Chapter 64 - The Arraignment of Shadows
The wail of sirens cut through the morning blizzard half an hour later.
They were not local town cruisers. Four armored tactical response units from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Emergency Response Team (ERT), accompanied by two unmarked federal transport vans, rolled through the crushed perimeter gates, their blue and red lights painting the pristine snow in strobes of vivid color.
Harlan Vance stepped out into the open, carbine held safely pointed down, his hands raised in a practiced, calm posture of surrender. A federal inspector in a heavy winter parka stepped out of the lead vehicle, holding up a badge and a sealed black folder.
"Harlan Vance?" the inspector asked, his breath fogging in the frigid air.
"I’m Harlan," the old soldier replied. "Victor Graves is in the snowbank. He brought an unauthorized retrieval unit onto sovereign Crown land with military-grade explosives."
The federal agents moved with swift, clinical precision. Graves was hoisted from the snow, his broken leg immobilized in a field splint before he was thrown into the back of the transport van in heavy federal irons. The remaining mercenaries were disarmed, cuffed, and loaded into secondary carriers.
Melissa sat on the tailgate of one of the police cruisers, wrapped in a coarse wool shock blanket, shivering uncontrollably. A female officer stood beside her, taking her formal statement.
As Jared walked past her toward the shop, Melissa looked up, her face hollowed by shock, cold, and the sudden, crushing realization of what her life had become.
"Jared..." she choked out, her voice barely a whisper against the hum of the idling diesels. "Jared, please. I didn't know he was going to bring guns. I thought... I thought he was just going to force you to pay me what Dad owed me. Jared, I have nowhere to go. The landlord locked my apartment. The car is ruined. I don't have five dollars to my name."
Jared stopped. He turned slowly, looking down at his sister.
He didn't see the glamorous, cruel woman who had placed a can of cat food before his children on Christmas Day while her deadbeat boyfriend laughed. He didn't see the arrogant socialite who had demanded his repair shop be sold to fund her vacations and designer clothes. He saw a stranger—a bitter, hollow ghost of a sister who had traded her soul for an illusion of wealth that had never belonged to her.
"You had a family, Melissa," Jared said softly, his voice devoid of anger, leaving only an absolute, empty finality. "You had a brother who would have fixed your car for nothing, who would have kept a roof over your head for the rest of your life, if you had only treated my children with basic human decency."
"I’m sorry," she sobbed, burying her face in her frostbitten hands. "I’m so sorry, Jared."
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"I know you are," Jared replied quietly. "Because you lost."
He turned his back on her, walking toward the open bay doors of Vance Diesel & Repair. Behind him, the click of handcuffs echoed as the federal officers informed Melissa that her involvement in the fraudulent deed conveyance and conspiracy to breach a Crown installation made her an accessory before the fact.
