Chapter 8 - The Smoking Gun
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the quiet hum of the laptop fan.
Vanessa Thorne was the first to move. She stood up so quickly her chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor.
"This... this has nothing to do with me," she stammered, her hands shaking as she grabbed her designer clutch from the table. "Garrett, you told me the funds were clean. You told me it was a private investment from your family's estate! You said your wife had signed off on everything!"
"Vanessa, shut up!" Garrett snarled, his voice cracking as he looked at the screen.
"I won't shut up!" she screamed, her professional composure completely shattered. "I’m not going to prison for you! Clara, I swear, I didn't know about Ethan's trust. He told me the money was his!"
"It doesn't matter what he told you, Vanessa," I said, not looking up from my wine glass. "Your signature is on the registration documents for Aegis Development. Your personal bank accounts have been receiving the transferred funds. In the eyes of the federal government, you are an active co-conspirator in a multi-million-dollar wire fraud and money laundering scheme."
"No," she whispered, her face turning a ghostly white. "No, no, no..."
She turned and ran from the dining room, her heels clicking frantically on the tile of the foyer. A moment later, the heavy oak front door slammed shut, leaving me alone with my husband.
Garrett sat frozen in his chair, his eyes fixed on the security feed of the warehouse. On the screen, federal agents in dark blue jackets were carrying boxes of files out of the building, the flashing red and blue lights of their vehicles illuminating the dark harbor.
"How did you do this?" he whispered, his voice empty of all its usual arrogance. "How did you find out?"
"You left your phone on the bedside table, Garrett," I said. "On the night our son died."
He closed his eyes, a shuddering breath escaping his chest. "Clara... please. I did it for us. The business was in trouble, I was desperate... I was going to put the money back as soon as the merger went through, I swear to God!"
"You let Ethan die for a hotel room, Garrett," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, flat register. "You muted your phone while he was calling your name. You let him take his last breath wondering why his daddy didn't love him enough to come."
"That's not true!" he cried out, standing up and reaching for my hands. "My phone died! I told you, the battery—"
"I have the network logs, Garrett," I interrupted, pulling my hands back. "I have the signal reports. I know exactly what time your phone died. And I know exactly what you were doing when it did."
He stared at me, his mouth open, his eyes filled with a sudden, terrifying realization of his own complete ruin.
"You're going to prison, Garrett," I said. "For a very long time. The SEC has already frozen Vanguard's assets. Blackstone cancelled the merger ten minutes ago. And your partners are currently being interviewed by the FBI."
He sank back into his chair, his face buried in his hands, his body shaking with a genuine, ugly, pathetic grief.
May you like
Not for his son.
For himself.
