Chapter 6 - The Interrogation Room
Interrogation Room B was small, windowless, and smelled faintly of stale sweat and ozone. Grant Vale sat at the center table, his hands cuffed together and secured to a steel ring bolted directly into the concrete floor. His hair, usually styled with military precision, was disheveled, and his expensive tuxedo jacket was missing, leaving him in a crumpled white shirt stained with sweat at the collar.
When the door opened and I walked in, accompanied only by Colonel Vance, Grant snapped his head up. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a desperate, twitching anxiety.
"Where is my lawyer?" Grant demanded, his voice thin and raspy. "I’ve been in this room for six hours! I have a right to legal representation!"
"Your lawyer, Mr. Arlen, is currently sitting in Interrogation Room A," Vance said, taking a seat opposite Grant and opening a thick Manila folder. "He’s busy explaining to federal prosecutors why he helped falsify safety compliance affidavits for Vale Aeronautics last November."
Grant’s mouth opened, then closed again without making a sound. His eyes darted nervously between Vance and me.
"You can't do this," Grant muttered. "This is a setup. Emma orchestrated the whole thing. She was bitter because I wanted to renegotiate our prenuptial agreement! She planted those files on the server!"
I didn't take a seat. I stood near the wall, my arms crossed, watching him with the quiet, unblinking focus I had used on hundreds of crooked defense contractors over my military career.
"Grant," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "You are nineteen minutes away from being formally indicted under Title 18 of the United States Code. That carries a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in a maximum-security federal facility. Do you know what happens to men like you in maximum-security federal facilities?"
Grant swallowed hard, his throat clicking in the quiet room. "I... I didn't manufacture the parts. I was just head of sales and compliance. My father made the production decisions."
"Your father has already given a preliminary statement," Vance lied smoothly, leaning forward across the table. "He claims you handled all procurement contracts for the Series-7 rotor housings without his direct oversight. He told our investigators that he trusted you completely, and that if any counterfeit titanium was imported, it was done under your personal direction to inflate your quarterly bonuses."
Grant’s face turned bright red. "He said what?"
"He said you were greedy, Grant," Vance continued in a calm, analytical tone. "He said you were reckless. He said you were trying to prove you were smart enough to run the company on your own, and that when Emma discovered the discrepancy, you panicked and tried to cover it up without telling him."
"That lying son of a bitch!" Grant screamed, slamming his cuffed hands against the table with a metallic bang that echoed off the bare walls. "It was his idea! Conrad came up with the entire scheme three years ago when the price of aerospace-grade titanium spiked after the trade embargoes! He brought in the Romanian suppliers! He showed me how to bypass the spectrographic testing protocols!"
"We need proof, Grant," Vance said, his face completely devoid of emotion. "Your word against his doesn't mean much to a federal judge. Especially when your wife has provided five hundred pages of documentation showing your signature on every single material verification certificate."
Grant leaned forward, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. "The lockbox! In my study! Under the floorboards behind the bookcase! There’s a black drive in there! It has audio recordings of every board meeting Conrad held since 2024! I recorded him explaining how we were going to blend the Grade 2 titanium into the production runs to save fourteen million dollars a quarter!"
I took a step forward, looking down at the man who had hit my daughter, who had forced her to hide her broken body beneath satin gloves, who had thought his money made him untouchable.
"We already have the box, Grant," I said softly.
Grant froze. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with horror as he realized he had just handed the prosecution the final piece of evidence needed to destroy his family’s empire completely.
"You... you lied to me," Grant whispered.
"I didn't lie," Vance replied, closing his Manila folder with a sharp snap. "I just allowed you to confirm what your wife already told us six hours ago. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Vale. This interrogation is concluded."
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Vance stood up and walked toward the door. I stayed behind for a moment, standing over Grant as he sat slumped in his chair, staring at his cuffed hands.
"Emma sends her regards," I said quietly, before turning and stepping out into the hallway, leaving him alone in the cold, white light of the room.
