Chapter 7 - The Arrest
Evelyn didn't reach for her bag.
She sat frozen in her high-backed chair, her chest heaving, her pale gray eyes darting frantically between me, Daniel, and the two state detectives.
"Alex... please," she began, her voice cracking into a desperate, pathetic whine. "Please... seven years! I’ve served this family for seven years! I managed your estate acquisitions, I cleared your tax audits, I saved you hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate liabilities!"
"You didn't serve this family, Evelyn," I said, standing up from my chair and looking down at her with absolute disgust. "You parasitized it. You stole three hundred and forty-two thousand dollars from an estate that paid you a two-hundred-thousand-dollar annual salary. You stole from groundskeepers, housekeepers, and janitors. You let an eighteen-year-old girl walk through my house in physical agony so your son could gamble on sports."
"It was Marcus!" she suddenly screamed, her face twisting into an ugly, furious mask as she pointed a trembling finger at the table. "Marcus had debts! He was in trouble with dangerous people! I had to help him! I’m a mother, Alex! You don't understand what it's like to protect your child!"
"Don't you dare hide your filth behind motherhood," I growled, stepping around the table until I was standing directly over her. "Annie Carter is an orphan who works forty hours a week and pays for her own education while supporting her crippled grandmother. She has ten times the character your son will ever have, and ten times the dignity you just threw into the gutter."
Detective Vance stood up, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt.
"Evelyn Vance," Vance said clearly, "you are under arrest for felony embezzlement, corporate wire fraud, identity theft, and criminal forgery. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
Evelyn began to weep hysterically as the detective pulled her hands behind her back, the sharp click-clack of the steel handcuffs locking around her wrists echoing off the high mahogany walls of the dining hall.
"Alex! Please! Don't do this!" she sobbed as Detective Vance's partner escorted her toward the double doors. "We can settle this quietly! I'll pay back every cent! I have property in Myers Park! Alex!"
I turned my back on her, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows toward the front terrace.
The double doors clicked open.
Standing in the hallway outside were Samuel Wilson, Rosa, Thomas, and six other estate staff members. They stood in complete, dignified silence, watching in stony quiet as the former chief financial officer was led past them in handcuffs, her expensive wool suit rumpled, her face streaked with mascara and tears.
As the detectives walked her down the grand staircase toward the waiting state police cruisers, Samuel stepped into the dining hall, closing the doors quietly behind him.
He looked at me. "She's gone, sir."
"Has her access to all corporate servers been revoked?" I asked Daniel.
"Fully terminated three minutes ago," Daniel replied from his laptop. "Bank accounts frozen. Her office in the administrative wing has been sealed by state investigators."
I took a deep, clear breath, feeling a strange, weightless clarity settle over my mind for the first time since I had stepped off my flight from London.
"Samuel," I said, turning to face my estate manager.
"Sir?"
"Gather the entire residential staff in the ballroom at two o'clock today."
May you like
Samuel frowned slightly. "All twenty-seven, sir?"
"All twenty-seven," I said. "It's time we restructured the way this estate is run."
