Chapter 8 - The Paper Fortress Falls
While Sterling Holdings was being reborn in the light of day, Arthur Pendelton’s world was collapsing into utter darkness.
Confined to an eight-by-ten solitary cell at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Arthur spent his days wearing an orange jumpsuit, waiting for visits that never came. His high-priced defense attorneys, once eager to represent the golden boy of the Pacific Northwest, resigned one by one as the federal asset forfeiture order froze every penny Arthur had ever touched.
On a rainy Thursday morning, Arthur was led in belly chains and handcuffs into an interrogation room.
Sitting across the metal table was not his lawyer. It was me.
Arthur looked hollowed out. In less than two weeks, he had lost fifteen pounds. His Caribbean tan had faded into the sickly greenish hue of institutional fluorescent bulbs. His hair was cropped short, and his hands shook continuously against the cold steel tabletop.
When he saw me, a desperate, feral glimmer appeared in his eyes.
"Claire," he rasped, lunging forward until the chain connecting his waist to the floor jerked him back. "Claire, thank God. You have to tell them. Tell them it was all a misunderstanding! Tell them Keller tricked me! Keller was the doctor, not me!"
I sat down, placing my hands calmly on my knees. I didn't speak. I simply watched him unravel.
"Claire, listen to me!" he wept, snot running down his upper lip. "I did it for us! I wanted to make fifty million dollars so we could buy an island! So we could get away from your father's shadow! Do you know what it was like living with you? Knowing that every dinner, every vacation, every car I drove was bought with *Jonathan Sterling’s* money?"
"My father gave you a home, Arthur. He gave you respect. He treated you like a son."
"He treated me like a pet!" Arthur spat, his face contorting with venomous bitterness. "He reminded me every Christmas that the shares belonged to you! That I was just the manager! I wanted to own something that was mine! I wanted Chloe to have an empire that came from *me*, not your father!"
"And so you killed her?"
Arthur flinched as if struck by a whip. He buried his face in his cuffed hands, his shoulders heaving with ragged, ugly sobs. "I didn't think she would die. Keller told me the fever was normal. He told me it was just a localized reaction! I went to Saint Lucia because... because I was terrified! I couldn't bear to watch her hurt!"
"You were drinking eighty-dollar cocktails on a private catamaran with Beatrice," I said, my voice cutting through his self-pity like ice. "You bought her a Cartier necklace three hours after Chloe’s kidneys failed."
"Beatrice meant nothing to me!" he screamed. "She was a toy! A distraction!"
"Beatrice signed a cooperation agreement yesterday morning," I informed him. "She handed over every text message, every offshore password, and the voice memo you recorded on the flight to Saint Lucia where you calculated how long it would take for the insurance adjuster to clear the policy payout."
Arthur stared at me, his jaw dropping open, the last shred of his defense evaporating into thin air.
"You're facing two life sentences without the possibility of parole, Arthur," I whispered. "The Department of Justice rejected your plea deal thirty minutes ago. You will spend the rest of your life in ADX Florence. Twenty-three hours a day in a concrete box. No windows. No sun. No one to admire your suits, no one to laugh at your jokes, and no one to love you."
"Claire... please," he whimpered, sliding down the chair until his knees hit the concrete floor, weeping onto the dirty linoleum. "Don't leave me here. I'm begging you. For Chloe's sake... forgive me."
I stood up, adjusting the lapels of my coat.
May you like
"Chloe asked for you one hundred and twelve times while she died, Arthur," I said, knocking on the heavy steel door for the guard to let me out. "And just like you did that night... I'm switching my phone off."
***
