Chapter 10 - The Mistress's Gambit
At 11:30 PM, while Julian was frantically calling his criminal defense attorneys from the bedroom of the hotel suite, Diane Frost made her move. She slipped out of the suite’s side door, hurried down the fire stairwell to the fourteenth floor, and stepped into an elevator going down to the underground parking garage. She had no intention of sticking around to play the loyal soldier for a sinking CEO.
Her private luxury sedan was parked in a reserved VIP bay near the exit ramp. She unlocked the doors with her remote fob, threw her leather briefcase onto the passenger seat, and climbed behind the wheel, her hands shaking so violently she dropped her keys twice onto the floorboards.
"Think, Diane, think," she muttered to herself, staring into the rearview mirror at her pale, terrified reflection. She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a small, external encrypted hard drive—a complete, unedited backup of the company’s real financial ledgers, including Julian’s private personal offshore accounts and his illegal email correspondence with the estate maintenance contractors.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed a direct, unlisted number she had acquired from a corporate attorney friend months ago—the personal cell phone of Assistant United States Attorney David Chen.
The line rang three times before Chen’s calm, professional voice answered. "Chen."
"Mr. Chen, my name is Diane Frost," she said, her voice breathless and frantic as she started the car’s engine. "I am the Chief Financial Officer of Vance-Sterling Biotech. I am currently calling you from the underground parking structure of the Grand Regency Hotel. I know the FBI is in the building, and I know warrants are being issued."
"Ms. Frost," Chen replied smoothly, showing no surprise at her call. "I strongly advise you to remain where you are and surrender peacefully to the federal agents currently sweeping the hotel perimeter."
"I will surrender, Mr. Chen, but I want an agreement on the record before your agents put handcuffs on me!" Diane demanded, revving her car’s engine as she looked around the dimly lit garage. "I have an encrypted external drive containing twenty gigabytes of unredacted financial ledgers, offshore banking passwords, and Julian Vance’s personal communications regarding the modification of his wife's balcony railing! I can prove that Julian planned and executed the attempted murder entirely on his own! I was only involved in the financial transfers under severe professional duress!"
"We do not negotiate plea agreements or proffer terms over the phone with fleeing suspects, Ms. Frost," Chen said coldly. "If you wish to cooperate with the United States government, you will turn the car off, step out of the vehicle with your hands empty and visible, and wait for the arresting officers."
"No! You listen to me!" Diane screamed, shifting the sedan into reverse. "If I don't get a written guarantee of immunity from the conspiracy to commit murder charges right now, I am driving this car out of this garage and tossing this hard drive into the river! You need my testimony to convict him!"
Before she could press her foot onto the accelerator, the blinding white high-beams of two heavy black tactical vans flicked on at the far end of the parking aisle, illuminating her car in a brilliant, inescapable glare of light.
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"Diane Frost!" a voice boomed over a tactical police megaphone, echoing off the concrete walls of the garage. "This is the FBI! Your vehicle is surrounded and the exits are blocked! Turn the engine off, throw your keys out the driver's window, and step out of the car with your hands raised immediately!"
Diane slammed her hands against the steering wheel, letting out a long, hysterical sob of absolute defeat. She was entirely surrounded. The hard drive sitting on her passenger seat wasn't her ticket to freedom; it was simply the final piece of evidence the government would use to lock her away for the best years of her life.
