Chapter 13 - Blood on the Ledger
The visiting room at Bedford Hills did not resemble the sterile glass cubicles seen in television dramas.
Because Arthur carried emergency court orders regarding unresolved financial fraud, we were ushered into a private, windowless interrogation room in the administrative wing.
The fluorescent lights hummed violently, casting a greenish, sickly hue over the concrete walls.
A single metal table was bolted into the concrete floor, flanked by two orange plastic chairs.
The heavy steel door rattled, and a corrections officer escorted Vanessa inside.
She wore a drab hunter-green inmate jumpsuit that hung loosely off her frail frame.
Her honey-blonde hair, once styled weekly at Bergdorf Goodman, was pulled into a limp ponytail secured with an elastic band.
Her skin was pale, devoid of the bronzer and high-end serums she used to boast about.
Yet, as her sunken eyes locked onto mine, a slow, venomous smirk curled the corners of her cracked lips.
"Look who came to visit the zoo," Vanessa whispered, her voice rough from disuse.
The guard pushed her down into the chair opposite me and handcuffed her right wrist to an iron ring anchored to the table.
"Leave us," Arthur instructed the guard, flashing his special judicial credentials.
The guard nodded and stepped outside, leaving the heavy door slightly ajar.
I sat down across from her, resting my forearms on the cold metal.
I didn't blink.
I didn't speak.
I let the crushing weight of the silence hang in the air until the smirk on her face began to twitch with nervous irritation.
"You look tired, Clara," she sneered, leaning her chin on her unchained hand.
"Is being a single mother running an empire harder than playing the victim in a hospital bed?"
"Who paid two point four million dollars into Apex Maritime, Vanessa?" I asked, my voice as flat as a gravestone.
Her smirk widened, though her pupils dilated with surprise that I had uncovered the account so quickly.
"You think money is the only currency in this world, don't you?" she whispered.
"You think because your daddy built docks and your mother bought politicians, you own the board."
"Julian was an idiot," she spat out his name like stale water.
"He was a vain, sniveling coward who wept like a child when the marshals locked his apartment."
"I used him to get what I needed from your father's old ledgers."
"And he was too busy fantasizing about playing the prince to realize he was just a crowbar."
"Julian is broke, living over a laundromat, and eating canned soup," I said coldly.
"And you are doing four years in maximum security."
"If you had a crowbar, you dropped it on your own foot."
Vanessa leaned across the table, the chain of her handcuffs clinking sharply against the iron ring.
"Do you really believe Julian was smart enough to reroute the manifest codes on the St. Catherine’s expansion project?"
"Do you honestly believe he knew which offshore trusts held the Bennett port leases in New Jersey?"
My breath caught slightly, but I kept my face an impenetrable mask.
"Julian didn't know a balance sheet from a takeout menu until you got your claws into him," I said.
"I didn't give him those account numbers, Clara," Vanessa purred, her eyes gleaming with genuine madness.
"Someone gave them to me."
"Someone who hated your father long before you were born."
"Someone who waited thirty years for the Bennett line to weaken down to a solitary woman with an infant child."
"Richard Cole," Arthur interrupted, stepping forward with his notebook open.
"The man who visited you yesterday."
"Who is he?"
Vanessa burst out laughing—a high, shrill sound that bounced off the concrete blocks like shards of broken glass.
"Richard Cole is dead, you old fossil!" she cackled.
"He died four years ago, but his signature still opens vaults in Jersey City!"
She leaned even closer to me, her breath smelling of cheap tobacco and prison cafeteria coffee.
"You thought the invoice was paid, Clara?"
"You didn't even pay the deposit."
"They’re going to bleed your daughter’s trust dry."
"And Julian... poor, pathetic Julian is going to take the fall for all of it."
The door banged open, and the corrections officer stepped back inside.
"Time's up, Counselor."
I stood up slowly, smoothing the creases of my charcoal slacks.
"Enjoy the green jumpsuit, Vanessa," I said quietly, looking down at her with absolute disgust.
"Because whoever your ghost is, he didn't post your bail."
"He left you in the cage."
Vanessa’s laughter abruptly died.
Her eyes flashed with sudden, feral panic as the guard pulled her backward by the shoulder.
"You check the Jersey City docks, Clara!" she screamed as she was dragged toward the corridor.
"Check container ninety-four! Check the manifest before midnight!"
The heavy steel door slammed shut, cutting off her shrieks.
Arthur looked at me, his weathered face pale beneath the harsh fluorescent tube.
"Arthur," I said, my voice trembling with controlled rage.
May you like
"Call Thomas."
"We are driving straight to the Jersey City terminal."
