Chapter 14 - Shadows in the Pacific Northwest
While the cold winds of Chicago battered the glass windows of Midwest Cargo’s executive suites, thousands of miles away in the damp, evergreen-fringed hills outside Seattle, a very different kind of cold was settling over a desolate suburban home.
Kendra Mercer sat on the edge of a sagging velvet sofa in a cramped, overdue-rent-apartment that smelled of stale formula and cheap instant noodles. Her hair, once meticulously dyed and styled to match the high-end corporate circles she had clawed her way into, was greasy and tied back in a messy knot. In her arms, a fussy infant—Garrett’s son, the boy he had bragged about as his ticket to legacy and wealth—let out a piercing, inconsolable wail.
“Shut up! Just shut up!” Kendra hissed, gently shaking the crying baby with a mixture of exhaustion and bitter, unadulterated rage.
There was no nanny. There was no private luxury nursery. There was no credit card with an unlimited limit tied to Pacific Harbor Freight executive accounts. The moment Garrett Hale had been indicted by federal prosecutors for wire fraud and corporate embezzlement, Pacific Harbor Freight’s internal legal division had frozen every asset, clawed back every fraudulent gift, and systematically dismantled every luxury perk Kendra had milked from her affair with the corporate vice president.
Her high-end apartment in downtown Seattle had been repossessed within forty-eight hours. Her designer wardrobe had been seized by federal marshals as proceeds of illegal financial wire transfers. Even her job as marketing director at Pacific Harbor Freight had evaporated the moment Marcus Vance walked into human resources with a stack of signed confessions and conspiracy indictments. She had avoided prison time only by cutting a humiliating plea deal that required her to testify against Garrett and surrender every single item of value she had ever accepted from him.
And Garrett? Garrett hadn't called once from the federal detention center. In his pathetic, narcissistic delusion, he probably still believed he was a victim of an unfair system, entirely oblivious to the fact that his absence was a relief to every single person unfortunate enough to have crossed his path.
A sharp rap on the apartment door made Kendra jump. She clutched the crying baby tighter against her chest and shuffled across the worn linoleum floor, peering through the small peephole. Standing in the dim, flickering hallway was a middle-aged man in a cheap trench coat—an investigator from the state child support enforcement agency.
Kendra squeezed her eyes shut, a bitter tear of pure, corrosive self-pity slipping down her cheek as she turned the deadbolt. She had thought she was winning the prize when she trapped a married corporate executive with a baby boy. Instead, she had inherited a bankrupt criminal, a life of endless debt, and a front-row seat to the absolute destruction of every ambition she had ever held.
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Far away in Savannah and Seattle, the Prescott family was building an empire that spanned oceans, while Kendra and Garrett were left to discover the true, devastating cost of their own greed.
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