Chapter 4 - The Interrogation Room BetrayalFaceto-Face with the MonsterThe interrogation room at the 4th District Police Headquarters smelled of stale coffee and bleach.
Silas sat at the metal table, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot. He had lost his smug composure, but the arrogance was still clinging to him like trash.
The heavy door opened, and I walked in. Alone.
Silas snapped his head up. A sneer twisted his mouth. "Came to gloat, Clara? You think putting me in orange makes you the winner? Vance’s lawyers are already filing for my bail. I’ll be out by tomorrow morning."
I pulled out the metal chair opposite him and sat down, resting my hands on the table. I didn't look angry. I didn't look broken. I looked completely, terrifyingly calm.
"Vance isn't posting your bail, Silas," I said softly.
He scoffed. "You don't know what you’re talking about."
"Evelyn went to the guesthouse an hour ago," I continued, leaning forward. "She brought a gun, a canister of gasoline, and a match. She tried to burn every trace of your secondary ledger. When she found me there, she told me everything."
Silas’s eyes flickered with a sudden, microscopic pulse of panic. "What ledger?"
"The black notebook," I said, pulling a photocopied page from my coat and sliding it across the cold metal table. "The one where you wrote down every command Senator Vance gave you. The one where you documented his payment schedules for the casino development scheme."
Silas looked down at the paper. The color instantly drained from his face, leaving him pale as paper.
"She... she was supposed to destroy that weeks ago," he muttered under his breath.
"She didn't," I said. "And she didn't come to save you, Silas. She told me you were soft. She said you were an idiot who was going to ruin everything. She made a deal with Vance three days ago—long before the funeral. They decided that if the police ever looked into the car crash, you were going to be framed as a rogue, mentally unstable father who acted alone out of financial desperation."
"That’s a lie!" Silas slammed his fists on the table, the chains rattling loudly. "My mother loves me! She wouldn't—"
"She tried to shoot me, Silas!" I snapped, my voice cutting through the room like a razor blade. "She set fire to the house with me inside it! She doesn't care about you! She cares about the fifty-million-dollar land deal! To her, you were just the delivery boy—and now you're the fall guy!"
Silas sat frozen, his chest heaving as reality finally pierced through his thick skull.
He knew I was telling the truth. He knew his mother’s cold, calculating nature better than anyone.
"What... what about Margot?" he stammered, his voice cracking.
I smiled—a dark, merciless smile. "Margot is in interrogation room B right now. Do you know what she’s doing? She’s currently signing a full confession in exchange for federal immunity. She’s giving up the bank accounts, the forged signatures, and she’s telling Detective Miller that you were the one who cut the brake lines on my SUV."
Silas’s jaw worked silently. Tears of anger and terror began to pool in his eyes. "I didn't cut the lines! I swear to God, Clara, I didn't touch the car! It was... it was Vance’s mechanic! A guy named Miller who works out of the docks!"
Got you.
I reached under the table, pulled out a small black recording device Agent Kane had placed there, and turned off the flashing red light.
Silas stared at the recorder, his eyes widening in horrified realization.
"Thank you, Silas," I whispered, standing up from the chair. "That’s a full confession to conspiracy to commit capital murder."
"Clara! No! Wait!" Silas lunged across the table, his handcuffs catching on the metal edge, pulling him down. He fell onto the cold floor, screaming frantically. "Clara, please! I was trying to protect us! Vance said if I didn't get the land, he’d kill all of us! I didn't know the kids were in the car! You have to believe me! I thought you were driving alone!"
I paused at the door, looking down at the groveling man I had once loved, the man I had built a home with, the man who had laughed beside my children's coffins.
"You said God took them because He knew what kind of mother I was," I said, my voice ice cold. "Now, let me show you what kind of mother I am when you take my children."
I opened the door and walked out, leaving him sobbing on the floor.
In the observation room, Agent Kane and Samantha were waiting.
"We got the mechanic's name," Kane said, plugging the recording into his laptop. "Vance’s mechanic at the docks. I’m dispatching a SWAT team to secure him right now before Vance realizes Silas gave him up."
"Wait," Samantha said, pointing to a monitor displaying incoming news feeds. "Look at this."
On the television screen, a breaking news banner flashed in bright red letters:
BREAKING NEWS: SENATOR RAYMOND VANCE HOLDS EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE
We turned up the volume.
Senator Vance stood behind a podium surrounded by microphones, looking stern and solemn.
"...It is with a heavy heart," Vance announced to the cameras, "that I address the terrible tragedy involving the Fletcher family. Recent rumors have circulated regarding financial irregularities at Fletcher & Sterling. I am here today to announce that my office has uncovered evidence that Clara Fletcher—the mother of the victims—was suffering from severe psychiatric deterioration and orchestrated a massive financial embezzlement scheme that ultimately led to this tragic event. We are cooperating with state authorities to ensure justice is served..."
My blood boiled. Vance was framing me publicly before the police could even process Silas’s statement! He was using the media to control the narrative and turn the entire public against me.
"He's preempting us," Kane swore under his breath. "If he controls the news narrative, the State Attorney General—who is a close political ally of Vance—might quash our arrest warrants."
"He thinks he controls the narrative because he owns the traditional news networks," I said, my eyes narrowing as an audacious, dangerous idea took root in my mind. "He forgot how the world works today."
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"What are you thinking, Clara?" Samantha asked nervously.
"I’m thinking Senator Vance just invited the entire state to watch his press conference," I said, pulling out my phone. "So let’s give them the second half of the show."
