I did not raise my voice.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a single crushed yellow marigold petal that had clung to the cuff of my tweed jacket from my garden yesterday afternoon:
SLIP.
I laid the yellow petal flat across the nape of Arthur Vance’s silver neck:
TINK.
“You told your brother twelve years ago, Arthur, that an old woman in a brick cottage could be ignored and paved over without consequences,” Eleanor Mercer-Vance whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable decree that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“You told them it was just dirt and flowers.”
I leaned down until my clear slate-gray eyes filled the Chief Justice’s entire field of vision:
“You were right about one thing, Arthur.”
“They were flowers.”
“And from those flowers…”
I pointed toward Uncle David:
“…I audited your entire empire.”
CLICK-CLACK.
The two federal marshals hauled Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance to his feet by his armpits, marching him down the greenstone corridor in waist-chains and leg-irons toward the armored transport BearCats waiting on the East Front Plaza:
