Chapter 6 - THE SHADOW IN THE CELL BLOCKThree hundred miles away, inside the maximum-security holding facility of the county correctional center, fluorescent lights buzzed with a maddening, high-pitched whine.
Bradley sat on the edge of a bolted-down steel bunk, his fingernails digging into the thin gray mattress. The designer suit was gone, replaced scratchy, ill-fitting orange jumpsuit #48291. His world had shrunk from a thirty-million-dollar penthouse overlooking Seattle to a concrete box six feet by eight feet.
The heavy steel door clanked open.
A prison guard tapped his baton against the bars. "Miller. Visitor in Booth Three. Ten minutes."
Bradley sneered, standing up and brushing off his jumpsuit with a pathetic display of lingering arrogance. He assumed it was his high-priced defense attorney, ready to argue bail, ready to find a loophole, ready to prove that he was still untouchable.
He shuffled down the gray corridor in rubber sandals, sliding into the plastic chair behind the thick glass partition in Booth Three. He picked up the heavy black plastic telephone receiver, his eyes locked on the figure sitting on the other side of the glass.
It wasn't his lawyer.
It was Carol.
She wore a simple dark jacket, her hair pulled back neatly, her expression completely calm, almost serene. She picked up her receiver and pressed it against her ear.
Bradley slammed his palm against the glass.
"You!" he roared, his voice muffled by the thick acoustic barrier. "You pathetic little leech! What are you doing here? Did you come to gloat? My lawyers are filing an appeal by morning! I'll be out of here before you can even spell bankruptcy!"
Carol didn't flinch. She simply looked at him through the smudged glass with a gaze so piercing, so devoid of fear, that Bradley’s rant sputtered out into an uneasy silence.
"You're not getting out, Bradley," Carol said softly, her voice transmitting clearly through the small speaker grill. "Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not ever."
"You can't prove anything!" Bradley hissed, sweat beading on his forehead again. "Mom's dead! The court will buy temporary insanity! I have connections—"
"You had connections," Carol corrected him smoothly. "Gram is in a private nursing facility under state psychiatric observation, losing her mind because her entire legacy crumbled in forty-eight hours. And your bank accounts in the Caymans? Frozen by federal prosecutors yesterday afternoon."
Bradley’s jaw dropped. "How... how did you know about the Caymans?"
Carol offered a slow, chilling smile.
"Because Mom didn't just leave Dad a security recording, Bradley. She left a complete digital ledger of every single crime you committed since you were twenty-one years old. She knew what you were long before she died. She was just waiting for the right moment to let you hang yourself with your own rope."
Bradley’s face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. He slammed his fists against the glass again and again, screaming obscenities until his voice cracked, the veins in his neck bulging like thick blue cords.
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Guards rushed from the end of the hallway, pinning his arms behind his back and dragging him kicking and screaming away from the glass.
As Bradley disappeared down the dim corridor, Carol calmly hung up the phone, turned around, and walked out of the prison into the warm afternoon sunlight.
