Chapter 13 - The Devil in Cell Block BTo bring down a kingpin like Alistair Blackwood, a fake confidential informant wouldn't be enough. I needed the real missing link. I needed the ghost of my past.
FCI Allenwood was a sprawling, concrete fortress designed to break the spirits of white-collar criminals who thought their wealth made them untouchable.
I sat in the sterile, fluorescent-lit visitor's room, separated by a pane of thick, smudged plexiglass.
The heavy steel door buzzed, and Colin Mercer was led into the room.
The immaculate, arrogant lawyer who had tried to steal my daughter’s trust fund was entirely gone. He wore a faded khaki jumpsuit. His hair was thinning, his skin was pale and sallow, and his eyes darted around the room with the frantic, exhausted paranoia of a man who lived in constant fear.
He sat down on the metal stool and picked up the phone. His hands shook violently.
I picked up my receiver. I didn't speak. I let the silence crush him.
“You came,” Colin whispered, a pathetic, desperate hope flaring in his eyes. “David... please tell me you came to talk about a sentence reduction. I've been a model inmate. I can't survive in here anymore.”
“I didn't come here to save you, Colin,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “I came here for Alistair Blackwood.”
Colin’s face instantly went dead white. He shrank back from the glass as if I had physically struck him.
“No,” Colin stammered, frantically looking over his shoulder at the guards. “No, no, no. I don't know anything about him. You can't ask me about him, David! His people on the outside... they can reach me in here! They’ll slit my throat in the shower!”
“His people are on the outside, Colin,” I said coldly, leaning closer to the glass. “My people are everywhere.”
I tapped a finger against the plexiglass.
“Let me make this very simple for you,” I whispered, staring directly into his terrified eyes. “You are currently in a low-security wing. But Sarah Sterling has drafted a brief to the Bureau of Prisons, outlining your continuous efforts to conceal assets from federal restitution. If I file that brief, you will be transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, by the end of the week. You will spend twenty-three hours a day in solitary confinement for the next fourteen years.”
Colin began to weep silently, pressing his forehead against the smudged glass. The manipulative sociopath who had tried to convince me I was losing my mind was now begging for scraps of mercy from my hand.
“I need the original communications,” I demanded. “I need the emails and the wire transfer receipts proving Blackwood paid you to falsify Nora’s medical records. Give me the smoking gun, and I will ensure you stay in minimum security.”
“He’s too powerful,” Colin choked out, tears streaming down his face. “He doesn't use email for the dirt. He uses encrypted physical ledgers. He keeps them in a private biometric safe at his estate in the Hamptons. If you try to go after him, he will kill you, David.”
“Let him try,” I smiled—a slow, dangerous, terrifying expression that made Colin shudder.
“There’s a safety deposit box,” Colin confessed, his voice barely a whisper. “First Manhattan Bank. Box 402. It contains a cloned hard drive of his patient intake logs from three years ago. I kept it as an insurance policy in case he ever tried to cut me out. The key is hidden behind the baseboard in my old office.”
“Thank you, Colin,” I said, standing up and smoothing my suit jacket.
“David, wait!” Colin cried, pressing his hand against the glass. “What about me? Please! You can't just leave me in here wondering if his people are coming for me!”
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“Sleep with one eye open, Mercer,” I replied.
I hung up the receiver and walked out of the concrete room, leaving his pathetic, muffled screams trapped behind the glass. The pieces were finally on the board. Dr. Blackwood was a fortress, but I had just found the master key.
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