Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Tacoma Brick Works
Tacoma, Washington
Allie sat in the unmarked sedan parked across from the Brick Works, hidden in the shadow of an abandoned loading dock where the vehicle blended into the deeper darkness.
It was her second night on surveillance rotation, and the hours had taken on a numbing monotony, broken only by periodic check-ins from the SWAT commander and the low static hum of the radio on the dash.
She couldn't sleep. Even when she went home between shifts and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her mind refused to let go. She kept flashing on images of Sarah Park tied to that chair—that rope around her wrists and the grooves it had left in her skin.
Allie adjusted the binoculars on her lap and scanned the Brick Works compound for the hundredth time.
The old industrial facility sat dark and sprawling on the far side of the battered chain-link fence.
Sections leaned at angles, and the gate hung open on rusted hinges that no longer met.
Beyond the fence, the storage buildings rose in blocky silhouettes against the clouded sky.
The SWAT team was out there. She couldn’t see them, which was the point.
They’d taken positions around the perimeter before dusk and gone silent, concealed in the overgrown landscaping, in the lee of the crumbling outbuildings.
The radio crackled again, sharp enough to make her flinch after hours of dead air.
“Command, this is Bravo One. Vehicle approaching from the east. Single set of headlights, moving slow.”
Allie straightened in the seat and brought the binoculars up. She watched through the glass as a dark sedan crept along the access road that ran past the facility's eastern boundary. The car slowed as it reached the broken gate, and the headlights went dark.
The sedan rolled through the gap in the fence and stopped near the storage building where they’d found Pym's makeshift killing room. The engine cut. For a long moment, nothing happened, and Allie held her breath against the silence.
Then the driver's door opened, and a thin figure stepped out.
Even from a distance, she recognized the gaunt frame. Arthur Pym.
He moved toward the building with quick, purposeful steps. The radio came alive again. “All units, this is Command. Target is on foot, approaching structure alpha. Hold positions. Prepare to move on my mark.”
Allie watched expectantly as the SWAT positions tightened around the compound. The operation was unfolding exactly as they had planned. They would let Pym enter the building, seal the exits, and take him on command.
But Pym stopped.
He was twenty yards from the entrance when his body went rigid.
His head turned to the left, then to the right, and even from across the compound, Allie could see the sudden tension in his posture.
He froze for two full seconds, his head swiveling as he took in the perimeter, and then he spun and bolted toward the tree line across the road from the facility.
Allie threw open the car door and was running before her feet fully registered the pavement. She keyed the radio as she sprinted toward the road. “Command, suspect is running. He's heading for the tree line to the west. I'm in pursuit.”
She crossed the road and hit the fence line, ducking through a gap in the chain-link that scraped against her jacket.
The ground changed beneath her boots from broken asphalt to soft earth and then to loose rock.
She pushed through low brush and scrub. The slope steepened over rocky, root-laced terrain, and branches caught her arms and face as she climbed into the woods.
Ahead, she could hear Pym. The sounds carried clearly in the still night air: the snap of branches, the ragged rhythm of someone running hard over uneven terrain. She adjusted her course toward the sound and pushed harder, her own breathing coming faster and her legs starting to burn.
She reached for her phone and activated the recorder without breaking stride, then shoved it back into her jacket pocket. If she caught up to him, she wanted every word on tape.
The sounds ahead grew fainter. Pym was fast, and the terrain was working in his favor. She had the impression he knew this area, or at least moved across it with a certainty that Allie did not share. She stumbled over a root, caught herself on a low branch, and kept going.
Then the sounds stopped.
Allie slowed and then halted completely with her weapon raised, sweeping the trees in every direction.
The woods had gone quiet except for her own ragged breathing and the distant sound of SWAT moving through the brush to her rear, searching.
She turned in a slow circle, peering into shadows that revealed nothing.
“Drop the gun.”
The order came from somewhere behind her. It was low and taut, with a tremor buried in it like a wire pulled too tight.
Allie turned slowly. Arthur Pym stood ten feet away with a pistol aimed at her chest. His hand shook in a persistent quiver that traveled up his wrist and into his forearm.
Even in the dark, with only a thin slice of moon to see by, she could see his pale eyes were locked on hers.
He had circled back on her while she ran forward, and now he was planted between two fir trees with the gun extended in both hands.
She calculated the distance, the angle, and the shake in his grip. Ten feet was close enough that even an unsteady hand could find its target.
Allie crouched and placed her sidearm on the ground. She rose with her hands up where he could see them.
“You don't understand.” Pym's words were pleading. “None of you understand what was done.”
“Then tell me.” She kept her tone level, conversational. Training took over. “Help me understand.”
“They made me complicit.” He said the word as though it had been lodged in his throat for years. “Sterling. Vance. Halloway. Park—all of them. They corrupted everything I spent my life building, and they made me part of it.”
“The evidence, you mean,” Allie said. “In the Torrino case.”
“They fabricated the exhibits.” Pym's eyes narrowed, and his hands tightened on the pistol.
“The gun. The financial records. The wiretaps. The witness statements. All of it was manufactured, and I was forced to log every lie as though it were the truth. My name is on those records. My signature. I built my entire career on integrity, and they destroyed it!”
“Who forced you, Arthur?”
“All of them.” He shook his head in disdain.
“But it was Reeves who threatened me. The marshal.
He told me if I didn't log the evidence, they would blame me for the chaos.
He stood in my vault and put that gun on the cart with the rest of it, and Reeves told me I would lose everything if I didn't comply. It was Thorne who orchestrated everything.”
Reeves? Thorne? Allie swallowed the bewilderment and pressed forward. “The U.S. Attorney?”
Pym's teeth clenched. “He wanted Torrino convicted at any cost. He decided the rules didn't apply, and he got everyone to go along with it.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes. Aren’t you listening? I told you it was all of them.
Every single one. Sterling planted the evidence.
Vance authorized the illegal wiretaps. Halloway fabricated the financial records.
Park coerced the witnesses. And Reeves made sure nobody talked.
” Pym’s chin dipped, and for a moment, the rage left him.
“I was the last piece. The custodian who made it all official. They couldn't have done it without me.”
“Arthur, killing them doesn't fix what happened. It doesn't correct the record.”
“She said it was the only way to make the truth visible.” He said it without hesitation. “The numbers had to be recalled. Filed properly. Permanently.”
“Who told you that?” Allie took a half step forward, and the barrel moved to track her. She stopped. “You said ‘she' told you it had to be done. Who is she?”
Pym's jaw loosened, and for half a second, he looked like a man remembering someone he had loved. Then it was gone. “She understood. She was the only one who understood.”
Allie started to say Linda, but Pym cut her off.
“I have to shoot you now.” His voice had gone hollow now. His hands were shaking violently, the barrel of the pistol tracing erratic circles in the air between them.
The shot rang out and split the night. Allie flinched hard as her body braced for impact, but there was none. The round struck a tree trunk to her left, sending a spray of bark into the air.
A second shot came from over her shoulder, and Pym collapsed. His legs buckled first, and then the rest of him followed, dropping sideways onto the rocks. The pistol clattered away from his open hand.
Allie spun around, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her teeth.
Through the darkness, she could make out Jake Reeves standing fifteen feet behind her. The barrel of his weapon was still pointed toward where Pym had fallen. She couldn’t read his face in the shadows, but his breathing was even.
“What are you doing here?” It came out sharper than she intended.
“Heard it across the wire. SWAT stationed me on the southern corner.” Reeves holstered his sidearm and took a step closer, his eyes on Pym's motionless body. “Sounded like you were in trouble. I came to help.”
Allie looked at him for a long moment, measuring the words against what Pym had just told her. Reeves turned to face her and held her gaze without flinching.
“Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”
Reeves nodded once, then keyed his radio to call in their position. Allie remained near Pym's body while the SWAT team converged around them, and she kept her expression neutral as the scene took shape. Agents flocked in and secured the area.
But she said nothing about what Pym had told her.
He’d named Reeves in that final exchange, had implicated him in the conspiracy at the center of all of it, and Allie replayed the sequence in her mind with painstaking care, praying Pym had mentioned the marshal's name well before Reeves appeared and that he hadn’t heard his accusation, but his approach had been so stealthy she had no idea how long he’d been there.
She felt the weight of her gun, ready, as she and Reeves moved through the scene. From his demeanor, she decided he had no idea what Pym had said about him. And for now, Allie intended to keep it that way.