Page 74 of The Guilty Trial

“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.

Chapter Forty-Three

FBI Field Office

Tacoma, Washington

Allie arrived at the office before seven, having barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in those woods, staring down the barrel of Pym's trembling pistol, waiting for the shot that would end her life.

She showered when she got home, standing under the water until it went cold, trying to wash the woods off her skin. It didn’t work. She could still feel the branches catching at her jacket, could still hear the loose stones scattering under Pym's feet as he ran.

She sat at her desk and checked her phone for the third time. The voice recording was there, timestamped from the night before. She pressed play just long enough to confirm the file was intact, then locked the screen and dropped the phone on her desk.