Chapter 6 - The Visitor in Cell 4
Ten miles away, in the maximum-security holding wing of the county detention facility, Daniel Reeves was discovering that county lockup was very different from the luxury life he had envisioned.
His tailored dress shirt was gone, replaced by an abrasive orange jumpsuit. His designer watch had been confiscated, leaving a pale ring of skin on his wrist. He sat at a stainless-steel table in the glass-partitioned visitation room, tapping his foot in an agitated, frantic rhythm.
The heavy steel door on the visitor’s side buzzed and swung open.
Daniel looked up eagerly, expecting his high-priced court-appointed attorney, or perhaps a representative from the bail bondsman he had desperately phoned six times.
Instead, a young woman in an immaculate ivory pantsuit walked in. Her dark hair was pulled back into an elegant knot, and a silk scarf was wrapped artfully around her neck and shoulders, concealing the thick medical bandages beneath.
Daniel recoiled, his jaw dropping. “Sarah?”
I sat down on the metal stool across from him and picked up the black plastic telephone receiver. I motioned for him to do the same.
With trembling hands, Daniel lifted his receiver to his ear.
“Sarah… honey,” he started, his voice cracking, trying desperately to slip back into his old persona of the misunderstood husband. “You came. Thank God you came. You have to tell them! Tell them this is a mistake! They’re treating me like an animal in here. They won’t let me post bail—the judge denied it! They said I’m a flight risk because of your mother’s lawyers!”
I looked through the reinforced glass at the man I had slept beside for five years. I felt no anger. I felt no grief. I felt only a vast, glacial emptiness.
“You look terrible, Daniel,” I said calmly.
“Sarah, listen to me!” he pleaded, pressing his face against the glass, leaving a greasy smear. “Vanessa… she tricked me! She told me she just wanted to scare you! She said she was going to confront you so you’d leave me, so we could be together! I never knew she was going to bring oil! I swear on our baby’s life, I didn't know!”
“Do not swear on my daughter’s life,” I said. The temperature in my voice made him shut his mouth instantly. “Maya is no longer your child. As of nine o’clock this morning, the family court granted an emergency petition terminating all your parental rights on grounds of attempted murder. Her birth certificate will read *Maya Whitmore*. Your name does not exist.”
Daniel’s face flushed purple with rage. The mask slipped completely.
“You can’t do that!” he spat into the receiver, slamming his palm against the glass. “I have rights! I’m your husband! Everything you own is marital property! The house, your savings, everything!”
“The house has been demolished,” I replied smoothly.
He froze. “What?”
“I sent a demolition crew this morning,” I said, holding his furious gaze. “The suburban house you brought me to. The porch where you had your mistress throw boiling oil at me. It was bulldozed into a pile of splinters and hauled to the county dump. The land has been donated to a women’s crisis shelter. You have no home, Daniel. You have no money. And you have no wife.”
“You cold-blooded bitch,” he snarled, his breath fogging the partition. “You think your mother can save you? Vanessa has Julian’s files! She knows about the clinical trials your father covered up twelve years ago! The ones that killed three people! When she leaks those to the press, Whitmore Medical Group will be broken into pieces! The Department of Justice will seize everything you have!”
I smiled slightly. It was a cold, sharp movement of my lips.
“Thank you, Daniel,” I said.
He blinked, thrown off balance. “What?”
I held up my phone, pressing a button that illuminated the screen against the glass. It showed an active audio stream directly linked to Detective Miller’s recorder in the surveillance van parked outside the prison.
“Extortion can now be added to your conspiracy charges,” I whispered into the receiver. “And you just confirmed that Vanessa Caldwell is in possession of stolen corporate archives—which makes her flight from justice a federal crime. The FBI just took over the manhunt.”
Daniel’s eyes dilated in pure horror. He dropped the receiver. It swung on its metal cord, banging rhythmically against the stainless-steel partition.
*Clang. Clang. Clang.*
I stood up, adjusted my silk scarf, and looked down at him through the glass.
May you like
“Enjoy your trial, Daniel,” I said, turning my back on him. “Because by the time I’m done with you, prison will be the safest place you could possibly be.”
***
