"You're bluffing," my sister whimpered as her bat hit the floor, realizing that smashing my instrument proved malicious destruction of federal subpoenaed evidence.

The federal holding facility at Green Creek was a bleak concrete bunker set in the industrial salt marshes forty miles south of the city.

It didn't have mahogany wainscoting. It didn't have marble fireplaces. It had the smell of industrial floor wax, bleached cotton jumpsuits, and lukewarm institutional food served on plastic dividers.

Vanessa had signed her plea agreement at noon on Thursday.

In exchange for her cooperation, her sentence was capped at four years, with a recommendation for a minimum-security camp, and the government agreed not to pursue forfeiture against the trust established for her daughter Madison’s basic education—funds that were verified to have come from Arthur’s late grandparents, untouched by the foundation theft.

Arthur, meanwhile, had turned state’s evidence with a vengeance that only a thoroughly humiliated coward could muster.

From his own cell in the protective custody wing, he had provided federal prosecutors with forty-two encrypted thumb drives, including audio recordings of Patricia Vance detailing exactly how she intended to use the St. Jude Endowment as her private retirement slush fund.

On Friday afternoon, I sat behind the bulletproof glass of the visitor’s station, waiting.

The heavy steel door on the opposite side buzzed open, and Patricia was escorted in by an officer. She was wearing the standard-issue orange jumpsuit. Her hair, unwashed and graying at the roots, hung in limp strands around her sunken cheeks. Without her foundation, her skin looked like dried parchment, mapping every year of bitterness she had carried beneath her social smile.

She sat down heavily on the metal stool, picking up the black plastic receiver with fingers that were spotted with age and shaking with tremor.

I picked up my receiver on my side of the glass.

“Are you satisfied?” she rasped through the small speaker grille. “Look at me. Look at what you’ve done to your mother. The women in this cellblock... they’re animals, Claire. They stole my slippers last night. They laughed at me when I told them who I was.”

“They know who you are, Mom,” I replied, my voice steady, devoid of the anger that used to choke me whenever she spoke. “You’re an inmate awaiting transport to the Alderson Federal Women’s Facility. You’re number forty-eight-two-nine-one.”

“You can fix this,” she whispered, leaning her face close to the glass, her breath fogging the surface. “You’re an Assistant U.S. Attorney. You know the judges. You know Alvarez! Tell them I was confused! Tell them Arthur threatened me! Tell them I had a stroke or a mental decline! They’ll give me home confinement! I can go back to Elmwood Terrace!”

“Elmwood Terrace was sold three hours ago,” I said.

Patricia stopped breathing. Her eyes widened, the pale blue irises rimmed with red veins. “What? That... that is my home! Your father built that house!”

“My father held the deed in his sole name,” I told her, holding a certified copy of the county land transfer up against the thick glass. “The reversion clause triggered the moment the indictment for grand larceny was formalized by the grand jury. The property transferred to Lily’s trust. We sold it to a young family with three little girls who are going to fill those rooms with music and laughter, not gin and cruelty.”

A long, low, animal moan escaped her throat. “You sold my home? Where am I supposed to go when I get out?”

“You won't be getting out for a very long time, Mom. The guideline range for your counts is twelve to fifteen years. Even with good behavior, you’ll be eighty-four before you see a halfway house.”

“You monster,” she hissed, slamming her shackled hands against the stainless-steel counter. The correctional officer behind her immediately took a step forward, his hand resting on his baton. “You cold, unfeeling, demonic little monster! I should have left you at the hospital the day you were born! Vanessa was right about you! You were always rotten!”

“Vanessa signed her plea agreement yesterday,” I said.

Patricia went dead still. “What?”

“She gave the government seven sworn affidavits regarding your involvement in the fake art appraisals,” I continued, watching the final vestige of hope drain from her eyes like water from a cracked cistern. “She traded your testimony for a reduction in her own time. She told the prosecutors that you threatened to cut her off from the family trust if she didn't help you launder the endowment checks.”

“She... she lied!” Patricia shrieked, her voice cracking into a ragged, pathetic bark. “Vanessa loves me! I gave her everything! I gave her your tuition! I gave her your father’s savings! I bought her wedding! I bought her life!”

“And when the ship started sinking, Mom, she threw you overboard first,” I said. “Because that’s what you taught her to do. You taught her that people are things to be used, drained, and discarded. She simply applied your lessons to you.”

I set the receiver down on the cradle.

Patricia was screaming through the glass, her fists beating uselessly against the bulletproof barrier, her face contorted into a mask of rage and terror as the guard grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her backward off the stool, and dragged her toward the interior door.

I didn't watch her disappear through the doorway.