Chapter 6 - Behind the Mirrored Glass
At 2:00 p.m., the heavy steel door of Visiting Room B at the detention center clicked open.
Arthur Vance shuffled inside, his legs restricted by ankle chains that chimed with every step. He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit that hung loose around his once-broad shoulders. His posture was broken; the arrogance that had defined him for eleven years had evaporated, replaced by a twitching, hollow desperation.
He sat down on the metal stool, picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver on his side of the plexiglass partition, and stared through the glass.
Eleanor sat on the other side.
She looked breathtaking. She wore a tailored black wool coat with an emerald-green silk scarf knotted loosely at her throat. Her posture was erect, her expression serene, untouched by the storm of chaos that had leveled Arthur’s world over the last twelve hours. She held the telephone to her ear and looked at him not with anger, not with hatred, but with the cold curiosity one might afford an insect trapped under a glass jar.
“Eleanor,” Arthur choked, his voice cracking as tears welled in his bloodshot eyes. “Eleanor, please. You have to listen to me.”
Eleanor said nothing. She simply watched him.
“I was out of my mind,” Arthur pleaded, pressing his palms against the thick glass until his knuckles turned white. “Sienna… she seduced me, Eleanor. She manipulated me! She poisoned my head against you! She and her brother planned the whole thing! I was just a pawn in their scheme!”
Eleanor tilted her head slightly, her lips curling into a microscopic, lethal smile.
“A pawn, Arthur?” she spoke into the receiver, her voice calm and crystal clear. “Is that what you were at 2:18 this morning, when you leaned over our bed and whispered that I never saw it coming?”
Arthur flinched as if she had struck him across the mouth.
“You… you heard that?”
“I heard everything,” Eleanor replied smoothly. “I heard every lie you whispered over breakfast. I watched you steal my mother’s bracelet from my jewelry box. I watched you sign my name on the transfer documents using the hidden camera I had installed in the library three months ago.”
Arthur’s breath hitched. “You… you knew for three months?”
“Six months, Arthur. I knew the moment you bought that Back Bay penthouse for your little mistress.”
Arthur stared at her, horrified realization creeping into his eyes. “You let me do it. You let me wire the money. You knew the accounts were frozen at Logan!”
“Of course I did,” Eleanor murmured. “If I had confronted you at home six months ago, you would have hired top-tier divorce lawyers. You would have dragged me through three years of civil litigation, demanded half of my father’s estate, and walked away with twenty million dollars of my family’s blood and sweat.”
She leaned closer to the glass, her hazel eyes turning to ice.
“I didn't want a divorce, Arthur. A divorce gives you money. A divorce lets you walk out into the sunlight with a settlement and a clean record. I wanted you stripped of every penny you ever touched. I wanted the world to see you for what you truly are: an incompetent, pathetic, fraudulent little boy who thought he was a king because I let him wear my father’s crown.”
Arthur’s face twisted into an ugly, desperate sneer. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?! You think you’ve ruined me?! I have accounts in Zurich, Eleanor! An untraceable trust fund my father set up thirty years ago! I have four million dollars sitting in Credit Suisse! The moment I make bail, I’m leaving the country and you won’t see a dime of it!”
Eleanor didn't flinch. In fact, she let out a soft, melodious laugh that made Arthur’s blood run cold.
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“Oh, Arthur,” she said softly. “You really never read the fine print of anything, did you?”
***
