Chapter 10 - The Last Ledger
The Dwight Correctional Center sat thirty miles southwest of Joliet, Illinois—a maximum-security state penitentiary surrounded by double twelve-foot chain-link fences topped with coiled razor wire and high guard towers.
Inside Visitor Room 4, the atmosphere was cold, sterile, and silent.
Victoria Mercer sat behind a thick panel of bulletproof Plexiglas.
Her once-luxurious dark hair had turned a dull, streak-gray, chopped short into an uneven, regulation bob. She wore an ill-fitting, orange denim jumpsuit stamped with DOC-88219 across the breast pocket. Her skin was dry, pale, and weathered; her hands were rough and calloused from daily laundry duty.
She sat motionless, her hollow eyes fixed on the wooden counter on the other side of the glass.
The heavy steel door on the visitor side unlocked with a loud, mechanical CLICK.
Marcus Vance walked slowly into the room, leaning on his silver cane. He sat down on the stool across from Victoria, setting his leather briefcase on the counter. He did not pick up the plastic phone receiver mounted on the wall; he simply looked at her through the scratched glass.
Victoria picked up her receiver, pressing it hard against her ear.
"What do you want, Vance?" her voice came through the small black speaker, dry, raspy, and full of bitterness. "Have you come to gloat? To tell me how happy the little janitor is with my husband’s money?"
Marcus Vance slowly picked up his receiver, holding it to his ear. His voice was calm, measured, and entirely lacking in anger.
"I came to deliver a final document, Victoria," Vance said softly. "As required by Illinois probate law."
Vance pulled a single sheet of paper from his briefcase and pressed it flat against the glass panel for her to read.
It was the final accounting discharge certificate issued by the Cook County Probate Court, bearing the official red wax seal of the State of Illinois.
"Every asset has been fully liquidated and transferred," Vance explained smoothly. "The Naperville estate, the Milwaukee manufacturing plant, the downtown condo units, the stock portfolio, and the jewelry seized from your vehicle."
Victoria stared at the document, her hands clenching into tight fists against the counter. "How much?" she whispered, her eyes burning with a desperate, pathetic curiosity. "How much did it all bring?"
"Eighty-two million, four hundred thousand dollars," Vance replied.
Victoria let out a ragged breath, tears of pure rage spilling over her lashes. "Eighty-two million... and not one cent for me."
"Not one cent, Victoria," Vance agreed quietly. "Under the Illinois Slayer Statute, a convicted murderer is barred from receiving any direct or indirect financial benefit from their victim’s estate. In the eyes of the law, you do not exist."
Vance set his phone receiver down onto its cradle, picked up his leather briefcase, and stood up straight, resting both hands on his silver cane.
"Jonathan knew who you were, Victoria," Vance said, his voice carrying clearly through the small perforation holes in the glass panel. "You thought you were poisoning an old man who was blind to your cruelty. But in the end, he used your own greed to write the final chapter of his life. You gave him five days to live... and he used those five days to change the world."
Vance turned on his heel and walked out of the visitor room, his cane tapping rhythmically against the concrete floor—clack... clack... clack—until the steel door closed shut behind him.
Victoria sat alone in the stark, white room.
May you like
She stared at her reflection in the scratched Plexiglas panel—a woman in an orange jumpsuit, trapped inside a concrete cage, surrounded by cold steel and absolute, eternal silence.
Outside the heavy iron gates of the penitentiary, the sun broke fully through the spring clouds, scattering the dark shadows, bathing the open roads of Illinois in bright, warm, and unending light.
