Chapter 9 - The Visitation Glass
The King County Correctional Facility smelled of industrial floor stripper, cold metal, and stale processed bread.
It was two o'clock on Saturday afternoon when the guard unlocked the heavy steel door to the visitor cubicle and gestured for me to sit on the bolted steel stool.
Across the thick, scratch-covered acrylic pane, Evan Vance sat in an orange institutional jumpsuit, his wrists bound by a belly chain that clinked against the edge of the steel shelf.
The polished, effortless golden boy of Morrison & Croft was gone.
His styled pomade had dried into a disheveled, greasy mess hanging across his forehead.
His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark purple rings of exhaustion and terror, and his hands were trembling uncontrollably where they rested against the counter.
When he looked up and saw me sitting on the other side of the glass, a broken, desperate gasp escaped his lips.
He snatched the heavy plastic phone receiver off the wall bracket with both hands.
I lifted my receiver, holding it to my ear with detached, patient composure.
"Lauren! Oh God, Lauren, thank God you’re here!" he cried, his voice cracking against the receiver speaker like broken porcelain.
"You have to get Diane down here right now!"
"They won't let me post bail!"
"They put a federal hold on me, Lauren! Federal!"
"They took my belt, they took my watch, they threw me into a holding cell with twenty people!"
"Nick’s attorney told me there was a clerical mistake with the paperwork and that you just need to sign a declaration confirming you authorized the transfer from your family’s fund!"
"Just sign the release form, Lauren, please!"
"If you sign it, Nick said the firm will post a two-million-dollar surety bond and pay off your grandmother’s account with interest before Monday morning!"
I looked at him through the thick, scratched acrylic pane.
I looked at the terror in his brown eyes, the sweat glistening on his temples, and the way his fingers clutched the receiver as if it were a life raft in a stormy sea.
"Did Nick tell you that from his holding cell, Evan?" I asked, my voice falling like a block of ice onto a frozen pond.
He blinked, momentarily disoriented by my calm, flat tone.
"What? No, Nick’s outside... he’s coordinating with the firm’s crisis PR firm..."
"Nick isn't outside, Evan," I said gently.
"Federal marshals arrested Nick Sterling at Sea-Tac International Airport four hours ago while he was attempting to board a private charter flight to the Cayman Islands."
Evan’s mouth fell open, his lower jaw trembling as the color completely drained from his face until he looked like a corpse under the cold fluorescent lighting.
"What... what are you talking about?"
"And Marcus Vance was taken into custody at his home in Medina thirty minutes after that," I continued without mercy.
"The Assistant United States Attorney spent the morning reviewing the server logs from terminal forty-two."
"They know about the forged bearer bonds, Evan."
"They know about Brenda Caldwell's notary log."
"And most importantly, they know that the entire defense strategy your friends handed you was designed to leave you with thirty years in a federal penitentiary while they liquidated the offshore accounts."
Evan stared at me, his chest heaving under the stiff orange fabric of his jumpsuit.
"No... no, that’s impossible," he stammered, tears spilling over his lower lids and tracking down his stubbled cheeks.
"Nick is my friend... Marcus sponsored me for partner... they said we were brothers..."
"They told you that your wife wasn't good enough for you, Evan," I whispered into the receiver, leaning closer to the glass so he could see the absolute absence of pity in my eyes.
"They convinced you that I was a liability because they needed you to look at me with contempt."
"They needed you to believe I was small enough, weak enough, and foolish enough to take the fall for your cowardice."
"You looked me in the eye in our kitchen and told me you could do better."
"Now look at where your better company put you."
He dropped his head against the glass with a dull, wet thud, his entire body shaking with violent, uncontrollable sobs.
"Lauren, please... don't leave me here... I was an idiot... I was drunk... I was scared of losing partner..."
"You didn't lose your partnership, Evan," I said, setting the plastic receiver down on the steel shelf.
May you like
"You lost your life."
I stood up, smoothed the front of my black coat, and walked out the heavy steel door without looking back a single time.
