Chapter 6 - HUNTED IN THE ARCHIVESAmelia grabbed the archival folder, shoved the documents into her leather satchel, and dropped flat against the floor as the frosted glass pane of the archive door shattered.
Clink. Shard by shard.
A gloved hand reached through the broken lock mechanism and clicked the heavy deadbolt open.
"Dr. Carter," a smooth, chillingly familiar voice called out from the darkness of the doorway. "We know you're in here. You can't outrun forty years of institutional control."
It wasn't Evan. It was Marcus Vance—the senior partner of Sterling & Holt, the man who had supposedly been representing her legal interests.
Amelia crawled silently along the base of the metal shelving units, her heart hammering against her ribs. She pulled her phone out, but the signal indicator showed zero bars. They were using a portable cell-jammer in the hallway.
"You're making a terrible mistake, Marcus," Amelia called out from behind a stack of historical case ledgers, trying to buy precious seconds to calculate an escape route. "The federal marshals already have copies of the financial records. Killing me won't stop the investigation."
"Who said anything about killing you?" Marcus's footsteps padded closer, the sound of his leather shoes echoing off the tile floor. "An unfortunate accident in the municipal archives. A collapsed shelving unit. A tragic occupational hazard for a brilliant, unstable forensic doctor who suffered a severe psychological breakdown after her divorce."
Marcus stopped just three feet from her shelf.
Amelia gripped a heavy, steel-backed specimen clipboard in her right hand, her muscles coiled like a spring.
"You think you're the first person who tried to expose the Carters?" Marcus sneered, shining a heavy tactical flashlight down the aisle. The beam swept across the floor, missing Amelia by mere inches as she ducked beneath the bottom shelf. "Clara Vance thought she could expose them, too. And look where—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Amelia exploded upward from her crouch, driving the steel-backed clipboard directly into Marcus’s jaw with all the kinetic force she could muster.
CRACK.
Marcus staggered backward, dropping his flashlight as he collided hard against a metal rack of historical tax records.
Amelia didn't wait to see if he stayed down. She sprinted toward the emergency exit stairwell at the end of the hall, threw her weight against the push-bar, and burst out into the cool night air of the alleyway.
She didn't stop running until she reached the illuminated facade of the federal courthouse three blocks away.
May you like
She walked straight through the metal detectors, slammed the archival folder onto the duty marshal's desk, and gasped out:
"I need to speak to the Special Agent in Charge. Right now. I have proof of a multi-decade homicide conspiracy tied to the Carter family."
