Chapter 15 - The Prison ConfessionThe screen of my phone flickered with the harsh, sterile lighting of the federal penitentiary visiting room. Jason’s face filled the display, a sick, twisted smile stretching across his gaunt features.
“How did you know I was down here?” I asked, keeping my voice remarkably steady despite the creeping chill in the stone cellar.
“Uncle Art’s estate wasn't just a house, Sarah,” Jason laughed, a dry, humorless sound that echoed off the damp stone walls around me. “It was the vault. Every single dollar my father made, every shadow loan I took out to keep my tech firm afloat—it was all funded by the network down in that basement. And my mother knew every single detail.”
“So the bankruptcy, the fake high-rise lease, the stolen retirement money—it was all part of a larger scheme to inherit the estate through fraud,” I stated, my mind racing as the puzzle pieces finally locked together into a terrifying picture.
“My mother needed a clean proxy to claim the deed without triggering federal asset forfeiture,” Jason confessed, leaning closer to the camera glass. “She thought she could move into your apartment, bully you out of your career, and use your immaculate credit score as a shield to launder the Blackwood portfolio. But you... you blew the whole thing wide open.”
“And now you’re sitting in a federal cell while your mother is upstairs crying over a ruined house,” I replied coldly. “You played a high-stakes game of manipulation, Jason, and you lost on every single front.”
“I’m not finished yet,” Jason hissed, his eyes narrowing with a sudden, venomous intensity. “Look behind the third filing cabinet on the left wall. There’s a secondary wall panel.”
Hesitantly, I raised my brass candlestick and walked over to the designated cabinet. I placed my hand against the wooden panel behind it and shoved. With a heavy, grinding groan, the panel swung inward, revealing a hidden wall safe with a digital keypad glowing a faint, eerie blue.
“The combination is my birthday,” Jason whispered mockingly through the phone speaker. “The real one. Not the one I gave my mother. Try it. See what happens.”
My thumb hovered over the keypad. For a split second, caution screamed at me to walk away, to drop the phone and run back up the stone stairs. But the investigator in me—the woman who had survived six years of psychological warfare at this man’s hands—refused to back down.
I punched in Jason’s birthdate: 0-8-1-4-1-9-8-8.
Beep.
A small, green LED light flashed, and the heavy steel door of the wall safe popped open with a sharp, pneumatic hiss.
I leaned in, holding the candle high. Inside wasn't money, or gold, or documents.
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Inside sat a ticking, battery-operated digital timer wired directly to a heavy-duty flash drive, resting on top of a stack of sealed legal confessions bearing the signature of Arthur Senior—confessions that completely incriminated not just Jason, but Barbara, in federal racketeering.
And the timer on the device was flashing in bright red numbers: 00:03:45... and counting down.
