Chapter 4 - The Arrest
The grand wrought-iron gates of the Cross estate were surrounded by six black police cruisers, their red and blue lights flashing rhythmically against the stone walls. News vans from every major network in the state were parked along the curb, reporters jostling for position as camera crews set up high-powered zoom lenses.
Inside the foyer, Vivian Cross was in a state of complete hysteria.
"You can't do this!" she shrieked as two uniformed officers forced her arms behind her back, snapping heavy steel handcuffs over her manicured wrists. "Do you know who I am? I am Vivian Cross! I host the annual Children's Hospital Gala! I am a pillar of this community!"
"Ma'am, you have the right to remain silent," the arresting officer said calmly, reading from a laminated card as he escorted her down the marble steps where, just twenty-four hours earlier, my blood and tears had stained the floor.
"Daniel! Do something!" Vivian screamed, her face contorted with rage and fear. "Call our lawyers! Call the Mayor!"
Daniel couldn't call anyone. He was already in handcuffs, pinned against the hood of a police cruiser by a stern-faced detective. His expensive silk shirt was torn at the collar, his hair disheveled, his eyes wild with terror as light from news cameras flashed relentlessly in his face.
Arthur Cross stood on the porch, clutching his chest, supported by two paramedics who were trying to administer oxygen as he watched his wife and son being shoved into the back of separate squad cars.
"Look at the camera, Mr. Cross!" a reporter shouted from behind the police tape, holding a microphone forward. "Is it true you used corporate funds to pay off personal debt? Are the rumors true that your family assaulted your new bride?"
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"No comment! Get those cameras out of my face!" Daniel roared, trying to kick at a photographer as the officer forced his head down into the backseat of the vehicle.
The squad cars pulled away in a noisy procession, their sirens blaring, leaving the Cross estate stripped of its glamour, exposed to the world as a house of cards built on cruelty and financial fraud.
