Chapter 12 - The Judge’s House
Police could not search Judge Keene’s home based only on Mom’s accusation.
Detective Torres requested a warrant.
The request was delayed.
Then it was reassigned.
Then the reviewing judge claimed the affidavit contained a technical error.
Keene still had friends inside the system.
By the time a warrant was approved, six hours had passed.
His estate was empty.
The home office had been stripped.
Hard drives were missing.
The fireplace contained the remains of burned documents.
But Daniel found something the forensic team overlooked.
A rectangular patch of dust on a bookshelf showed that one book had recently been removed.
Daniel compared photographs from a charity article about Keene’s home.
In the older image, the missing book was visible.
It was a first edition of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Dad had owned the same edition.
Inside Dad’s copy, he kept a list of important account numbers.
We returned to our house under police protection.
Dad’s library had been sealed since his death.
Mom claimed entering it upset Daniel.
That had been another lie.
Daniel walked directly to the third shelf.
The Count of Monte Cristo was still there.
Inside the back cover was a handwritten sequence.
14-9-3-8-1-18-4.
“Richard,” Daniel’s tablet said.
The numbers matched letters in Dad’s name.
Beneath the sequence was a courthouse archive code.
Detective Torres contacted a clerk she trusted.
The code belonged to a sealed civil case filed seventeen years earlier.
The plaintiff’s name had been removed.
The defendant was Northbridge Medical Group.
Elias had once worked for Northbridge.
So had Judge Keene, when he was an attorney.
The sealed case involved experimental drug billing, falsified patient records, and the death of a nurse who planned to testify.
Dad’s foundation had unknowingly funded one of Northbridge’s clinics.
When he discovered the fraud years later, he began tracing the money.
The case file had supposedly been destroyed after a settlement.
But the archive code indicated one physical evidence box remained.
It was stored beneath the old courthouse.
Torres obtained authorization to retrieve it.
We arrived after sunset.
The basement archive smelled of paper, dust, and damp stone.
Rows of locked cages stretched beneath fluorescent lights.
The evidence box was located in cage fourteen.
The lock had already been cut.
Inside, the box was empty.
On the floor lay a fresh cigarette.
Smoke still rose from the tip.
Someone was nearby.
The lights went out.
A man’s voice came through the darkness.
“Richard should have left the past buried.”
May you like
It was not Elias.
It was Judge Keene.
