Chapter 10: Hargrove's Last Move
She heard it from the restricted block — not the words, but the tone.
Raised voices in the administrative wing.
A door closing hard.
Then silence, which was worse.
At 11:40 a.m., Brenda was brought into restricted housing and put in the cell at the end of the block.
Twenty minutes later, Brenda's voice came through the wall, low and controlled.
"He knows."
"I figured," Lexi said.
"He called me in this morning.
Told me the room had been searched and something was taken.
He wanted a name." A pause.
"I told him I didn't know anything."
"Did he believe you?"
"No.
He put me in here to keep me away from the population while he figures out his next move." Another pause.
"He also called someone.
I don't know who.
Someone on the outside.
He was on the phone for a long time and he was very quiet the whole time, which is how I knew it was bad."
Lexi thought about that.
Hargrove calling someone on the outside meant he was trying to trigger a contingency.
Destroy something.
Move something.
Pressure someone.
Her father.
"Brenda," she said.
"Does Hargrove know about my father?
Does he know where he lives?"
A silence.
"I don't know," Brenda said.
"But he has resources outside.
He always has."
Lexi stood up and went to the door.
She knocked on it — three times, then two.
The signal she and Strick had not agreed on but that she hoped he would recognize as urgent.
Forty seconds later, she heard footsteps.
"I need you to make a call," she said through the door.
"My father.
Right now."
"I can't—"
"Hargrove made a call to someone on the outside twenty minutes ago.
My father is the only person who can hurt him who isn't in this building.
Please."
A long pause.
"Give me the number," Strick said.
She gave it to him.
She stood at the door and waited.
Six minutes passed.
Then Strick's voice, quieter: "He's fine.
He's with your contact — Grace.
They're already at the federal building.
They've been there since this morning."
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Hargrove's call was too late," Strick said.
"The warrant was already being drafted when he picked up the phone."
At 2:15 p.m., she heard new footsteps in the administrative corridor.
Multiple people.
The kind of deliberate, even pace that didn't belong to prison staff.
At 2:22 p.m., a guard she had never seen before opened her cell door.
"Ms.
Carver.
You're being released from restricted housing."
She walked out into the corridor.
Strick was standing near the entrance to the administrative wing.
Beside him were two people in suits — a man and a woman, both with federal identification clipped to their jackets.
Down the corridor, through the open door of the administrative wing, she could see Hargrove's office.
The door was open.
Hargrove was seated at his desk.
Not standing this time.
Two more federal agents stood on either side of him.
His hands were flat on the desk.
His face had the particular stillness of a man who has run every remaining option and found that none of them work.
He looked up and saw her in the corridor.
She didn't look away.
He held her gaze for a moment.
Then he looked down at his desk.
"Warden Hargrove," the female agent said, "you are being detained pending federal charges including racketeering, obstruction of justice, and the wrongful death of Daniela Medina." She paused.
"You have the right to remain silent."
He said nothing.
The agent continued reading.
Hargrove's hands stayed flat on the desk.
He didn't look up again.
Brenda had been brought out of restricted housing and was standing a few feet behind Lexi.
She watched Hargrove through the open door without expression.
Then, quietly, she said: "Four birthdays."
May you like
Nobody responded.
Nobody needed to.
