Chapter 10 - The Broken Crown
Chloe picked up the ballpoint pen with her shackled right hand.
Her fingers shook so violently that the metal tip scraped against the paper three times before she could steady her grip.
She signed her legal name across the cooperation agreement.
She laid the pen down on the steel table, slumped back into the cold metal chair, and covered her face with both hands, weeping in silence.
I picked up the signed document, placed it back into my portfolio, and stood up from the table.
“The federal public defender will visit you this afternoon to review the formal proffer session,” I told her.
Chloe didn't answer.
She just sat there, a broken, shivering shell of the glamorous girl who had laughed near the champagne bar twenty-four hours earlier.
I knocked twice on the heavy steel door.
The guard unlocked the deadbolt from the outside and let me out into the administrative corridor.
Down the hall, behind reinforced security glass, Evelyn Carter sat in a private interview room.
Her court-appointed attorney was leaning over her, speaking in rapid, agitated tones while pointing at a stack of banking transcripts.
Evelyn looked like she had aged fifteen years overnight.
Her immaculate foundation was gone, revealing the deep wrinkles of stress and bitterness etched around her mouth.
Her hair hung in limp strands around her hollow cheeks.
She looked up through the glass and saw me standing in the corridor.
For a fleeting second, the old, arrogant fury flared in her eyes.
She stood up, pointing a trembling finger through the thick glass, her lips moving rapidly as if shouting curses I could not hear.
Then her gaze dropped to the portfolio under my arm.
She recognized the official seal on the blue folder.
She saw the federal plea paperwork.
She knew Chloe had signed.
The rage drained from Evelyn’s face in an instant, replaced by a hollow, vacant expression of total defeat.
Her knees buckled.
She collapsed back into the chair, clutching her chest, staring blankly at the beige wall of the interrogation cell.
Her empire of vanity had fallen.
The social stature she spent four decades manufacturing was gone forever.
I turned my back on the glass window and walked down the long corridor toward the heavy glass exterior doors.
Outside, the morning sun was breaking over the Virginia hills, burning away the autumn mist.
Ethan was waiting beside his truck at the curb, holding two paper cups of black coffee.
He looked up as I walked down the concrete steps, a warm, steady smile spreading across his face.
“How did it go?” he asked, handing me a warm cup.
I took a sip of the strong, bitter coffee, feeling the cool morning air against my face.
The swelling on my cheek had gone down, leaving only a faint, faded redness that would be gone by tomorrow.
“She signed,” I answered quietly.
Ethan nodded once, slipping his arm comfortably around my shoulders as we stood together on the sidewalk.
“And Evelyn?”
“She’s facing five counts of federal grand larceny and wire fraud,” I said. “The US Attorney isn't offering a plea deal.”
Ethan leaned down, kissing the top of my head.
“It’s over, Natalie.”
May you like
I took a deep breath—the first real, unrestricted breath I had taken since my father’s casket descended into the earth four years ago.
“No,” I smiled, looking up at him as the sun reflected off the distant waters of the river.
