Chapter 33
Krystal stepped up as Special Agents Lee and Miln approached the closed door of the active courtroom. “Grace,” she murmured. “Leave your team outside for this. Trust me.”
The only downside of this ridiculously thought-out plan was the possibility of pissing off the Feds. Okay, not the only downside. Timing was everything on this.
Grace stopped, seemed to take Krystal in fully.
The agent wore black slacks, a crisp white shirt, and unlike before, no parka with FBI on the back.
Instead she had on a fitted black jacket and her badge on display around her neck.
Miln was dressed similarly, but wasn’t as put together as his partner.
“Are Ilena Grady and Maeve Morrow in there?” Grace asked.
“They are. But you’re going to want to let her parents go in first. Trust. Me.”
Almost on cue, Eric and Margot Morrow—try and say that five times fast—hurried past them, the woman’s perfume a cloying cloud as they dismissed the agents completely, storming into the courtroom.
“Am I going to be pissed off?” Grace murmured.
“Maybe at first, but I think you’ll get over it.” Krystal opened the heavy door, was glad when only Grace and her partner slipped inside with her.
Because it was an absolute madhouse.
She blinked to see Clover already inside with Sinead, wondered how the hell she’d gotten here before the Feds, but figured Sinead knew a back way in everywhere.
She watched as Grace frowned in Clover’s direction, but only for a moment as the judge was currently reading the Morrows what could only be described as a riot act.
“…a complete perversion of the justice system and all it stands for. These systems are put in place for at-risk adults, not the greed of entitled individuals who should know better.”
“You don’t understand!” Margot shouted. “Our daughter has been kidnapped.” She looked back at Grace and Miln, presumably for backup.
“Oh, I would say she has indeed. By you and your husband. For the record, imprisonment of an individual can carry hefty jail time. And faking a conservatorship can result in a litany of charges including fraud, forgery, perjury—”
“But Judge Hogan—”
“Is currently being pulled into custody.” Judge MacLean’s voice dripped with ice. “And I do not want to hear one more word from either of you.”
“What the hell is going on?” Grace looked at Maeve Morrow, who was sitting in between two lawyers, both of whom worked with Sinead.
“Maeve Morrow was kidnapped by Mosker. But she was also essentially being imprisoned by her parents who wanted access to her trust.”
“Like a Britney situation?”
“Sort of. My understanding is that her parents drugged her before her twenty-first birthday party and when she acted, well, insane, thanks to being drugged, they had her committed into their care. They paid off a judge, a couple doctors, moved her away from all her friends, and have been living off her trust.”
“Jesus on a Harley,” Grace muttered.
“Indeed. Now, since we couldn’t tell you guys about this, we’re sharing credit for everything. This was a joint task force according to everyone.”
“I have a lot of questions.”
“I figured.”
“What about her?” She chin-nodded at Ilena, who was sitting on the same bench as Maeve, twisting her hands nervously in her lap as she watched two sheriff’s deputies handcuff the Morrows as they demanded their lawyers.
It was a bit of a circus until the Morrows were out of the courtroom, still shouting about how this was a mistake.
“I know you’re going to question her, but she was a victim too.
Mosker was holding her prisoner so she could basically feed his prisoner.
He didn’t want to take care of the day-to-day of keeping a kidnap victim alive,” she said dryly.
“And according to her, Mosker is working for someone else. A bigger fish.”
Grace’s eyes lit up. “I knew it,” she snapped. “Mosker is too dumb to have set all that up… They really had enough evidence to get a conservatorship struck down so quickly? That’s…intense.”
Krystal nodded. “You’ll get to see all of it. Maeve even has recordings. But there’s also financials showing they paid off the judge who created it. Not to mention the doctors involved in this mess. The money trail is what will bring them down.”
“You could have told us,” Grace murmured.
“I wanted to.” She held up her palms when Grace snapped a look at her. “I swear I did.” She let it drop there because she wasn’t going to explain any more. Grace would get her questions answered eventually—most of them anyway.
And Ilena shouldn’t be found guilty of anything, but she was going to have to answer questions. More than she likely wanted to.
It was going to be a very, very long day.
Krystal gave a nod to Clover, who simply smiled at her before she sat next to Ilena, clasped her hand in hers.
Micah and her brothers weren’t there, which was no surprise. She knew they’d somehow gotten the recordings Maeve Morrow had hidden, but Krystal didn’t want any of the details on how that had come about.
Plausible deniability was her best friend.