Chapter 11 - The Man Above the Prescotts
Margaret refused to speak inside the county detention center.
She insisted the room was compromised.
Federal investigators moved her to a secure location.
I was not allowed inside the interview.
Emily wasn’t either.
But three hours later, Dana came to us.
“She gave us a name.”
“Who?”
“Senator Robert Vale.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in North Carolina knew the name.
Robert Vale had spent twenty-two years in public office.
He sat on committees overseeing defense spending, infrastructure, and federal contracts.
He appeared on television talking about integrity.
He gave speeches about law and order.
And according to Margaret, he had been using families like the Prescotts for years.
Money moved through developers.
Developers funded consulting groups.
Consulting groups paid people who could make problems disappear.
In return, Vale helped direct contracts and political influence.
“The Prescotts weren’t running the machine?”
Emily asked.
Dana shook her head.
“They were an important piece.”
“Why would Margaret admit that?”
“Because she thinks Vale is about to remove loose ends.”
“Meaning her?”
“And possibly Ethan and Brandon.”
Emily looked toward me.
“Where is Ethan?”
“We don’t know.”
Margaret claimed she didn’t know either.
Then she gave investigators a code phrase.
BLUE ROOM.
According to Margaret, every major transaction had a duplicate record.
Vale never trusted partners.
So his people maintained a private archive known as the Blue Room.
Nobody knew its physical location.
Only one man had direct access.
Charles Wynn.
That explained the black folder.
Wynn didn’t merely control the media response.
He controlled the archive.
Federal agents moved to detain him.
They were too late.
His private jet left Charlotte forty-seven minutes earlier.
Destination listed as Nassau.
But the aircraft changed course after leaving U.S. airspace.
Then disappeared from public tracking.
Wynn Media immediately released a statement.
Mr. Wynn was traveling for personal reasons.
The company denied any connection to wrongdoing.
An hour later, one of Wynn’s stations aired a special investigation about me.
They claimed I had abused military influence for years.
They showed photographs of me meeting politicians.
They showed contracts I had reviewed.
They even interviewed a retired officer who said I was ambitious and aggressive.
Emily shut off the television.
“This is insane.”
“No.”
Dana stared at the black screen.
“It’s organized.”
Then came the worst part.
A congressional ethics office announced it had received a complaint involving my conduct.
The complaint had been submitted six weeks earlier.
Long before Emily escaped.
The Prescotts had prepared every piece in advance.
My career.
My reputation.
My credibility.
All of it had been targeted before I knew there was a war.
I called my commanding general.
I told him everything.
He listened.
Then he said.
“Victoria, cooperate with every lawful investigation.”
“I will.”
“And don’t make the mistake of trying to protect the Army from embarrassment.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
His voice hardened.
“Because if somebody used the institution to target one of ours, I want the truth more than I want comfort.”
That mattered.
Not because the Army could solve Emily’s case.
It couldn’t.
But because the people attacking me expected everyone to protect themselves.
They expected fear.
Silence.
Distance.
Instead, investigators began sharing records.
Federal procurement auditors reopened the eighty-six-million-dollar contract.
The ethics complaint against me was compared with Prescott communications.
The filing metadata revealed something extraordinary.
The document had been drafted on a computer belonging to Harrison Pike’s law firm.
Ethan’s attorney.
Emily looked at me.
“They framed you before I even knew I needed help.”
“Yes.”
She became quiet.
Then she said.
“Then we stop defending.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“We stop just answering their lies.”
Her eyes were different now.
Stronger.
“We show people what they did.”
The next morning, Emily asked to make a public statement.
Not through Wynn Media.
Not through anonymous sources.
On camera.
Under her own name.
May you like
And for the first time since escaping the guesthouse, my daughter was no longer simply running from the Prescott family.
She was turning around to face them.
