Chapter 7 - The Golden Child
The holding cell visitation booth was small, smelling of industrial bleach and stagnant air.
The heavy metal door on the other side clicked open, and a female guard escorted Vanessa inside.
My sister had aged, but the core of her remained unchanged. Even in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit, her highlighted hair had been smoothed down, though her makeup was smeared in dark streaks beneath her eyes. When she saw me sitting behind the scratch-resistant acrylic glass, she didn't look remorseful.
She looked indignant.
She sat down heavily on the metal stool, picked up the plastic telephone receiver, and jammed it against her ear.
I picked up mine.
“Did you bring the money?” she demanded without so much as a greeting. Her voice was cracked, raw, but thick with the entitlement that had defined every interaction of our shared childhood. “Claire, look at me! They took my jewelry! They put me in handcuffs in front of my neighbors! You have to get me out of here!”
“Hello, Vanessa,” I said evenly. “It’s been ten years. You look well, considering.”
“Shut up!” she hissed, slamming her small hand against the glass. “Stop acting so superior! Mom said you were coming to sign the bond! What are you doing in the prosecutor's room? Why aren't you out there with the lawyer?”
“I just handed the United States Attorney thirty pages of forensic evidence proving you forged my name on Apex Crest’s corporate filings,” I said.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Vanessa’s mouth parted slightly. The color drained from her lips, leaving her looking hollowed-out and sickly under the harsh lighting.
“You... you what?” she whispered through the receiver.
“You’re going to federal prison, Vanessa. There is no bail. The house in Ridgefield is underwater, your accounts are frozen, and I will be filing a formal victim statement requesting maximum sentencing enhancements for identity theft.”
“You can’t do that!” she shrieked, her voice spiking into a frantic, breathy wail that drew the sharp gaze of the guard behind her. “We’re sisters! Claire, listen to me—Mom told me to use your name! She told me it was fine! She said you owed us!”
“I owed you?” I laughed, a short, humorless sound. “For what? For taking a slap to the face while you sat there clutching a four-hundred-dollar sweater? For funding your failed boutique? For being your punching bag?”
“For leaving!” Vanessa spat, tears finally spilling over her lashes, ugly and genuine this time. “You walked away and left me alone with her! Do you have any idea what it’s like living with Eleanor when she doesn't have you to kick around? She demanded more! She needed money, she needed social status, she needed the country club dues paid! I didn't want to start Apex Crest! It wasn't my idea!”
I gripped the plastic receiver tighter, my knuckles whitening.
“Whose idea was it, Vanessa?”
Vanessa looked past my shoulder, her eyes darting toward the observation window behind me, where Vance was standing with his arms crossed.
“You think Mom is just an old lady living on a pension?” Vanessa’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “The boutique didn't go under because of bad inventory, Claire. Mom used it to wash cash for Arthur Sterling. And when you wouldn't give her the two hundred thousand to plug the hole ten years ago... she made a deal with him. She promised him a new pipeline.”
My blood ran cold.
*Arthur Sterling.*
Our father’s former business partner. A prominent Connecticut real estate developer who had dodged three separate state ethics probes before mysteriously retiring to a gated compound in Litchfield.
“What pipeline?” I whispered.
May you like
Vanessa swallowed hard, her chest heaving against the orange fabric. “Apex Crest isn't just shipping logistics, Claire. It was moving commercial real estate escrow funds. Arthur’s funds. And the Monero wallets... I don't have the keys. Eleanor has them. She’s had them all along.”
***
