Chapter 12 - The Last Escape
Charles Reddick had spent years making other people disappear on paper.
Now he intended to disappear himself.
And he planned to do it using my name.
By the time Tamson confirmed the passenger information, federal agents had coordinated with airport authorities and positioned themselves around the private aviation terminal.
Reddick had a valid passport in his own name.
But investigators believed the flight arrangements and financial accounts had been created using fraudulent identities, including mine.
It was another attempt to bury his crimes beneath someone else's life.
I was furious.
But Tamson made the decision.
"You're staying out of the arrest operation."
I understood.
There were too many conflicts.
Too much personal history.
I remained at the federal field office while Tamson coordinated the team.
Through official updates, I learned that Reddick had arrived at the terminal carrying a leather briefcase.
Two associates accompanied him.
One carried luggage.
The other repeatedly checked his phone.
When federal agents approached, Reddick attempted to return to his vehicle.
He was stopped and arrested under the outstanding federal warrant.
Nobody was injured.
The arrest took less than a minute.
Fourteen months of undercover work had finally brought the man down.
But I didn't feel triumphant.
I felt exhausted.
Hours later, Tamson returned to the office.
"Reddick is in custody."
I looked up.
"Did he say anything?"
"He requested an attorney."
"Of course."
She placed a folder on the table.
"Agents recovered electronic records from his briefcase and obtained the required authorization to examine them."
"What's in them?"
"Financial summaries. Account identifiers. Correspondence with his partners."
She paused.
"And a list of properties."
I leaned forward.
"How many?"
"Forty-two."
The number hit me like a physical blow.
Forty-two homes.
Forty-two families who might have been deceived, threatened, or forced into impossible financial situations.
Some could have lost homes their parents had built.
Others might still be living under the threat of false debts.
I thought about Nora Phelps.
About my father.
About all the people whose names appeared in my mother's notebook.
"What happens to them?" I asked.
"We investigate every property. We notify possible victims. We work with prosecutors and the courts to preserve what we can."
I stared at the list.
"That's going to take years."
"Some of it might."
For a moment, I felt the weight of everything we couldn't immediately fix.
Then Tamson sat across from me.
"Gideon, catching Reddick matters. But restoring what these people lost is the real work."
I nodded.
She was right.
Later that afternoon, federal investigators searched additional Meridian offices under judicial warrants.
They recovered computers, financial records, and communications identifying the companies that had received money from fraudulent property transactions.
An accountant confirmed that Reddick had ordered employees to destroy certain records when he learned about the FBI operation.
Several had refused.
Their decisions preserved important evidence.
But the biggest threat came just before midnight.
Tamson received an urgent call.
A fire had broken out at an annex used to store older county property records.
Firefighters were responding.
The building contained paper documents dating back decades.
Including original materials related to the development of Westbridge Estates.
Tamson looked at me.
"Those records could prove which homes were never legally included in the HOA."
I stood.
"Are they still there?"
She listened to the caller.
Then her expression changed.
"We don't know."
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By the time the fire was contained, part of the archive had suffered extensive damage.
And the boxes containing the oldest Westbridge property records were among those firefighters had not yet been able to recover.
