Chapter 6 - The Confrontation on the Steps
Eric stood frozen on the courthouse steps, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“Clara... I... I don't understand,” he stuttered, his eyes darting frantically past me toward the street, as if searching for an escape route. “Your flight... you sent me a text on Saturday saying you were at the hotel...”
“I sent that text from Evelyn’s guest house across the street from our home, Eric,” I said calmly, stepping closer. “While you were carrying Chloe Bennett’s luggage into my bedroom.”
Eric flinched as if I had struck him with a whip. “Chloe...? How... who told you about Chloe?”
Before he could process the horror of my words, Arthur Vance walked up the steps behind me, flanked by two armed federal marshals and a process server wearing a dark suit.
Arthur handed a thick, red-stamped stack of legal documents directly to Eric’s chest.
“Eric Sterling,” Arthur announced in a loud, clear voice that carried across the courthouse entrance. “You are hereby served with a temporary restraining order, an emergency freeze on all personal and corporate assets, a petition for immediate marital dissolution based on grand fraud, and a federal summons for identity theft and wire fraud.”
Eric looked down at the heavy papers in his hands, his fingers trembling violently. “This... this is a misunderstanding! Arthur, you can't freeze my accounts! My company has payroll today!”
“Your company, Sterling Contracting, and your brother-in-law’s entity, Nebula Systems, have already had their accounts frozen by federal court order as of 9:15 this morning,” Arthur replied coldly. “Every single dollar derived from Clara’s grandmother’s estate and her private secondary trust has been locked.”
“You can't do this!” Eric shrieked, his voice rising into a panic-stricken pitch. “The house is marital property!”
“The house was acquired eight years prior to your marriage through an explicit pre-marital trust,” I reminded him smoothly. “And the $1.25 million loan guarantee you and Thomas Miller just attempted to execute at First Connecticut Private Lending twenty minutes ago? That’s a federal felony.”
Right on cue, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb at the base of the courthouse steps.
Two agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped out, walking quickly up the stairs toward us.
“Eric Sterling?” the lead agent asked, pulling out a badge.
Eric took a step back, hitting the stone pillar behind him. “Yes...?”
“You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft,” the agent stated, pulling Eric’s arms behind his back and clicking heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists.
“Clara! Tell them to stop!” Eric screamed, tears bursting from his eyes as he thrashed against the agents' grip. “Clara, please! I was doing it for us! Richard needed the money! My mother persuaded me! It wasn't my idea!”
I stepped closer to him, looking down into his terrified, weeping face.
“You stood in my hallway on Friday morning and toasted with champagne while dividing my life, Eric,” I whispered, my voice completely devoid of pity. “You told your family that by the time I got back, the house wouldn't be an issue.”
I leaned in closer. “You were right about one thing. The house isn't an issue. You are.”
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The federal agents turned Eric around and marched him down the steps toward the waiting car as a crowd of onlookers pulled out their phones to film the disgraced contractor being hauled away.
Arthur turned to me. “Phase one complete, Clara. Now let’s go pay a visit to Julian Vance and your dear mother-in-law.”
