Chapter 17 - The Golden Boy's Confession
The interrogation room at the county precinct was cold and windowless. Through the one-way mirror, Julian, Evelyn, and I watched as Detective Ruiz tossed an evidence bag onto the steel table in front of Sterling.
Inside the bag was a burner phone and a small glass vial recovered from Sterling's jacket pocket.
Sterling’s bravado had completely disintegrated. He sat slumped in the metal chair, his expensive jacket stripped away, his face pale and tear-stained. The arrogance that had ruled my childhood was gone, replaced by the pathetic whimper of a boy who had finally run out of shields.
"Let’s talk about the offshore accounts, Sterling," Ruiz said, leaning both palms on the table. "We pulled your phone records from the last forty-eight hours. You didn't just tamper with that IV. You had a flight booked for the Cayman Islands leaving at 6:00 AM out of Newark. Who gave you the paralytic?"
Sterling began to sob, his shoulders heaving. "It wasn't my idea... she made me do it!"
"Who made you do it? Your mother?"
"She knew Elaine was slipping away!" Sterling wailed, banging his cuffed fists on the table. "When Elaine refused to give me the down payment for the restaurant last week, Mother told me we were finished! She said if Elaine married Julian, the family trust would default into an independent audit. Mother was terrified of the audit! She’s been forging Arthur’s signature on royalty advances for fifteen years!"
Behind the glass, I gasped. Julian wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me upright.
"Fifteen years?" Evelyn Vance murmured beside me, her eyes flashing with cold disgust. "So that's how she lived. She wasn't just living off Elaine's paychecks; she was illegally skimming from the trust's interim operational fund through a forged power of attorney. And when Elaine prepared to walk away, the whole house of cards was about to fall."
"And the fire?" Ruiz asked Sterling inside the room. "The dress?"
Sterling wiped his nose on his sleeve, his voice shaking. "Mother thought... if she humiliated Elaine enough on her wedding day, Elaine would break. She always broke before! Every time Elaine tried to move out, Mother would stage a medical crisis, or burn her keepsakes, or tell her she was ungrateful and unlovable. It always worked!"
Sterling looked up at Ruiz with genuine terror. "But this time, Elaine didn't cry. She just looked at us. And when she walked out the door with Julian... Mother told me that Elaine had to be destroyed, or we would go to federal prison. The poison... Mother bought it three weeks ago. She kept it in the locked pantry behind the preserves."
"Then why did you use it on Bernice?" Ruiz pressed.
Sterling swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a horrifying whisper. "Because... because on the way to the station, Mother whispered to me that she was going to blame everything on me. She said she would tell the judge I forced her to forge the papers. She was going to sacrifice me to save herself. So while the cops were distracted at the transport gate... I swapped the IV lines. I had to survive!"
May you like
Through the glass, the cruelty of their relationship stood fully exposed. It was never love. Bernice had never loved Sterling; she had simply turned him into a mirror of her own greed. And when the mirror cracked, they had tried to devour each other.
***
