Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Cell
Ethan signed.
His hands shook so violently that his signature looked like a jagged, broken line on the crisp white paper. He had no choice. Signing the civil agreement spared his uncle’s firm from immediate bankruptcy, but it sealed his own fate completely.
By 2:00 PM that afternoon, Ethan was returned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, stripped of his bail eligibility, his law license suspended indefinitely by the State Bar Association.
That evening, I visited the Women’s Detention Center in Lynwood, where Margaret Vance was being held in a high-security isolation cell.
I sat on one side of the thick plexiglass partition, wearing a dark blue coat that covered my bandaged neck.
Margaret was brought in by a female guard. She looked completely broken. Her expensive silk clothes had been replaced by a baggy yellow jumpsuit. Her pristine hair was unwashed, pulled back in a messy knot, and her red fingernails were chipped and dirty.
She picked up the phone receiver with a trembling hand, glaring at me through the glass with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"You think you're clever, don't you, you little bitch?" Margaret spat into the phone, her voice raspy and hoarse. "You acted like a weak, helpless little mouse for three years just to drag us into this trap!"
"I didn't set a trap, Margaret," I said calmly, holding the phone close to my ear. "I gave you a home. I gave your son a life. My father built a legacy, and I tried to share it with a man I thought loved me. But you and Ethan couldn't bear the fact that a woman owned the roof over your heads."
"Ethan built that business!" Margaret shrieked, pressing her face against the glass. "He deserved that money! You were just an orphan sitting on a fortune you didn't earn!"
"My father worked sixteen hours a day in steel mills to build his company, Margaret," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, lethal quiet that made her freeze. "You spent your life leeching off men, moving from one wealthy husband to the next until they died or left you. You thought you could treat me like your personal servant, pour scalding oil over my skin, and walk away with my inheritance?"
"You can't keep us in here forever!" Margaret sneered, though her eyes flashed with desperate terror. "Ethan’s lawyers will get us out on appeal!"
"Ethan’s lawyers abandoned him two hours ago," I replied softly. "His uncle stripped him of his partnership, his accounts are seized by the IRS, and your Swiss bank account in Zurich was frozen by federal marshals at noon today under the International Money Laundering Abatement Act."
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Margaret’s face drained of all color. She dropped the phone receiver, letting it dangle by its metal cord, bouncing uselessly against the wall.
"Enjoy your stay, Margaret," I said, standing up from my chair and buttoning my coat over my bandaged chest. "The food isn't as good as the meals I cooked for you, but at least you won't have to wait for dinner."
