Page 64 of Silent Past

"We'll see about that." She shifted her grip, preparing to drag him back to the road. "Come on. There's a prison jumpsuit with your name on it."

His good hand suddenly caught a loose rock. "Like hell there is," he said. He swung the rock at her head. But Sheila had been ready for one last attempt. She caught his wrist, using his own momentum to slam his hand against the cliff face. The rock fell from nerveless fingers.

He lay back and laughed mirthlessly. "Just kill me, why don't you? Tell them we fought, and I took a little tumble over the cliff. My life's over anyway."

She studied him, her eyes narrowing. "You never told me your name."

He stared back at her, saying nothing.

She thought of something he'd said earlier: Your father, that old pitbull. Hadn't that been Gabriel's nickname in I.A.? The Pitbull?

"You're Carlton Vance, aren't you?" she asked. The pieces were clicking into place—his intimate knowledge of the department's history, the way he spoke about building the system, even his tactical training. He wasn't just enforcing Vance's will; he was Vance himself, the architect of decades of corruption. His Irish accent was probably as fake as his current identity.

Had Gabriel recognized him? He must have—he'd worked with Vance for years. Perhaps it hadn't crossed his mind to tell Sheila, though—he'd been trying not to go into shock, after all.

The Irishman grinned. "I don't know what you're talking about. Like I said, Carlton Vance retired to some island. My name's Toby Fitzgerald."

"Sure you are," she murmured.

He stirred, groaning. "Come on, then. Just finish this. I've had a good run. Don't tell me you don't want to see dead."

"This might come as a surprise to you," she said, "but I'm not like you." She rolled him over onto his stomach, despite his protests, and cuffed him.

"You're going to face justice," she said. "Tell a jury exactly what you did. Every murder, every cover-up."

"The other will never let that happen." He didn't resist as she pulled him to his feet. "The system protects its own."

"Maybe." She started guiding him carefully back up the slope. "But the system's never dealt with someone like me before."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

The smell of antiseptic competed with the smell of flowers, creating an odd cocktail of scents. Gabriel Stone lay propped against white pillows, his weathered face marked by cuts and bruises that stood out starkly against bleached sheets. Tubes snaked from his arm to hanging bags of fluids and antibiotics.

Sheila sat in the visitor's chair beside him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. The bullet wound in his thigh had been cleaned and stitched, though the doctors said he'd likely walk with a limp for several months. Better than not walking at all.

"You should be sleeping," she said softly.

"Too much to talk about." His voice was rough, scraped raw by hours of interrogation before she'd found him. "You got him?"

"Yeah." She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "The man who ordered Mom's death. The one who's been protecting this corrupt system for decades." She studied her father's face. "Carlton Vance."

Gabriel nodded slowly, his face showing no surprise. "I would have told you before you went after him, but it took all I had just to convince you to go after him. His identity didn't seem quite so important at the moment."

"He's calling himself Toby Fitzgerald now. Claims Vance retired to some island paradise. But the way he talked about the department, about how the system was built..." She shook her head. "He knows too much. Things only someone on the inside would understand."

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft beep of medical monitors. Outside the window, afternoon sunlight painted Salt Lake City in shades of gold and shadow.

"I should have told you sooner," Gabriel said finally. His voice carried the weight of decades of regret. "About Vance. About everything."

"Then tell me now."

He shifted against the pillows, grimacing at the movement. "I worked under him in Internal Affairs. Back when it all started. He seemed like this crusader for justice—investigating corrupt cops, building cases against dirty judges." A bitter laugh escaped him. "It took me too long to realize he wasn't fighting corruption. He was organizing it."

"Meridian Holdings," Sheila said. "The shell company he created to move the money."

"That was just the start. Drug seizures, evidence tampering, witness intimidation—he turned it all into a system. Professional. Efficient." Gabriel's jaw tightened. "By the time I understood what was happening, I was already compromised. He made sure of that."

"What do you mean?"

---