Chapter 48 - The Voice from the Mirror
The voice carried through the speaker in the interrogation room, clear, steady, and resonant.
Evelyn stopped mid-rant. Her head snapped toward the two-way glass, her eyes bulging as she recognized my voice.
"Riley?" she gasped, scrambling forward, pressing her chained hands against the cold steel table. "Riley! Darling! Are you behind that glass? Tell these men! Tell them it was all a misunderstanding! Tell them that everything I did was for you—for your protection! You know your mother loves you!"
I looked at the woman who had tried to evict me with a moving truck, who had brought her church friends to jeer at me while my life was boxed into cardboard containers.
"I heard everything, Evelyn," I said through the intercom, my voice completely devoid of anger. There was no rage left in me. There was only the cold, vast expanse of total indifference.
Evelyn’s expression shifted instantly—a horrifying, rapid transition from frantic pleading back to sheer, vicious cruelty. The mask slipped completely off.
"You ungrateful little wretch!" she hissed, her face turning crimson, spittle flying from her lips against the glass. "You think you’ve won? You think because some federal agents put me in these cuffs that you’re safe? You are nothing! You will always be Clara’s dirty secret! You will never belong anywhere! That lake house is mine! I earned it! I suffered for thirty years looking at your pathetic face!"
"The lake house belongs to me, Evelyn," I said softly. "The deed is signed. The environmental sanctuary status has been ratified by the United States Department of the Interior. It can never be bought, sold, or transferred. It is completely untouchable."
"No!" she shrieked. "No, you can't do that! That land is worth millions! You gave it away?!"
"I didn't give it away, Evelyn. I protected it from people like you. And yesterday morning, the sheriff's department executed a search warrant on your home."
Evelyn froze, her breath catching in her throat.
"They found the safe behind the laundry room," I continued, each word landing like a hammer blow. "They found the forged quitclaim deeds. They found the stolen auxiliary checks. And they found the letters Julian Vance sent you thirty years ago—the ones detailing how much he paid you to keep me isolated, uneducated, and terrified."
Evelyn’s eyes went completely hollow. The last thread of her delusional reality snapped.
"The church knows, Evelyn," I said. "Pastor Thomas held a special sermon this morning. They didn't pray for your release. They held a service of repentance for allowing you to poison their congregation for three decades. Your name has been scrubbed from the auxiliary plaque. Your garden on the church grounds is being paved over."
"You... you destroyed me," Evelyn whispered, her voice trembling with an agony that had nothing to do with remorse, and everything to do with vanity. "You took everything."
"You destroyed yourself the day you decided that cruelty was an acceptable price for comfort," I said. "Goodbye, Evelyn. I hope you find whatever god you were pretending to serve."
I took my finger off the intercom button, turned my back on the glass, and walked out of the room.
May you like
Behind me, Evelyn’s muffled screams echoed down the concrete hallway, bouncing off the steel walls until the heavy security doors closed, locking the noise away forever.
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