Chapter 29 - The Harvest of Justice
Forty-eight hours later, the Western District Federal Courthouse in Harrisonburg held an emergency unsealed hearing that drew every major news network in the Mid-Atlantic.
Julian Vance, stripped of his alias, sat in orange prison jumpsuits beside his federal public defender. Across from him, Victor Vance sat in a medical wheelchair, oxygen tubes feeding into his nose, his once-imposing corporate arrogance withered away into senile decrepitude.
And between them, brought in under maximum-security federal transport, sat Evelyn Loomis.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Claire Henderson laid out the unassailable evidence gathered from the Vaduz deposit box, the intercepted relay servers, and the recovered corporate manifests.
"The government presents an unbroken, forty-year conspiracy of interstate racketeering, federal grand larceny, corporate espionage, and attempted mass environmental destruction," Henderson stated to the presiding federal judge. "The Vance holding trust has been fully dismantled under civil asset forfeiture. Every acre of land acquired under fraudulent mineral leases will be permanently transferred into the *Sarah Loomis-Keller Wilderness Preserve* under the sovereign stewardship of Heather Loomis and Ella Keller."
The judge slammed his gavel down like a thunderbolt.
Julian Vance was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole at ADX Florence. Victor Vance was remanded to permanent federal medical incarceration.
As the marshals stepped forward to escort Evelyn Loomis back to her cell, she stopped directly in front of the gallery rail where Ella and I sat.
Her face was a mask of bitter, unyielding hatred. "You think you won, Heather? You think Arthur’s valley will ever be clean? You don't know what Victor buried beneath the third ridge. You will spend the rest of your life watching the ground, waiting for it to rot."
I looked my mother dead in her cold, soulless eyes.
May you like
"Arthur’s trees will grow over your grave, Evelyn," I said quietly, without anger, only the finality of absolute truth. "And nobody will remember your name."
Evelyn’s lip curled, but no words came out. The federal marshals pulled her away, her shackles dragging heavily against the marble floor until the courtroom doors slammed shut behind her forever.
