[Charming Streets — October 20, 2008, 6:30 AM]
Polly Zobelle drove a white Mercedes.
I'd been tracking her for three days now, establishing patterns, documenting movements. The car was distinctive—daddy's money on four wheels, impossible to miss in a town where most vehicles were trucks and older sedans.
She left the house at 6:15 every morning. Gym until 8:00. Coffee shop until 9:00. Then the day's real business began.
Today, her first stop was a warehouse on the east side of Charming.
I parked a block away, camera ready. The telephoto lens brought her into sharp focus as she stepped out of the Mercedes, smoothed her designer dress, and walked toward a man waiting by the loading dock.
Darby's lieutenant. I recognized him from months of surveillance—one of the Nord's main drug distributors, responsible for moving product through the county's network of dealers and users.
Polly handed him an envelope. He handed her a small bag. They talked for thirty seconds, professional and brief.
Click. Click. Click.
The camera captured everything.
[INTELLIGENCE GATHERING: +35 XP] [EVIDENCE ACQUIRED: POLLY ZOBELLE — DRUG TRANSACTION]
"Got you," I murmured.
---
[TM Garage — October 22, 2008, 2:00 PM]
Juice's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Okay, so I cross-referenced her movements with known drug distribution points." He pulled up a map covered in colored dots. "Red is Polly's locations over the past month. Blue is confirmed Nord drug activity. The overlap is... significant."
The patterns were undeniable. Polly Zobelle wasn't just daddy's little princess—she was the operational link between LOAN's political organization and Darby's drug trade.
"She's the bridge," I said. "Zobelle stays clean because she handles the dirty work."
"Exactly." Juice enlarged one cluster of dots. "This warehouse here? Three meetings with Darby's people in the past two weeks. And look at the timing—always after major shipments from the Mexican cartel connection."
"So she's coordinating supply and distribution."
"More than that." He pulled up financial records—how he'd accessed them, I didn't want to know. "Money moves through her personal accounts. Small amounts, easily missed, but consistent. She's laundering drug profits through her own finances."
I studied the data, mind racing.
This is better than photographic evidence. This is a paper trail. The kind of thing that sends people to prison.
"Can you compile all this? Create a file that even a federal prosecutor couldn't ignore?"
"Already working on it." Juice grinned. "Give me another day."
---
[Cole's Apartment — October 24, 2008, 9:00 PM]
The evidence file was comprehensive.
Photos of Polly meeting with drug distributors. Financial records showing suspicious transactions. Timeline correlations that proved her involvement wasn't coincidental. Everything a motivated investigator would need to build a case.
Bobby examined the materials with professional appreciation.
"This is solid work." He set down one of the financial documents. "Question is, what do we do with it?"
"Two options." I leaned against the wall, fighting the exhaustion that never quite went away anymore. "Give it to local police, or give it to the feds."
"Local police means Unser. He's been covering for us, but this goes beyond his jurisdiction. And Zobelle has political connections that might protect his daughter at the county level."
"So feds."
"So feds." Bobby's expression was complicated. "Which means Stahl."
The irony wasn't lost on me. The woman who'd framed Opie, threatened Abel, tried to destroy SAMCRO—using her to take down the people who'd hurt Gemma.
"She's ambitious," I said. "Taking down a white supremacist princess would be a career-making case. She'll jump on it."
"And then we're in bed with the ATF."
"Not in bed. We're just... pointing them at a mutual enemy." I met his eyes. "Stahl's still dangerous. But right now, she's useful. We give her this anonymously, let her think she discovered it herself."
Bobby considered for a long moment.
"It's a risk. If she figures out where the intel came from—"
"She won't. Juice knows how to make things untraceable."
"And if she does her job, Polly goes down. Which means Zobelle loses his drug connection, his clean facade, and probably his freedom." Bobby nodded slowly. "I hate it. But it's smart."
"War makes strange allies."
"War makes you do a lot of things." He stood, gathered the files. "I'll bring this to Jax. If he approves, we move forward."
---
[Cole's Apartment — October 25, 2008, 11:30 PM]
I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and stopped.
The face looking back was gaunt, dark-circled, wearing a shirt I'd been in for three days. When had I last showered? Last eaten something that wasn't grabbed between surveillance sessions?
You're falling apart.
The thought was clinical, observational. The kind of thing Sarah would say if she were here. But she was working the night shift, and I'd been so consumed by the investigation that I'd barely seen her in a week.
I turned on the shower. Let the hot water run until steam filled the small bathroom. Stripped off clothes that smelled like stress and obsession.
The water felt like absolution. Not of guilt—that would take more than soap—but of the physical neglect that came with war. I stood under the spray until my skin turned red, until the tension in my shoulders began to unknot.
Clean clothes afterward. Real food—leftover pizza from a night I barely remembered, but food nonetheless.
War makes you forget the basics. Eating. Sleeping. Being human.
Don't forget why you're fighting. Don't become something that can't come back to normal when this is over.
I looked at the evidence file on my table. Tomorrow, it would be on its way to Sacramento. To Stahl. To the machinery of federal investigation that would tear Polly Zobelle apart.
Small victory. But victory nonetheless.
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