Chapter 6 - Morning at the Capitol
The glass-and-steel monolith known as the Harrison Building rose forty stories above the city’s financial district, an arrogant monument to Arthur Harrison’s forty years of wheeling, dealing, and political back-scratching.
Its lobby was a cathedral of imported Italian marble, featuring a three-story waterfall that cascaded down a wall of Brazilian slate into a pool filled with white river stones. Usually, by eight-twenty on a Monday morning, the lobby was a blur of tailored suits, leather briefcases, and hurried conversations about square footage and mezzanine financing.
Today, it looked like the staging ground for a military operation.
Four marked State Police cruisers and two unmarked black tactical vans were parked horizontally across the building’s circular drive, their tires pressed against the polished granite curbs. Uniformed troopers with sidearms stood at every revolving door, their arms crossed, checking the identification of every employee who tried to enter and turning them away with flat, emotionless commands.
I stepped out of the black state SUV into the crisp morning air.
I was wearing a charcoal double-breasted trench coat over a midnight-blue suit, my hair secured in an immaculate braid that rested against my collar. Behind me, Captain Vance stepped out of the driver’s side, holding an oversized, expandable accordion folder bound with thick black elastic bands.
Beside Vance were four forensic accountants from the State Department of Revenue and three investigators from the Public Integrity Bureau, carrying portable hard-drive imaging units in heavy black Pelican cases.
As I climbed the wide granite steps, the lobby security director—a retired city detective named O’Malley who had collected a paycheck from Arthur Harrison for twelve years—rushed forward, his hands raised, his face slick with sweat.
“Miss Harrison—I mean, Deputy Attorney General!” O’Malley stammered, blocking the inner glass doors. “Please. Mr. Harrison is upstairs in the penthouse boardroom with his legal counsel. He has instructed me that this is private property and no unauthorized personnel—”
Captain Vance stepped forward. He didn't touch O’Malley. He simply occupied space with the overwhelming, six-foot-four finality of an armored wall.
“Mr. O’Malley,” Vance said, holding up a white document bearing the crimson seal of the State Superior Court. “Search warrant 44-Bravo. Signed by Presiding Judge Morris at 0400 hours. You have sixty seconds to open the service elevators and hand over the master electronic keycards, or my troopers will breach the doors with mechanical tools. If that happens, you will be arrested for obstruction of justice before the glass hits the floor.”
O’Malley looked from Vance’s impassive face to the document, then to me.
Seven years ago, O’Malley had been the one who escorted me from the building after Arthur fired me from my summer internship, telling me with a smirk that “Mr. Harrison doesn't like loose ends in the office.”
Now, O’Malley’s hands shook so violently he dropped the master keycard twice before managing to swipe it against the electronic scanner.
*Beep. Click.*
The heavy brass doors slid open.
“Elevator six goes straight to the penthouse,” O’Malley whispered, backing against the slate wall, his eyes fixed on the floor.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. O’Malley,” I said smoothly as I stepped into the mirrored elevator cab. “Tell the night-shift security to go home. This building won't be reopening today.”
The elevator ride to the fortieth floor took twenty-two seconds. Twenty-two seconds of silence, save for the faint hum of the hydraulic cables and the rhythmic breathing of the state investigators behind me.
When the doors parted on the penthouse suite, the scene was one of utter pandemonium.
Shredder bins were overflowing in the hallway. Three junior associates were frantically stuffing manila folders into cardboard banker’s boxes.
And at the end of the long mahogany corridor, inside the double-doored boardroom with panoramic views of the harbor, Arthur Harrison was screaming into a speakerphone while four criminal defense attorneys argued over open laptops.
“...I don't give a damn what the bank said!” Arthur roared, slamming his fist onto the glass conference table. “Draw down the revolving credit facility! Move the balance to the Zurich account before the court freeze hits at nine—!”
“Good morning, Arthur,” I said, stepping into the boardroom.
The four defense attorneys stopped talking instantly.
The lead attorney, Richard Sterling—a man who charged twelve hundred dollars an hour to keep corporate embezzlers out of federal penitentiaries—spun around in his leather chair. Sterling had built his reputation on intimidating young prosecutors, but the moment he saw the two state troopers flanking me and the Pelican cases being wheeled into the room, his eyes narrowed with professional wariness.
“Olivia,” Sterling said, rising smoothly and buttoning his jacket. “As Mr. Harrison’s lead counsel, I must advise you that your presence here constitutes an egregious conflict of interest. We have already filed for an emergency injunction in the appellate division to have you recused from this investigation on the grounds of personal animus.”
I walked over to the head of the conference table, set my leather briefcase flat on the polished mahogany, and popped the brass latches with two sharp *clicks*.
“Mr. Sterling,” I said, looking at him with the cold precision of a mathematician solving a basic equation, “you can file whatever you like with the appellate division. But while you were filing your civil rights complaint at seven this morning, the United States Attorney for the Southern District cross-designated my task force as federal special prosecutors under the Hobbs Act.”
Sterling’s face went completely blank.
The three junior attorneys behind him stopped typing. One of them slowly, quietly closed his laptop and slid it into his briefcase, clearly realizing that the ship was not merely taking on water—the boiler had exploded.
“The Hobbs Act?” Arthur whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at Sterling. “Richard… what does that mean?”
“It means, Arthur,” I said, pulling a stack of certified bank records from my case, “that this is no longer just a state audit of concrete specifications. This is a federal racketeering and public corruption probe. And because your Cayman dummy corporation used interstate wire transfers to bribe two members of the City Planning Commission, every transaction you’ve made since 2018 is now subject to asset forfeiture.”
Arthur looked at the stack of documents.
His eyes fell on the top sheet: an account ledger from the Bank of Nova Scotia bearing his personal signature, authorizing a transfer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to an LLC registered to the wife of the City Council President.
The date on the transfer was October 14, 2018.
The exact day he had called my landlord in the middle of the night, threatening to sue him if he didn't evict “the girl with the baby.”
“You… you found it,” Arthur breathed, the words barely carrying across the table.
“I didn't find it, Arthur,” I said quietly. “Julian Whitfield found it.”
Arthur’s head jerked up. “Julian? Julian gave you this?”
“Julian spent the last six months working as an associate in your commercial real estate division,” I said. “He didn't take that job because he loved your daughter, Arthur. He took that job because his father suspected you were laundering municipal bond funds through the riverfront project, and Julian wanted to find the truth before he let the Harrison family taint his family’s name.”
A door behind the conference room swung open.
Veronica stepped into the room.
She was wearing a pale pink trench coat, her eyes swollen and bloodshot behind designer sunglasses. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she was clutching her phone to her ear with white-knuckled desperation.
“Dad!” Veronica cried, completely ignoring the troopers and the state investigators. “My credit card just got declined at the pharmacy! The bank says my accounts are frozen! Tell them to fix it! I need to pay the florist for the cathedral deposit, and they’re threatening to cancel the date!”
The sheer, monumental stupidity of her entrance—the total, narcissistic disconnect from reality—hung in the air like a noxious gas.
Arthur slowly turned his head to look at his younger daughter.
For seven years, he had indulged her every whim. He had bought her sports cars, funded her failed boutique PR agencies, and covered her five-figure shopping sprees, all to maintain the illusion that the Harrisons were royalty and that the daughter who remained was a success.
Now, looking at her clutching her platinum card while federal investigators seized his hard drives, something inside Arthur Harrison finally snapped.
“Shut up,” Arthur whispered.
Veronica blinked, lowering her sunglasses. “What?”
“Shut up!” Arthur screamed, lunging across the table, his arms flailing, knocking over an expensive crystal water pitcher that shattered against the floorboards. “Get out! Get out of this office! There is no cathedral! There is no wedding! There is no money! We are ruined! We are going to prison, you brainless little parasite, and all you care about is the damn florist!”
Veronica shrieked, backing into the doorframe, her face contorted in absolute, uncomprehending horror. She looked at her father, whose face was purple with veins bulging at his temples, then at the defense attorneys who wouldn't meet her eyes, and finally at me.
I stood at the head of the table, calm, immaculate, and entirely untouched by the hysteria.
“Captain Vance,” I said, not taking my eyes off my father.
“Ma'am?”
“Secure the server room on the thirty-ninth floor. Begin the physical imaging of all personal drives belonging to Arthur Harrison, Eleanor Harrison, and Veronica Harrison.”
“Right away, Deputy Attorney General.”
As the state troopers and forensic accountants moved through the boardroom like an army of methodical locusts, I closed my briefcase and snapped the latches shut.
I walked toward the double doors. As I passed Veronica, who was trembling against the mahogany trim, weeping hysterically into her silk scarf, she reached out, her fingers catching the sleeve of my coat.
“Olivia…” she begged, her voice sounding like a small, broken child. “Please. You’re my sister. Don't do this to us. Where am I supposed to go?”
I looked down at her fingers, then up into her tear-streaked face.
Seven years ago, on the day I was expelled from the family home, Veronica had stood at the top of the marble staircase, holding my grandmother’s pearl earrings—the ones Grandma had promised to me—and smiling as she slipped them into her ears. *“You won't be needing these where you’re going,”* she had whispered.
I gently, firmly reached down and unhooked her fingers from my coat.
May you like
“You’re an adult, Veronica,” I said softly. “You have two hands and a college degree. I suggest you find an apartment on the wrong side of the interstate. I hear the bus line runs until midnight.”
***
