Chapter 8 - Derek’s Collapse
While Mark remained barricaded behind expensive lawyers and endless legal motions, Derek shattered.
Three weeks into his stay at the county jail, Derek’s wife of twelve years filed for divorce, taking their two children and moving to her sister’s home in Wisconsin. The following morning, Derek was placed on suicide watch after attempting to hang himself with a bedsheet in his cell. When he was cleared by the psychiatric unit, he demanded to see Julian Vance.
Julian refused to go alone, insisting that I accompany him as the primary executor of the estate.
We met Derek in an interview room in the medical wing. He was stripped of his belt and shoes, wearing thick green paper scrubs that rustled every time he moved. His face was gray, hollowed out, with dark purple bags sagging beneath his eyes like old bruises. He looked like a man who had already served twenty years in a tomb.
When the guard shut the heavy door behind us, Derek didn't look up. He sat with his elbows on the metal table, staring down at his cuffed hands.
"Elaine," he croaked, his voice cracking on the first syllable.
"Don't speak to her directly, Derek," Julian said coldly, taking a seat and resting his hands on his briefcase. "You are here to offer a formal deposition under the cooperation agreement, or you are returning to solitary confinement. You do not address your victim."
Derek flinched as if he had been slapped. A tear traced a jagged path through the stubble on his cheek.
"I didn't want to hit you," he whispered, his eyes remaining glued to the table. "I swear to God, Elaine, I didn't want to. Mark told me you were going to sell the house yourself. He showed me fake bank statements. He told me you were skimming money from Dad’s social security checks to buy a condo in Chicago."
"And you believed him?" I said, unable to keep the venom from my voice. "You have known me for thirty-two years. You knew I quit my job at the design firm to spend four days a week changing Dad’s bedsheets and driving him to dialysis. You knew I was paying for his home-care supplies out of my own savings. And you believed Mark?"
"I was drowning," Derek wept, his shoulders shaking beneath the green paper gown. "I owed ninety thousand dollars to guys who don't go to court. They came to my kids' school, Elaine. They stood by the playground fence and took pictures of my daughter on the swings. Mark said if I helped him get Dad’s signature, he’d pay the whole debt off by Friday. He said nobody would get hurt. He said we just had to scare you into walking away."
"You locked me in the dark, Derek," I said, leaning forward until I could smell the stale, institutional soap on his skin. "You hit me until my ribs cracked, and then you shut the trunk lid and laughed while you listened to me choke. You didn't care if I lived or died as long as those bookies stayed away from your door."
Derek buried his face in his cuffed hands, his sobbing filling the small, sterile room. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll tell the judge everything. I’ll sign whatever you want. Just don't let Dad die thinking I hated him. Please. Just tell him I was stupid. Tell him I was weak."
"He knows you were weak, Derek," I said, rising from the table. "That’s what hurts him the most. A strong enemy you can fight. A weak brother is just a poison you drink until you die."
Julian clicked open his briefcase and slid a five-page document across the metal table. "This is your sworn affidavit, Derek. It details the meeting at the Northwood Diner, the purchase of the counterfeit notary seal, the transfer of funds from Mark’s corporate shell company, and the explicit plan to abandon your sister by the riverfront. Sign every page, initial every margin, and the state will recommend ten years with parole eligibility at six. Refuse, and you will stand trial beside your brother for attempted murder."
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Derek didn't hesitate. With trembling, ink-stained fingers, he gripped the plastic ballpoint pen the guard handed him and began signing his life away, his tears smearing the fresh ink across the paper.
I didn't stay to watch him finish. I walked out into the corridor, past the heavy steel doors and the buzzing security checkpoints, out into the sharp autumn air where the sky was clean, vast, and indifferent to the wreckage of our family.
