Chapter 8 - The Visitor in Holding
The Cook County Department of Corrections holding facility smelled of harsh disinfectant, damp concrete, and unexpressed despair.
I walked down the gleaming linoleum corridor flanked by two private security guards provided by Marcus Vance. When we reached holding cell 412, I stopped and motioned for the guard to slide open the small barred window.
Inside, sitting on a rusted metal bunk with his head buried in his hands, was Vincent.
He looked smaller than he had forty-eight hours ago. His hair was uncombed, his shirt collar was torn where booking officers had ripped away his tie, and his shoulders shook with a mixture of rage and sheer exhaustion.
“Vincent,” I said.
His head snapped up. When he saw my face pressed against the glass, he scrambled off the bunk, throwing himself against the bars with a desperate, manic energy.
“Claire! Oh, thank God, you’re here!” he cried, reaching his hands through the iron slats. “Get me out of here! My lawyer says they’re charging me with corporate identity theft! They’re talking about ten years, Claire! Ten years!”
“Ten years sounds fair,” I replied evenly, resting my palms on the steel frame. “Considering you tried to destroy our family’s legacy to fund a boutique hotel for a woman who won't even look at your mugshot.”
Vincent’s face twisted in confusion and panic. “What? What are you talking about? Vanessa loves me!”
I pulled my tablet from my handbag, tapped the screen twice, and slid it through the bottom food slot of the cell door.
Vincent dropped to his knees, snatching the device. On the screen was an open text message thread, time-stamped just twenty minutes earlier, alongside a legal affidavit.
It was a communication between Vanessa Cole’s new divorce attorney and the district attorney's office.
“Miss Cole is fully cooperating with federal investigators,” the legal declaration read. “In exchange for full immunity regarding the wire fraud conspiracy, Miss Cole is submitting all encrypted voice notes, wire transfer receipts, and text communications proving that Mr. Vincent Hale acted as the sole mastermind behind the corporate embezzlement scheme.”
Vincent stared at the screen as if reading a death sentence. His breath hitched, his chest heaving as the reality of his betrayal settled in.
“She... she blamed it all on me?” he whispered, his voice cracking into a pathetic sob. “She told the feds I forced her to do it?”
“People who live in glass houses don't usually keep a spare parachute, Vincent,” I said softly. “You taught her how to lie, manipulate, and cover her tracks. You just forgot that someone like Vanessa loves money a lot more than she loves a man in a jail jumpsuit.”
He dropped the tablet onto the concrete floor, burying his face in his hands, and began to weep—not with remorse, but with the cold, hollow terror of a man who had lost everything because he thought he was smarter than everyone else in the room.
May you like
I turned around, leaving him alone in the dark.
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