Chapter 8 - The Confrontation at Central Booking
Four days later.
I was discharged from St. David’s Medical Center in a high-tech motorized wheelchair, my left leg elevated and secured in a rigid carbon-fiber brace.
Before heading home to my house—which had already been re-keyed by a team of private security contractors hired by Rachel—I made one stop.
The Travis County Sheriff’s Central Booking Facility.
Because Ryan had been denied bail, he was being held in the high-security isolation block pending his formal indictment. Through a special arrangement made by ADA Vance and Captain Miller, I was granted a ten-minute private victim consultation in the attorney visitation room.
Rachel wheeled me up to the thick glass partition.
A heavy metal door clicked open on the opposite side of the glass.
Ryan walked in, wearing an oversized, faded orange jumpsuit. His wrists were cuffed to a heavy leather waist chain, his ankles shackled together.
He looked terrible. His hair was messy, unwashed, and sticking up in erratic tufts. Dark purple circles sat deep under his eyes, his cheeks hollow, his skin pale and sallow.
When he saw me sitting in the motorized wheelchair on the other side of the glass, he stopped dead in his tracks.
He looked at my face, then down at my carbon-fiber leg brace, then back at my eyes.
Slowly, awkwardly, he sat down on the steel stool, lifting his shackled hands to pick up the plastic intercom phone.
I reached out, picking up my phone.
"Claire..." Ryan’s voice came through the speaker, raspy, cracking, and pathetically small. "Claire... please... you have to tell them to drop the capital murder charge. It... it was a misunderstanding. Mom... Mom was the one who bought the insurance policy! I didn't even know what she was planning!"
I stared at him through the glass, my face completely devoid of emotion.
"You checked your watch, Ryan," I said, my voice steady, sharp, and cold as arctic ice.
Ryan blinked, his mouth falling open slightly. "What?"
"When I was lying on the floorboards, screaming in agony after your mother kicked my crutch, you didn't even look at my leg," I said, every word dropping like a lead weight. "You looked at your watch. You said, 'Mom, make this quick. I've got a scheduled video call in twenty minutes.'"
Ryan swallowed hard, his throat bobbing frantically. "Claire... I was panicked... I wasn't thinking clearly—"
"And then you took my arm," I continued, cutting him off without mercy. "You helped your mother drag me across the floor like a dead dog. You dumped me on the concrete. You locked the door. And you went inside to watch the afternoon news."
"Claire, please!" Ryan sobbed, slamming his cuffed hands against the counter, tears pouring down his pale cheeks. "I'm your husband! We were married for nine years! I made a terrible mistake! I was under so much financial pressure... those men in San Antonio... they were going to break my legs!"
"They should have," I replied flatly. "It would have given you a chance to see how it feels."
Ryan gasped, staring at me as if he were looking at a complete stranger.
"I didn't come here to hear you beg, Ryan," I said, leaning forward in my wheelchair, pressing my face closer to the glass. "I came here to tell you what happens next."
Ryan stayed silent, shaking uncontrollably.
"Rachel has already initiated full divorce proceedings under the fault clause of extreme cruelty and attempted murder," I stated cleanly. "By next Friday, your name will be permanently removed from the deed of our house, my business, and every bank account you ever touched. Your Audi has been seized by the Sheriff’s department. Your personal belongings have been packed into four cardboard boxes and left at your bookmaker’s office in San Antonio."
"Claire... no... please..."
"Evelyn’s condo in Corpus Christi has been placed under a constructive trust," I added. "It will be sold at public auction next month. Every single penny from that sale will go directly into my grandmother’s design foundation to fund scholarships for young female entrepreneurs."
Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head against the glass, weeping loudly.
"You thought I was weak because I loved you," I whispered through the phone. "You thought my kindness was stupidity. You forgot whose blood runs in my veins."
I set the intercom phone down on the metal hook.
May you like
I tapped the control joystick on my wheelchair, spun the motor around thirty degrees, and nodded to Rachel.
As the heavy steel door opened to lead us back to the sunshine outside, Ryan’s hysterical, pathetic wails echoed through the glass behind me, fading into nothingness as the door clicked shut.
