Chapter 7 - The Unraveling of Maren
While the surgical team prepped me for the operating theater, fifty miles away in the sterile, fluorescent-lit basement of the Wayne County Detention Center, Maren Bell sat across from an assistant federal prosecutor.
She wasn't wearing her cream wrap dress anymore. She was dressed in a rough, oversized orange jumpsuit that scratched her collarbones. Her makeup had been washed away, revealing the pale, sallow skin underneath, and her manicured nails were bitten down to the quick.
Across the stainless-steel table sat Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Jenkins, a woman who looked at Maren not with anger, but with total, clinical indifference.
"Here is the reality of your situation, Ms. Bell," Jenkins said, tapping a pen against a thick file. "You have been indicted on three counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of interstate transport of stolen property. That fifty thousand dollars in cash you took from Gavin Montgomery’s safe? It was marked escrow money stolen from Montgomery & Hayes clients."
Maren began to rock back and forth on her metal stool, her hands clutching her stomach. "I’m pregnant," she whimpered, tears pouring down her cheeks. "You can't send me to prison. I have a baby inside me! Gavin promised me we were going to Costa Rica! He said the accounts were legally protected under foreign corporate law!"
"Mr. Montgomery lied to you," Jenkins replied without a shred of sympathy. "Just as he lied to his wife, his business partner, and the state licensing board. And right now, Mr. Montgomery is sitting in a holding cell in Washtenaw County, singing like a canary. He’s claiming that Bell Curve Media was entirely your idea. He claims you extorted him with the pregnancy to force him to transfer those funds."
Maren’s head snapped up. Her tear-stained eyes widened in absolute, horrifying shock. "What? He... he said what?"
"He signed an affidavit an hour ago," Jenkins said, sliding a photocopy across the table. "He claims he was the victim of your manipulation. He claims you threatened to ruin his marriage and his firm unless he approved your fraudulent invoices."
The betrayal hit Maren with the physical impact of a freight train.
She stared at the photocopy. Gavin’s familiar, elegant signature sat at the bottom of the sworn statement. The man who had whispered in hotel rooms that she was his soulmate, the man who had promised to build her a glass mansion on Lake Michigan, had thrown her under the wheels of the legal bus without a second thought to save his own skin.
A harsh, hysterical laugh tore out of Maren’s throat, turning into a guttural shriek that echoed off the cinderblock walls.
"He called me his peanut!" she screamed, slamming both fists onto the steel table. "He told me he hated her! He told me he was going to drug her with sedatives during her recovery so she wouldn't contest the custody hearing!"
Prosecutor Jenkins didn't flinch. She simply clicked the record button on the digital audio recorder sitting between them.
May you like
"Start from the beginning, Ms. Bell," Jenkins said calmly. "And if you want any chance of delivering that child outside of a federal correctional facility in West Virginia, you won't leave out a single detail."
***
