Chapter 6 - Cornered Predators
The Bridgeport Correctional Center was a brutalist monolith of poured concrete and razor wire, rising like a gray scar against the cold industrial outskirts of the city.
Twenty-four hours after her arrest, Vanessa Vance sat across a stainless-steel visiting table, separated from the free world by four inches of bulletproof composite glass. She was no longer wearing cream cashmere or pearl earrings. She was clad in a faded, oversized orange jumpsuit made of scratchy polyester. Her roots were showing dark against her blonde dye, her manicured nails were chipped, and her eyes were wild, bloodshot, and hollowed by sleeplessness.
On the other side of the glass sat Julian Croft.
Julian looked scarcely better. Though out on an astronomical two-million-dollar secured bond put up by his estranged brother, the high-flying attorney had been stripped of his passport, forced to wear an electronic GPS ankle monitor, and had spent the previous night being interrogated by the FBI. His bespoke suit was wrinkled, his silver hair uncombed, his hands shaking as he picked up the plastic telephone receiver.
Vanessa snatched her receiver from the wall cradle, slamming it against her ear.
"Where were you?" she screamed into the microphone, her voice tinny and distorted through the intercom. "Why haven't you posted my bail? Julian, get me out of here! The women in this block... they’re animals! One of them tried to take my shoes this morning! Get Judge Hollister on the phone and get me out!"
Julian rubbed his face with a trembling palm. He looked at her not with the lust or conspiratorial warmth of three days ago, but with the cold, venomous terror of a drowning man being dragged down by an anchor.
"There is no bail, Vanessa," Julian said, his voice flat, defeated.
Vanessa froze. "What do you mean there’s no bail? My father’s estate—"
"The State’s Attorney filed an amended indictment this morning," Julian interrupted, his voice shaking. "They brought in the federal prosecutors from the Southern District. Daniel didn't just give them the kitchen tape, Vanessa. He gave them twenty-four cameras. Four months of continuous, high-definition video and directional audio."
Vanessa’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"They have us," Julian whispered, a tear of pure self-pity leaking from his eye. "They have the bedroom. They have the dining room. They have the audio of me explaining how to funnel the money through Silverline Management. They have the footage of me guiding Martha’s hand across the trust document while she was crying. They have the footage of you dumping the boiling soup on her lap."
"No..." Vanessa gasped, her knuckles turning white against the plastic receiver. "No, no! The cameras were removed! I personally watched the technicians take them down in June!"
"Daniel is a master telemetry systems engineer, you stupid, arrogant idiot!" Julian hissed, his patrician composure shattering into pure venom. "He installed military-grade pinholes in the ceiling fixtures! He ran them on an encrypted, off-grid server! He knew what we were doing before he even landed at JFK!"
Vanessa rocked back in her metal chair, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. "Then destroy the evidence! You're a lawyer! File a motion! Say it was an illegal search! Invasion of privacy! He filmed his own wife in her bedroom!"
"It was his house, Vanessa! His private network! And you were committing multiple Class B and Class A felonies on the property! Privacy expectations vanish in the commission of violent crimes against a dependent adult!" Julian slammed his palm against the glass. "The U.S. Attorney offered me a deal an hour ago."
Vanessa looked at him, her eyes narrowing as a new, freezing terror settled into her chest. "What deal?"
Julian looked down at the stainless-steel counter. He couldn't meet her gaze. "Full cooperation. State’s witness. If I testify against you on the assault, the attempted manslaughter, and the physical abuse—if I confirm that you were the primary instigator and that you physically administered the unauthorized haloperidol—they’ll drop the RICO conspiracy charges against me. They’ll recommend an eight-year sentence at a federal minimum-security camp instead of thirty years in maximum security."
Vanessa’s face went dead white. Then, a shriek tore from her throat that made the corrections officers along the wall snap their batons into their hands.
"You traitor!" she screamed, slamming the heavy plastic receiver against the glass again and again, leaving spiderweb scratches on the surface. "You coward! You crawled into my bed! You told me we’d be in Saint Thomas! You told me you loved me!"
"I loved the five million dollars, Vanessa," Julian said, his voice dead, ice-cold. "I never loved you. You're a vicious, sadistic narcissist who couldn't even starve an old woman without getting off on the cruelty. You did this to yourself. If you had just put her in a decent nursing home, Daniel never would have checked the telemetry. But you had to hit her. You had to play the queen."
Julian stood up, letting the phone drop to dangle by its metal cord. "I signed the proffer agreement twenty minutes ago. Enjoy York Correctional, Vanessa. You’re going to be an old woman before you ever see the sun without a fence in front of it."
"Julian! Julian, come back!" she shrieked, throwing her body against the glass as Julian turned his back and walked through the reinforced exit door without looking back once.
May you like
Two burly female guards seized Vanessa by the shoulders, wrenching her away from the partition. She kicked, screamed, and spat, her fingernails clawing at the concrete walls, her voice echoing down the institutional hallway in a chorus of pure, unadulterated madness until the heavy iron door of the cell block slammed shut, cutting off her cries from the world.
***
