Chapter 6 - The Confession in the Glass Room
The Westchester County District Attorney's office had an interrogation room that smelled of stale bleach and old linoleum. Delaney had been sitting in the metal chair for four hours, her designer pajamas stained with sweat and tears, her lawyer—a terrified junior partner from Hayes's corporate firm—sitting beside her, frantically reviewing the newly unsealed indictment.
Across the stainless-steel table sat Sloan.
I had insisted on being in the room. Agent Chen and Detective Miller stood behind a two-way mirror, their recording equipment capturing every word in 4K resolution and directional audio.
I wore a simple black turtleneck that covered the base of my neck, but the thick white surgical gauze on my head was impossible to miss. My hands were resting flat on the table. I looked calm. I looked professional. I looked like the therapist who had listened to hundreds of liars try to justify their cruelty.
"You look terrible, Delaney," I said softly.
Delaney sniffed, wiping her nose with a cheap paper napkin. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she couldn't bring herself to look directly at the bandage on my scalp.
"Sloan... please," she whispered, her voice cracking. "You have to tell them to drop the assault charges. They're talking about prison. Real prison. Not a country club. Five to ten years at Bedford Hills."
"Why did you do it, Delaney?" I asked, keeping my voice level, steady, and devoid of anger. "I want to hear it from you. Not Hayes. Not Mother. You."
"I didn't know it would cut you like that!" she cried out, her lawyer gently touching her arm to warn her, but she shoved his hand away. "Hayes told me that Dad had stolen his research! He said Dad locked the family money in a trust out of spite because he hated Hayes! He told me that if we didn't get the biological key, we would lose everything! We were three months behind on the estate mortgage, Sloan! We were about to be foreclosed on!"
"So your solution was to stage an assault at your own wedding?"
"Hayes came up with the idea!" she sobbed, the words tumbling out of her in a desperate, panicked torrent. "He had his lab technician design the housing inside the tiara! He told me that if I did it during the reception, with the cameras rolling, everyone would think it was just a silly prank! He said you’d be too embarrassed to make a scene! He said you’d just go to the bathroom, clean it up, and the device would have already synced with his phone and fallen into your hair!"
"And what if it had penetrated my skull, Delaney?" I asked, leaning forward slightly. "Did Hayes tell you that the central barb was three millimeters away from puncturing my superior sagittal sinus? Do you know what happens when that vein is severed?"
Delaney swallowed hard, her skin turning an ashen gray. "No..."
"I would have bled to death on the marble floor of the conservatory before the paramedics could have cleared the front gate. You would have watched me drown in my own blood while your documentary crew captured it in high definition."
"I didn't know!" she wailed, covering her face with her cuffed hands. "I swear to God, Sloan, I didn't know it was that dangerous! Hayes promised me it was harmless! He said it was just like an ear-piercing gun!"
"And what about the smear campaign?" I asked, cold fury finally bleeding into my tone. "The video? The thousands of people calling my clinic? The death threats sent to my personal email? Was that Hayes, too?"
Delaney lowered her hands, her lower lip trembling. "Mom... Mom said we had to get ahead of the story. She called Hayes's PR agency at two in the morning. She told them to leak the edited clip. She said... she said if we made you look crazy, nobody would believe you if you accused Hayes of trying to steal the patent."
I sat back in my chair, the disgust settling deep in my chest.
There it was. It wasn't just Hayes. It had never been just Hayes. Laurelai and Delaney had willingly, enthusiastically participated in the complete psychological and professional destruction of their own sister and daughter, all to preserve their veneer of wealth.
"Where is the master recording, Delaney?" I asked.
"What?"
"The documentary crew," I said. "The unedited, raw footage. With the audio from your lapel mic and Hayes's hidden transmitter. The police searched the estate, but the primary memory cards from the main camera weren't in the house."
Delaney hesitated, her eyes darting nervously toward her lawyer. "I... I can't say that."
"Delaney," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "Agent Chen has Hayes dead to rights on federal wire fraud and international arms trafficking violations. He is going away for the rest of his natural life. If you want any hope of a plea deal that doesn't involve spending your thirties in an orange jumpsuit, you will tell me where those cards are right now."
Her lawyer leaned over and whispered fiercely into her ear: *"Tell her. If this goes to a federal grand jury without a cooperation agreement, you are going down with him."*
Delaney squeezed her eyes shut, fresh tears spilling over her lashes.
"They're in Mother's townhouse," Delaney whispered. "In her dressing room. Behind the safe behind the mirror. Hayes gave them to her before the reception ended. He told her that if anything went wrong, she was to hold them as leverage against you."
I looked toward the two-way mirror and nodded slightly.
On the other side of the glass, I heard the faint click of a door opening as Agent Chen dispatched a tactical unit to Laurelai’s Upper East Side townhouse.
"Sloan... please," Delaney wept, reaching across the table with her trembling hands. "We’re sisters. We share the same blood. Dad wouldn't have wanted our family to be torn apart like this. Please tell them to let me go home."
I stood up from the table, smoothing the fabric of my black sweater. I looked down at the girl I had protected, defended, and loved for twenty-eight years—a girl who had traded my life for an eight-million-dollar mortgage and a viral video.
"Dad knew exactly who you were, Delaney," I said softly. "That's why he gave the key to me."
I turned and walked toward the heavy steel door.
"Sloan! Sloan, don't leave me here! Sloan!"
May you like
The door clicked shut behind me, cutting off her screams with finality.
***
