Three girls recovered from a trafficking operation.
You gave the driver eighteen months." Her eyes harden.
"Six months after his release, they found a fourth girl in Tijuana.
Sixteen years old. She'd been sold before the raid—traded to another network.
And the man who drove her there walked free. "
The Orozco case. I remember it.
"Julian Orozco was twenty-two years old. He drove a van once because his cousin told him it was furniture." I don't let my voice waver. "He didn't know what he was transporting. He cried on the stand when he found out."
Victoria's expression flickers—a crack in the certainty.
"The cousin," I continue. "Roberto Orozco. He ran the operation. He made the sale. He's serving thirty-five years in federal prison because I made sure of it. Julian was a pawn—a scared kid who made one terrible mistake and cooperated fully with the prosecution."
"You're defending yourself." Victoria's voice sharpens. "They all defend themselves. 'It wasn't my fault. I didn't know. I was just following orders.'"
"I'm telling you what happened."
"What happened is a girl died in Tijuana. And you—"
"Whoever gave you that case file left out half the story." I lean forward. "Who was it? Who told you about Orozco?"
Victoria stops breathing.
"My sources are reliable."
"Your sources told you Julian Orozco was a trafficker. He wasn't. He was a delivery driver who didn't ask questions." I hold her gaze. "Who gave you his name?"
"I verified—"
"You verified what they wanted you to verify. Who are they?"
Victoria's jaw tightens. She reaches into her bag.
Behind her, Cole straightens. I keep my eyes on Victoria.
But it's not a weapon. It's a photograph.
My father. In the Meadowbrook garden. Sitting on the bench by the roses, face tilted toward the sun. He looks peaceful. Content. He doesn't know someone is watching him.
Papà.
I didn't think—I never thought to protect him. He's already lost to me in so many ways, his mind retreating further each month, but his body is still there. Still vulnerable. And I didn't think to—
A tremor builds in my fingers. I press them flat against my thighs. I won't give her that.
"Giovanni Castellano." Victoria's voice has gone soft. Clinical. This is the voice she uses with her victims. Gentle. Almost kind. "Room 114. Donepezil, 10 milligrams daily. The nurses change shifts at seven. The night attendant takes a smoke break at eleven."
Cole's voice in my earpiece, low: "I'm right here."
"You have until Friday, Your Honor." She pushes the thermos toward me. "I can make this painless for you. Gentle. Like falling asleep. Or I can visit Room 114. And it won't be gentle at all."
I look at the photograph. My father in the sunlight.
Then I look at Victoria.
"Who told you his medication schedule? Meadowbrook doesn't publish that."
"That's not—"
"Who told you about Patterson? About Li?" I stand. "You didn't find those case files yourself. Someone handed them to you. Someone pointed you at judges and said these are the corrupt ones and you believed them."
"They WERE corrupt." Victoria's on her feet now too. The composure cracking. "I saw the evidence—"
"Evidence someone gave you. Have you ever asked yourself why?"
"I don't have to justify myself to you." Her voice rises. "You're just like the others. Making excuses. Hiding behind procedure while girls like Rose—"
"I'm asking you a simple question. Who gave you the list?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters if they lied to you."
"They didn't—"
"Patterson took bribes? Eleanor Patterson, who reported her own clerk for accepting gifts from defense attorneys?" I take a step toward her. "Li protected traffickers? Henry Li, who extended sentences twice because he thought the guidelines were too lenient?"
Victoria's breathing has changed. Faster. Shallower.
"You're lying."
"I knew them. I knew them." My voice doesn't waver. "And whoever told you they were corrupt was feeding you names of judges who were actually doing their jobs."
"No." Victoria shakes her head. "No, I verified—"
"You verified what they showed you. Fabricated evidence. Sealed records that don't exist. They used your grief, Victoria. They pointed you like a weapon and pulled the trigger."
"Stop." The word comes out strangled. Quiet. Almost a plea. "Just—stop."
Her hand shoots into the bag.
Cole's voice cuts through the earpiece: "We're done."
He crosses the space in four silent steps. Victoria's fingers close around something in the bag, but before she can pull it free, his hand locks her wrist. His other arm wraps around her, pinning her against him.
The bag drops. A glass vial rolls across the hardwood, stops against the leg of the coffee table.
I stare at it. Clear liquid. Innocuous. That small thing would have stopped my heart. Would have left Chesca without a mother.
Victoria struggles. Once. Twice. Then goes still.
From the kitchen, the back door opens. Footsteps. A moment later, Damian appears at the kitchen opening, standing where Cole was seconds ago.
Victoria's eyes sweep the room. Taking in the positions. The trap she walked into.
"I was never getting out of this house." Her voice is hollow.
"No." I bend down and pick up the vial. The glass is cold against my palm. "You weren't."
Cole zip-ties her wrists, professional and efficient. Victoria doesn't fight.
"I saw the evidence," she says to me. Her voice cracks. "I saw the bank transfers. The buried cases. I saw it."
"You saw what they wanted you to see."
Cole passes her to Damian without a word.
Damian takes Victoria by the arm, steers her through the kitchen, past the laundry room to the garage.
The last thing I see before the garage door closes: Damian pulling a black bag over her face.