Chapter 7 - The Witness in the Cell
Three hundred miles away, in the harsh, sterile environment of the Indiana federal holding facility, Barrett Vance sat in a small, windowless interrogation room. He had lost thirty pounds. His suit, once tailored and sharp, hung off his gaunt frame.
His attorney, a man whose skin looked like parchment paper, slid a document across the table.
“She’s not budging, Barrett,” the lawyer whispered. “The Sterling team is a wall. If we don’t get these patents, the embezzlement charges will stick, and the judge is already signaling for a twenty-year maximum.”
Barrett stared at the document, his eyes burning with a manic, desperate light. “She’s not the architect. She’s just a spoiled rich girl playing with her father’s toys. I built that brand from nothing! I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them I have hidden server backups.”
“Do you?” the lawyer asked, his voice devoid of hope.
Barrett hesitated. He thought back to the night of the gala, the night he had been dragged out of the house. He remembered deleting everything he could get his hands on, but there was one thing he hadn't touched—a physical hard drive he had hidden in the ventilation shaft of the Greenwich basement before Mallerie had ever moved in.
“I have a drive,” Barrett breathed. “Hidden. In the house. If I can get someone to retrieve it, I can prove I had the original files before she did.”
He didn't realize that the very room he was sitting in was being monitored by Sterling Global’s private intelligence firm.
In a high-tech facility in downtown Chicago, a young analyst listened to the audio feed. He didn't rush to call the police. Instead, he pulled up a blueprint of the Greenwich mansion—the very blueprints Mallerie had designed herself. He located the HVAC system, the precise ventilation shafts, and the layout of the basement Mallerie had once called her cell.
He sent a text message to Marcus.
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“He’s talking about a drive in the vents. Shall we pay a visit to the old house before the bank finishes the foreclosure clearing?”
Marcus replied in seconds: “Don’t touch it. Let him think it’s there. Let him send someone. When he does, we’ll be waiting to record every second of the trespass.”
