Chapter 10 - Eleanor's Desperation
Within forty-eight hours, Eleanor Vance found herself in the one place she had spent her entire high-society life looking down upon: a standard orange jumpsuit, sitting behind the bulletproof glass of the county detention center’s visitation room.
Her luxury hair salon blowouts had collapsed into greasy strands. Her makeup had washed away, revealing the sunken, bitter wrinkles of an aging woman stripped of her prestige. Her country club membership had been canceled by unanimous board vote. The charity galas she once chaired had scrubbed her name from their websites overnight.
She pressed her trembling hand against the glass as the heavy steel door on the visitor’s side clicked open.
I walked in.
I sat down slowly on the opposite side of the partition, placing the black telephone receiver to my ear. I didn't say a word. I just watched her.
Eleanor grabbed her phone with both hands, weeping hysterically.
"Clara! Clara, darling, please!" her voice crackled through the earpiece, frantic and pleading. "You have to tell them! You have to tell the prosecutors that this was all a terrible misunderstanding! You know Carter loves you! He was stressed from work, he wasn't in his right mind!"
I tilted my head, my face expressionless. "He wasn't in his right mind when he threw my phone against the wall? When he watched me bleed on the floor?"
"He panicked!" Eleanor screamed, tears streaking down her unwashed cheeks. "He's a young man with a brilliant future! If he goes to prison, his life is over! Do you want your son to grow up knowing his father is a convicted felon?!"
"My son," I said, my voice steady and cold as ice, "does not have a father. His birth certificate will read *Father: Unknown* until the day I die."
Eleanor’s expression twisted, the desperate facade cracking to reveal the ugly, venomous monster underneath.
"You ungrateful little viper!" she hissed, pressing her face against the glass, her saliva speckling the pane. "We gave you a home! We brought you into our circle! You were nothing but a nurse! You tricked my son into marrying you, hiding who your father was! If we knew you were Arthur Hayes’ daughter, none of this would have happened!"
I let out a soft, dry laugh.
"That's the sickest part, isn't it, Eleanor?" I whispered into the receiver. "You only believe human beings deserve basic decency if they have power over you. If a woman is poor, if she is simple, if she works with her hands... you think she is a dog to be kicked."
"I will destroy you!" Eleanor spat, her eyes bloodshot. "We have money hidden away! When Carter gets out, he will take that baby from you! You are an unfit mother!"
"You don't have money, Eleanor," I said quietly.
I pulled a single sheet of paper from my coat and pressed it against the glass.
It was an official notice of federal seizure from the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury.
"Your offshore trust in the Cayman Islands was seized this morning," I explained, watching the color drain from her face until she looked completely hollow. "Your late husband’s judicial pension was revoked under the Federal Anti-Corruption Act. And that beautiful house on Maple Crest? It was bought with kickbacks Carter took to fix drug trafficking trials. Tomorrow morning, it goes up for federal public auction."
Eleanor’s hand slipped from the glass. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"You have nothing," I said, leaning closer to the microphone. "No home. No money. No status. And in two weeks, when you are sentenced for your role in nearly killing my son, you will spend the next ten years eating lukewarm porridge off a plastic tray."
I set the receiver down on the cradle.
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Eleanor began pounding on the glass with both fists, screaming silent curses that couldn't penetrate the heavy barrier, while two female guards dragged her backward by her arms, her orange slippers squeaking pathetically against the concrete floor.
***
