Chapter 7 - The Unraveling of Vanessa Cole
The Cook County Department of Corrections at 26th and California was a fortress of grim, gray concrete and razor wire.
At 10:00 AM on Wednesday morning, Vanessa Cole sat in a windowless interview room behind a scratched partition of bulletproof acrylic.
She no longer looked like the glamorous, predatory vice president who had worn red silk to the Whitmore Grand gala. She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit. Her hair hung in limp, unwashed strands around her hollow face. Her fingernails, once impeccably manicured, were bitten raw.
When the heavy steel door on the visitor’s side buzzed open, Vanessa looked up with desperate, frantic hope.
“Ethan?” she whispered.
The woman who walked into the visitor’s booth was not Ethan.
Claire Whitmore sat down on the metal stool opposite Vanessa, sliding her dark sunglasses onto the small ledge beneath the partition.
Vanessa’s expression instantly twisted from desperate hope into feral, cornered rage. She lunged toward the glass, her plastic handcuffs rattling violently against the partition.
“You!” Vanessa hissed, her voice hoarse and cracked. “Did you come here to gloat? You think you won, don't you? You think you’re so pure and noble! You’re just an empty shell who couldn't even keep her husband in her bed!”
Claire picked up the black telephone receiver mounted on the wall. She waited patiently until Vanessa, chest heaving, picked up the receiver on her side.
“Are you finished, Vanessa?” Claire asked, her tone conversational and entirely unbothered.
“Go to hell,” Vanessa spat. “Ethan’s lawyers will have me out on bail by this afternoon. And once I get out, I’m going to tell the press every single detail about how Ethan ran this company into the ground! You won't have a business left to run!”
“Ethan’s lawyers aren't coming, Vanessa,” Claire said softly.
Vanessa froze.
“Ethan was stripped of his corporate authority yesterday,” Claire continued. “His personal accounts have been frozen under a court-ordered forensic injunction. He spent last night sleeping on the couch of a third-rate airport motel near O’Hare because his country club canceled his membership. He hasn't retained counsel for you. In fact, his defense team filed a formal statement with the State’s Attorney this morning naming you as the sole mastermind of the bank fraud, the forgery, and the trust theft.”
Vanessa’s breathing hitched. “He… he wouldn't do that. He loved me.”
“Ethan loved the fact that you made him feel clever,” Claire said. “And now that you’ve made him look like an idiot in front of the entire world, he hates you more than he ever hated me.”
A single, jagged tear cut through the dirt and sweat on Vanessa’s cheek. “Julian Sterling won't let me rot in here. Julian has resources. He promised me ten million dollars once the debt conversion was complete.”
Claire leaned closer to the acrylic partition, her eyes locking onto Vanessa’s with terrifying intensity.
“Julian Sterling abandoned you seventy-two hours ago, Vanessa,” Claire said. “At nine o’clock this morning, Marcus Vance met with Julian Sterling’s general counsel in our offices.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened. “What?”
“We presented Julian with Eleanor Whitmore’s historical dossier on Sterling Capital,” Claire explained, her voice steady and implacable. “We showed him the evidence of his cross-collateralized pension fraud in Zurich. And then Marcus offered him a choice: he could face an immediate federal grand jury investigation for international racketeering, or he could sell Apex Global’s eighty-million-dollar debt note to the Whitmore Heritage Trust for forty million dollars—and provide the Department of Justice with every single encrypted email, wire transfer, and communication log proving that he hired you to infiltrate our company.”
Vanessa’s face went completely slack. The telephone receiver in her trembling hand slipped, dangling by its metal cord, hitting the steel partition with a hollow, dead clatter.
Claire did not pick up the phone again. She spoke through the small perforations in the acrylic.
“Julian chose his own survival, Vanessa. Just like Ethan did. Just like every selfish, cowardly man you ever hitched your wagon to.”
Vanessa sank back onto the metal stool, staring at Claire with eyes that were completely empty, hollowed out of every shred of arrogance, beauty, and hope.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Vanessa whispered, her voice barely audible through the glass.
“You’re going to plead guilty to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft,” Claire said. “Marcus estimates you’ll serve between six and eight years at the federal correctional facility in Pekin. And when you come out, Vanessa, you will be thirty-eight years old, completely broke, an un-bonded felon who will never be allowed within five hundred yards of a financial institution for the rest of your life.”
Claire stood up from the stool. She pulled her coat around her shoulders, picking up her sunglasses.
“Ethan gave you his mother’s pearls because you asked for them,” Claire said, looking down at the broken woman behind the glass. “Eleanor gave them to me because I earned them. That was the difference you never understood.”
May you like
Claire turned and knocked on the heavy steel door. The guard buzzed the lock open, and Claire walked out into the cold Chicago sunshine, leaving Vanessa Cole to the silence of her cell.
***
