Chapter 14 - The Shadow in the Mirror
"Get down!" Mason hissed, grabbing Thomas by the shoulder and pulling him below the wooden rim of the booth just as the car outside revved its engine.
Instead of firing weapons, the vehicle suddenly backed up, spun its tires on the wet pavement, and sped away into the darkness, leaving behind two long streaks of black rubber on the asphalt.
Mason immediately pulled out his radio and alerted Station Four across the street. Within forty seconds, Captain Daniel Brooks and Lieutenant Alvarez jogged through the rain into the cafe, their expressions tight with battle-ready focus.
"Mason! What happened?" Daniel demanded, looking around the room.
Mason guided Daniel to the back office, where Thomas Drake sat trembling in a chair, wrapped in a blanket.
When Daniel's eyes locked onto Thomas, the captain went rigid. "Drake? The tanker driver?"
Thomas buried his face in his hands. "Captain Brooks... I am so sorry. I live with the nightmare of what I did to you every single day."
Daniel took a deep, shuddering breath, his hands balling into fists before slowly relaxing. "Fourteen years of physical therapy and chronic lung pain because of that night. But right now, anger won't solve anything. Why did you come back to Oakridge, Drake?"
"To give you this," Thomas said, handing Daniel the brass locker key. "In Locker 404 at the bus station, there is a steel lockbox containing the original contracts from fourteen years ago. The silent investor who financed Sterling's illegal chemical dumping and paid me fifty thousand dollars to run you off the road wasn't a corporate tycoon."
Daniel frowned. "Then who was it?"
"It was Judge Marcus Thornton," Thomas whispered. "The presiding judge who just handled Vance Sterling's sentencing."
A dead silence fell over the office.
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Judge Marcus Thornton was the most respected legal authority in the county, a pillar of the community who had served on the bench for thirty years.
"If Thornton is dirty," Mason said, the gravity of the revelation hitting him like a sledgehammer, "then Vance Sterling's plea deal wasn't a punishment. It was a cover-up to keep Thornton's name out of the federal trial."
