Chapter 8 - The Visitation Room
The Bergen County Jail in Hackensack smelled of industrial bleach, floor wax, and damp concrete. It was a world entirely divorced from the velvet-lined private clubs and four-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinners Camden had inhabited for nearly a decade.
I was escorted into a private glass-partitioned visitation room by a female corrections officer.
I sat down on the bolted metal stool, keeping my coat on.
A heavy steel door clicked open on the opposite side of the glass. Camden shuffled in, wearing an oversized bright-orange inmate jumpsuit. His wrists were handcuffed to a belly chain, his designer leather loafers replaced by cheap canvas slip-ons.
His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken, his expensive haircut disheveled. The silver at his temples no longer looked distinguished; it looked tired and aged.
He sat down heavily on the metal stool, picked up the plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands, and pressed it to his ear.
I lifted my receiver.
“Did you come to gloat?” he asked, his voice flat, hollowed out by twenty-four hours in a holding cell.
“I came to give you your settlement papers,” I replied calmly, resting a single sheet of paper against the glass partition.
Camden leaned forward, squinting through the smudged plexiglass at the legal text.
“An uncontested divorce,” he read, his voice cracking slightly. “Complete waiver of all claims to Alden Meridian, Pierce Aviation Services, the Park Avenue duplex, and the Hamptons estate. Mutual release of liabilities... except for the four-million-dollar restitution claim.”
He let out a ragged, dry laugh that sounded like paper tearing.
“You’re leaving me with nothing,” he said, looking up at me through the glass. “Literally nothing. If I sign this, I walk out of prison in five years with a criminal record and zero assets.”
“If you sign this,” I corrected him, “the District Attorney has agreed to recommend a sentence of thirty-six months at a minimum-security federal facility instead of ten years at state prison in Trenton. Walter Vance gave them everything, Camden. They have your emails. They have your text messages with the Cayman trustees. They have the fake corporate resolutions you forged with my signature.”
Camden lowered the phone for a moment, resting his forehead against the cold glass. I could see his shoulders shaking.
When he lifted his head, tears were cutting tracks through the grime on his cheeks.
“Why, Viv?” he whispered into the receiver. “Why did you have to be so cold? If you had just given me a real seat at the table... if you had just treated me like a partner instead of an employee with a wedding ring...”
“I made you the face of an eighty-million-dollar aviation enterprise, Camden,” I said, my voice unwavering. “I covered your startup debts. I introduced you to every governor, CEO, and philanthropist who ever gave you the time of day. But you didn't want a partnership. You wanted supremacy. You wanted to prove that you could take what my father built, put your name on it, and treat me like an inconvenient tenant in my own life.”
He stared at me, his jaw trembling.
“And the scarf?” he asked, his voice barely audible. “Was that really what broke you? A damn piece of silk?”
“The scarf was just a mirror, Camden,” I replied. “It showed me exactly how cheap you truly were. You gave a mistress a gift you bought for your wife because you couldn't even be bothered to spend your own money to impress her. You stole from my company, you stole from my safe, and you stole from my marriage.”
I tapped the paper against the glass.
“Your attorney is waiting outside with the original document,” I said. “You have until five o'clock to sign. If you don't, Arthur Sterling will file the civil racketeering lawsuit tomorrow morning. We will freeze every asset your family owns in Ohio, we will seize your parents’ country club bond which you used as secondary collateral, and we will pursue you until every dime is returned.”
Camden swallowed hard. He looked at his chained hands, then at the bright orange jumpsuit that had replaced his Zegna suits.
“I’ll sign,” he whispered.
“I know you will,” I said.
May you like
I hung up the receiver, stood up, and smoothed the lapels of my cream wool coat.
I didn't wait to watch the guards lead him away. I walked out through the heavy steel security doors, down the echoing corridor, and stepped out into the crisp, clean afternoon air.
