Chapter 7 - The Deposition Room
The conference room on the tenth floor of the firm’s building had been designed to intimidate. The walls were covered in dark walnut paneling, the table was made of a single slab of black granite that reflected the harsh overhead spotlights, and the air conditioning was kept at a crisp, uncomfortable sixteen degrees.
Vanessa Sterling sat at the far end of the long table, wearing an oversized beige cashmere sweater that looked suspiciously like one of Ethan’s old golf pullovers, though she had managed to pin a designer brooch to the collar. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, but her skin looked pale and greasy under the fluorescent glare. Two public defenders—young, overworked associates assigned to her minor-fraud docket—sat on either side of her, looking at their phones with the bored resignation of men waiting for a bus in the rain.
The heavy oak door swung open.
Claire walked in first. She wasn't wearing her winter coat. She wore a structured charcoal-grey blazer over a black silk blouse, her dark hair pinned back in a severe, elegant twist that left her jawline sharp and unyielding. She didn't look like a grieving widow. She looked like the primary shareholder of a multi-billion-dollar holding company.
Maya Chen followed two steps behind, carrying a thick black binder that she dropped onto the granite table with a sharp, echoing crack.
Vanessa flinched at the sound. She tried to maintain her familiar, feline smirk, but her lower lip gave a slight, involuntary twitch.
“What is this?” Vanessa demanded, her voice carrying that sharp, nasal edge. “My lawyers said I was just signing a release for my personal property from the estate. I have a flight to Miami tomorrow morning, and if you think you can keep my—urethane—my luggage—”
“Sit down, Vanessa,” Maya said smoothly, pulling out a chair directly opposite her and opening the binder.
“I won't sit down until someone tells me why my accounts have been frozen!” Vanessa stood up, her palms slamming against the granite table. “I didn't forge anything! Richard did all the paperwork! I was just his wife!”
“Wife number two, legally speaking,” Maya noted without looking up from the pages. “Though given that Richard’s previous divorce in Buffalo wasn't actually finalized until three weeks after your wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, I’m afraid ‘wife’ is a rather generous description of your legal status.”
Vanessa’s mouth dropped open. She looked from Maya to her own two public defenders, who suddenly looked very interested in the grain of the walnut paneling behind Claire’s head.
“That’s... that’s a lie,” Vanessa stammered, sinking slowly back into her chair. “Richard told me his divorce was settled years ago.”
“Richard lied about everything, Vanessa. That was sort of his primary business model,” Claire said. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the cold air of the room like a scalpel.
Claire walked slowly around the granite table until she was standing right beside Vanessa’s chair. She didn't touch her; she didn't have to. She simply placed a single sheet of paper down on the table right in front of Vanessa’s trembling hands.
It was an employment record from Vale Consulting, dated eighteen months prior to Claire and Ethan’s wedding.
At the bottom, under the heading Primary System Administrator Override, was a digital signature and an IP address that belonged to a high-end apartment in downtown Toronto rented under the name Vanessa Sterling.
“You didn't just marry my father, Vanessa,” Claire said softly, leaning down slightly so her face was just inches from Vanessa’s wide, terrified eyes. “You were his IT consultant. You wrote the script that scraped Ethan’s private network for vulnerabilities three months before he died.”
Vanessa’s breath hitched. She looked down at the paper as if it were crawling with venomous insects.
“I... I didn't know what he was going to do with it,” Vanessa whispered, her defiant veneer completely shattering into dust. “He said... he said Ethan was a billionaire who wouldn't even notice if a few million got shifted into a development fund. He said we’d buy a house in Palm Beach and never look back.”
“Well,” Claire said, straightening up and smoothing the lapel of her blazer with absolute, chilling calm, “you’re definitely not going to Palm Beach.”
May you like
Maya slid a second document across the table—a single page topped with the bold, uncompromising letterhead of the federal prosecutor’s office.
“Cooperation or indictment, Vanessa,” Maya said casually, checking her gold watch. “You have sixty seconds to decide which side of the glass you want to sit on during Richard’s trial.”
