Chapter 13 - The Golden CageThat afternoon, I made my first public appearance since the funeral.
I visited the Cook County Women's Detention Facility, where Jessica Mercer was being held in protective custody pending her grand jury indictment.
When the heavy steel door of the visiting room opened, Jessica was led in by two corrections officers. Her emerald gown had been replaced by a baggy, coarse orange jumpsuit. Her hair was unwashed, her face pale and sunken without her usual heavy makeup, and a yellowing bruise still covered her left jawline where my fist had struck her three days ago.
She stopped dead when she saw me sitting behind the clear plexiglass partition.
"What do you want?" Jessica spat, her voice raspy as she sat down and aggressively slammed the plastic phone receiver against her ear. "Come to gloat? Come to laugh at me?"
I picked up my receiver, my voice calm and measured.
"I don't need to gloat, Jessica. Your father’s firm was liquidated two hours ago. Your family estate is under federal lien. Your sister Chloe was dropped by her modeling agency this morning."
Jessica’s breathing became ragged. Her fingers dug frantically into the plastic shell of the telephone. "You... you ruined my family!"
"Your greed ruined your family," I corrected her softly. "You thought you were brilliant when you sat on my sofa, giving me relationship advice while sleeping with my husband. You thought I was weak because I didn't fight back."
"You were weak!" Jessica yelled, her face pressing against the glass. "You were boring! Dominic hated coming home to you! He loved me! He bought me everything!"
"He bought you things using my father’s money," I replied, my expression utterly void of emotion. "And right now, Dominic is in the male wing of this facility, signing a full confession that places forty percent of the Cayman fraud squarely on your shoulders to save himself from a twenty-year sentence."
Jessica froze. The color drained from her skin until she looked like chalk. "What... what did you say?"
"Dominic gave you up, Jessica," I whispered into the phone. "The moment the federal prosecutors offered him a plea deal, he swore under oath that you orchestrated the entire offshore structure."
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Jessica let out a broken, strangled sob, her head hitting the glass partition as she realized the man she had destroyed her life for had traded her freedom for a slightly lighter sentence.
I hung up the receiver, stood up, and walked out without looking back once.
