Chapter 6 - The Confession
Three days later, I sat in a small, windowless interrogation room deep inside the Santa Ana Federal Detention Center.
Across the metal table sat Jackson.
He was dressed in a dark blue inmate jumpsuit, his hands restrained by heavy handcuffs fastened to a chain around his waist. The smug, handsome man I had married two years ago was gone. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollowed out by dark circles, his hair greasy and unkempt.
Sitting beside him was his court-appointed public defender—his parents could no longer afford the five-hundred-dollar-an-hour private attorney after all their accounts were frozen.
“You have ten minutes, Mrs. Vance,” the guard said, standing by the door.
“It’s Miss Miller,” I corrected softly, setting my leather folder on the table.
Jackson looked up at me through the metal mesh partition, his voice raspy and shaking. “Chloe... please. You have to help me. You don't know what it’s like in here. It’s a nightmare. The guys in my cell... they know who my dad is. They’re threatening me.”
“Your dad is in the cell block three doors down from you, Jackson,” I said flatly. “He was indicted on six secondary counts of tax evasion this morning.”
Jackson put his bruised face in his chained hands, letting out a stifled sob. “I didn't want to throw the plate, Chloe! You have to believe me! I was just so stressed! My dad told me that if we didn't get your Minneapolis apartment as collateral by midnight, the offshore creditors were going to send people to our house!”
I listened quietly, watching his desperate attempt to shift blame onto everyone else—his father, his mother, the creditors, the wine.
“You forged my signature, Jackson,” I said, tapping the blue folder. “You forged my signature on three separate banking instruments over eight months. You stole six hundred thousand dollars from my architectural business account.”
“My dad told me to do it!” Jackson cried out, leaning forward as far as his chains would allow. “He said you were my wife! He said what’s yours is ours! He promised he would replace the money once the Macau venture paid off!”
“And the dinner plate?” I asked, my voice dropping into a razor-thin edge. “Did your father tell you to smash a heavy porcelain dish into my face while your mother ate her lamb?”
Jackson went quiet. He couldn't look me in the eye. He stared down at the metal table, his lower lip trembling.
“You thought I was weak, Jackson,” I said gently. “You thought because I was quiet, because I worked hard and didn't argue with your mother’s ridiculous demands, that I was someone you could beat into submission.”
“Chloe... I love you...” he whimpered, a pathetic, last-ditch effort to manipulate me.
I pulled a pen from my pocket and slid a single sheet of paper across the table through the slot.
“That is a full, unconditional confession of your role in the mortgage fraud scheme, along with an agreement to surrender all claims to any marital property,” I said. “Sign it, and my attorneys will inform the federal prosecutor that you cooperated, which might save you three years on your mandatory minimum sentence.”
Jackson looked at the paper, then up at my cold, unreadable face. “And if I don't sign it?”
“If you don't sign it,” I leaned forward, “my team will present the secondary set of ledgers to the grand jury tomorrow morning, which will add three counts of corporate bank fraud to your indictment. You’ll be fifty years old when you step out of federal prison.”
Jackson’s hands shook violently as he picked up the pen. The metal chains clinked against the table as he hastily scribbled his signature at the bottom of the document, dropping the pen as if it had burned his skin.
I took the signed paper, checked the signature, and placed it neatly into my leather folder.
I stood up, adjusting my jacket.
“Goodbye, Jackson.”
“Chloe, wait!” he called out, his voice cracking with desperation as I walked toward the heavy steel door. “Are you ever going to forgive me?!”
I stopped at the door, turned my head slightly, and looked back at the ruined man sitting in chains.
May you like
“I already forgot you,” I said softly.
The guard unlocked the door, and I walked out into the bright California sun, leaving Jackson Vance to face the dark world he had built for himself.
