Chapter 6 - Desperate Measures
The visitor’s room at the federal detention center smelled of industrial bleach and defeat.
Graham sat behind a partition of scratched plexiglass, wearing an orange jumpsuit that clashed violently with his pale, aristocratic skin. His manicured hands were cuffed to a steel loop on the table. When the guard brought me into the room, Graham looked up, his bloodshot eyes widening with a sudden, sickening spark of hope.
"Claire," he choked out, leaning against the glass as far as the chain would permit. "Claire, thank God. Thank God you came. Did Eleanor talk to the DA? Have they agreed to drop the federal charges? I swear to you, Claire, the offshore accounts... it was all a misunderstanding! Harold Finch was supposed to handle the tax structures!"
I sat down on the metal stool on the other side of the glass. I picked up the heavy black receiver and held it to my ear.
Graham snatched up his receiver, his breath fogging the clear plastic. "Claire, listen to me. I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. I was stupid. I let myself get blinded by... by Sloane’s flattery. But she’s nothing, Claire! Do you hear me? She’s nothing! She called me this morning from a motel in Queens, begging for money, and I told her to go to hell! I realized it the moment they put the cuffs on me: you're the only woman who ever truly stood by me."
I listened to him, fascinated by the boundless elasticity of his narcissism. Even here, chained to a bolted table in an orange jumpsuit, he genuinely believed he could charm his way back into my fortune.
"You're pathetic, Graham," I said calmly.
The word hit him like a physical blow. He blinked, his manufactured smile slipping. "Claire... I’m your husband. Fourteen years. We built an empire—"
"I built an empire," I corrected him. "My father funded it. Julian Thorne stabilized it. You were simply the handsome face that stood on the red carpets while the real work was done by the people you betrayed."
"I made mistakes!" he pleaded, his voice rising, drawing a warning glance from the guard by the door. "I was weak! But what about the baby, Claire? Even if you hate me, that child is my blood. You can’t let my child grow up in poverty! Help me make bail, let me set up a trust for the baby, and I’ll sign whatever you want! I’ll leave the country!"
I opened the manila folder I had carried in my lap and pressed the medical report flat against the plexiglass.
Graham frowned, squinting through the scratched plastic at the document. "What... what is this?"
"Read the bottom line, Graham," I said.
His eyes darted across the text. I watched in real-time as the comprehension dawned on him—first confusion, then a sharp, violent shock that drained the last vestige of color from his skin, leaving him looking like a corpse.
*Negative for Subject Sterling, Graham.*
*Match Identified: Vance-Cross, Damian.*
"No," Graham breathed, his hand beginning to shake so violently the receiver rattled against his ear. "No. This... this is fake. You made this."
"It's from Dr. Sterling-Cole’s office," I said, my voice ice-cold. "The clinic you paid fifty thousand dollars of stolen Vale Crown money to reserve. Sloane isn't carrying your baby, Graham. She’s carrying Damian’s. You weren't a dashing billionaire running away with a younger woman. You were an easy mark. A foolish, vain old man who handed over the keys to his company to the first girl who told him he was brilliant."
"Damian..." Graham whispered, his eyes unfocused, staring into the middle distance as fourteen months of manipulation unspooled in his mind. "Damian Vance-Cross? But... she told me she met him once at a gallery opening. She said he was a creep..."
"She was his operative, Graham," I said. "And while you were planning to humiliate me at that prenup party, they were planning to strip you of every last cent and leave you to take the federal fall for the embezzlement."
Graham dropped the receiver. It swung against the metal partition, making a hollow, rhythmic clatter. He buried his face in his cuffed hands, his shoulders heaving with silent, racking sobs. It was not the noble grief of a broken man; it was the absolute, crushing collapse of a vanity that had nothing left to feed upon.
I picked up the receiver and tapped on the glass with my grandmother’s emerald ring.
Graham looked up, tears streaming through the grime on his face, his snot running unchecked over his upper lip.
"Pick up the phone, Graham," I commanded.
With trembling fingers, he lifted the receiver back to his ear. "Claire... please... what am I going to do? I'm facing fifteen years. The feds... they're taking everything. Every suit, every watch, every car. I have nothing."
"You have exactly what you brought into this marriage fourteen years ago," I said. "Nothing."
"Please," he whimpered. "Don't leave me here."
"I am filing the final divorce decree this afternoon, Graham," I said, standing up from the metal stool. "Under the terms of our pre-existing trust agreements, your conviction for financial fraud completely nullifies any spousal maintenance or claim to shared assets. You will serve your time. And when you walk out of prison in ten or fifteen years, you will find that the world has entirely forgotten your name."
"Claire!" he screamed, lunging forward, but the steel chain snapped taut, jerking his wrists back against the table. "Claire, look at me! Claire!"
I turned my back on him.
May you like
As I walked through the heavy security doors into the corridor, his screams were cut off by the mechanical buzz of the locking gates. I walked out into the sunlight of lower Manhattan, feeling the warmth of the afternoon air settle over my shoulders like a mantle of purest gold.
***
