Chapter 6 - The Confession
By noon, the news had completely taken over the local networks.
Every television screen in the Capital City Diner—where I sat in a back booth drinking black coffee—showed the same live broadcast footage: THORNE DEVELOPMENT HEADQUARTERS RAIDED BY FBI; CEO ARTHUR THORNE AND SON IN FEDERAL CUSTODY.
Audrey sat across from me in the booth. Her left eye was covered with a neat white medical patch, her arm resting in a black sling, but her color was returning. The terror that had clouded her gaze for months was slowly being replaced by a quiet, steady relief.
"They're saying on the news that Arthur's lawyers are trying to claim he had no knowledge of what Julian was doing," Audrey said, stirring a spoonful of sugar into her chamomile tea.
"Arthur knew everything," I said, setting my coffee cup down. "Men like Arthur Thorne don't let their sons do anything without approval. Julian was just the blunt instrument Arthur used when things got messy."
The diner door opened, its bell jingling, and Marcus Vance stepped inside, shaking wet rain off his umbrella. He slid into the booth beside me, setting a thick blue folder on the table between us.
"It's done, Tom," Marcus said, looking at Audrey with a warm, sympathetic nod. "Julian broke forty-five minutes ago during his initial interrogation with the federal prosecutors."
Audrey’s fork paused in mid-air. "He confessed?"
"He didn't just confess, Audrey," Marcus said, opening the folder to reveal three pages of typed transcript bearing a red CONFIDENTIAL stamp. "Once he realized his uncle couldn't bail him out and his father was being charged separately, he sang like a canary. He blamed everything on Arthur."
I picked up the transcript and scanned the lines.
INTERROGATOR: Did you lock Audrey Miller in the room on the night of October 14th?
JULIAN THORNE: Yes. But my father told me to do it. He said she had accessed the offshore transfer logs and that if she left the house with her phone, our family would lose everything.
INTERROGATOR: Did your father instruct you to use physical force?
JULIAN THORNE: He gave me the bat from the garage. He said, 'Make sure she understands who controls this family before her father gets here.'
I closed the file with a heavy snap. "Arthur handed his own son the weapon."
"And Julian handed Arthur a thirty-year sentence in a federal penitentiary," Marcus added. "The U.S. Attorney is filing formal charges against Arthur Thorne for human trafficking, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of violence."
Audrey looked down at her hands, her shoulders trembling slightly. "It's really over..."
"Not quite," I said softly, reaching across the table to cover her hand with mine. "There’s one more thing that needs to be settled."
Marcus looked at me, his brow furrowing. "Tom... what are you talking about? The federal case is locked solid. Julian and Arthur are behind bars. What else is there?"
"Miriam Thorne," I said.
Marcus blinked. "Miriam? She wasn't named in the financial fraud or the physical assault charges. She was just standing on the porch."
"She wasn't just standing on the porch, Marcus," I said, pulling my phone from my pocket and opening a secondary file folder I had extracted from Audrey's mirrored server drive three hours ago. "Miriam Thorne isn't just Arthur’s wife. She’s the primary trustee of the Thorne Family Heritage Foundation."
I turned the phone screen toward Marcus.
"And guess where the missing two million dollars from the city children's hospital charity went last month?" I said.
May you like
Marcus’s eyes widened as he read the screen. "Direct wire transfer to an offshore account in Grand Cayman under Miriam’s maiden name..."
"She wasn't an innocent bystander, Marcus," I said, standing up from the booth, grabbing my coat from the rack. "She was the accountant who made sure the money stayed in the family."
