Chapter 8 - Behind Glass and Steel
The concrete corridors of the Metropolitan Detention Center smelled of industrial disinfectant and stale fluorescent lighting.
Julian, Clara, and I were escorted into a small, windowless interrogation room separated by a thick pane of reinforced safety glass.
The heavy steel door on the opposite side buzzed loudly, and Victoria was brought in by a female corrections officer.
Her expensive designer dress had been replaced by a coarse orange prison jumpsuit that hung loose around her frail shoulders.
Her meticulously styled hair was disheveled, her makeup smeared, and the cold reality of her arrest had stripped away every trace of arrogance.
When she saw Julian sitting across from her, she pressed both her handcuffed hands against the glass, weeping uncontrollably.
"Julian, please, you have to post my bail!" Victoria pleaded, her voice cracking through the steel intercom grille.
"The federal investigators are freezing all my accounts, and they're threatening to charge me with conspiracy and elder abuse!"
"You should have thought about prison twenty-four years ago, Victoria," Julian replied, his voice devoid of any warmth or affection.
"Did Richard Sterling tell you to tamper with my father's car in November 2001?" Julian demanded, leaning close to the glass.
Victoria flinched as if struck by a physical blow, pulling her hands back from the cold partition.
"I didn't tamper with the car, Julian, I swear to God I didn't touch his brakes!" Victoria sobbed, shaking her head frantically.
"Who did it, Victoria?" Clara asked, leaning forward so Victoria had to look into the eyes of Helen Vance's daughter.
"Tell me the truth about the night Arthur crashed, or we let Sterling foreclose on Croft Global and you spend thirty years in prison alone."
Victoria dropped her head, her shoulders heaving with ragged breaths as the weight of two decades of terror crushed her spirit.
"It was Richard," Victoria whispered, barely audible through the speaker grille.
"My family owed Richard fifteen million dollars, and he promised to erase the entire debt if I gave him Arthur’s private travel itineraries."
"I thought Richard just wanted to confront him about the corporate merger, I swear I didn't know he cut the brake lines!" Victoria cried out.
"When Arthur survived the crash with multiple fractures, Richard came to my apartment with photographs of Helen and the baby," Victoria continued.
"He told me that if Arthur ever acknowledged Clara, my father would go to prison for fraud and my life would be ruined forever."
"He forced Arthur to sign that sham loan agreement while Arthur was still delirious on morphine in the trauma ward," Victoria revealed.
"Where is the proof that the loan was signed under duress?" Clara asked with razor-sharp precision.
"Arthur’s physician, Dr. Evans, secretly recorded the entire bedside meeting in the hospital," Victoria confessed, wiping tears from her cheeks.
"Evans was terrified that Richard would eliminate him as a witness, so he kept the audio tape and the original toxicological reports."
"Where does Evans keep that evidence today?" Julian demanded, his voice trembling with righteous fury.
"In a lockbox inside his private wellness clinic in Upstate New York, behind the antique grandfather clock in his consultation office," Victoria whispered.
"Richard knows Evans is a liability; his private security team was already looking for Evans yesterday evening."
Clara stood up from the metal chair, looking at Victoria without anger, but with a cold, absolute sense of finality.
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"You spent your life stepping on innocent people to secure luxury you never earned, Victoria," Clara said softly.
"Now, the very evidence you tried to bury is going to set this family free."
